Aethosphere Chronicles: Storm of Chains (6 page)

“Is this really the man we’re here to get?”
questioned the brute with the mangled face. Drish could hardly
stand to look at him. Whatever ruin had occurred had laid claim to
the brigand’s nose, lips, and even his eyelids, leaving him staring
out through two patches of puckered flesh shrunken around a pair of
goggles screwed directly into his head. Within the puss-yellow
fluid sloshing around behind the adornment’s glass, the brute’s
eyeballs seemed to float freely…or at least that’s how Drish
imagined it.

After a moment it was plainly clear they
weren’t here to rob him. “I…are you…with the Bureau,” dared the
noble in a stammer.

“Snitches? No we’re not snitches, so count
yourself lucky there, Mr. Larken,” offered a tall black-skinned
Candaran, whose heavily-tattooed flesh looked as tough as leather
and pulled taunt over ropes of lean muscle. Though he looked to be
the oldest man present, with black hair peppering to gray, he
seemed somehow hardier than the rest.

A marauding kill squad then?
Drish
quaked in his despair, flinching violently as the men shuffled in
around him. Would all these jangling buckles and chains; the flex
and groan of leather; the hard boots scraping over his wooden
floor; would these be his last memories of a cold, cruel world? The
accountant tried to keep tabs on those that circled around him; the
black man, the scarred brute…but he lost track in the shuffle of
bodies. A seemingly endless procession crowded into his small
study, their reek filling the room and turning his already weakened
stomach into a whirlwind. He felt drool fill his mouth, and knew he
was on the verge of throwing up again.

Then all seemed to suddenly go still and
silent, and the men stopped moving. A moment passed, and then
Drish’s attention was grabbed by the lone clopping of boots. He
turned just as a man took center-stage over him; and what an
imposing man it was. Tall of stature and broadly built, this
newcomer wore a tricorne hat, fashioned from dark and greasy
leather. Draped over his frame was a long fur coat…a coat that
looked to have been pulled directly from a dead and rotting
shaghund, while peering out from just above the rim of its
scraggily collar, hawk-yellow eyes locked on the captive noble.

This marauder nodded his apparent
satisfaction. “Good,” the voice rumbled through the floorboards,
and he turned to an oily scallywag following closely behind him.
This attendant was easily a head shorter than his master, even
though he already stood hunched under the pressing weight of some
mechanical apparatus. Strapped to his back, it looked rather like a
turtle-shell, made of metal and transistors, and bristling with
antennas. The face of the man beneath it looked pale and pained,
and despite the cold breezing in through the townhouse’s open door
downstairs, he was sweating profusely.

“How much time do we got, Lance,” asked the
outlaw. His voice muffled by the collar.

The pained underling maneuvered awkwardly
under the apparatus’s weight, to wrap an arm up around the side to
twist a series of dials. Drish heard the tell-tale squeal of a
radio crackling out from the rubberized earphones, which hung
clamped against the black curtain of this villain’s mangy hair.

“Imperials have gone radio-silent,
Cap-i-tain,” he replied, his voice flowing like oil over gravel,
“I’ll try the other frequencies, but I’d say we don’t have much
more than a couple minutes before they make their move now—best
estimate given standard imperial procedure.”

This man, known as
Cap-i-tain
, parted
open his coat to scratch at the early growth of a patchy red beard.
“Understood,” he said before focusing his attention back on the
aristocrat groveling at his boots. “Let’s make this quick then,
shall we, Mr. Larken?” he said freely. “You know why I’m here?”

But Drish found it impossible to look up or
to answer. Instead he just stared straight ahead in fear, and
that’s when he caught sight of a flash of familiar red through the
part in the man’s fur coat. It gave him pause. More accurately, the
fabric beneath the fur was the color of ox-blood; the shade
unmistakable.
The uniform of a Royal Air Navy officer.
Drish
had seen its like enough times in his life to be certain. Finally,
the fearful noble worked up the courage to look the man in the
face. There was a familiarity to be found in the features…Drish
knew this man.

“
Bar Bazzon
,” the noble muttered in
disbelief.

To which the disguised, ex-naval officer
responder with a slanted smirk, “Well, I wondered if you’d remember
me.”

It was easy to see how Drish hadn’t at
first. A lot had changed in the past three years, and the man
before him was barely recognizable. But beyond the outfit; the
shag-coat covering his uniform, the tricorne hat hiding the wild
red mane of his hair, and the unkempt beard that masked most of his
face; those hawk-yellow eyes remained the same. Unmistakable.
Though stress, it seemed, had erased the boyish vigor that once
filled them with hope and optimism, and in the flesh surrounding
them lingered stern lines and brooding shadows; marks indicative of
a man experiencing hard-times; and Drish began to suspect that the
outwards changes were a reflection of the internal struggles of a
plagued soul.

“How could I forget,” stated Drish thickly.
By comparison,
Domaire
had been an easy name to forget
versus this ghost from his past. No, Bar and Drish’s last encounter
had been too memorable to ever forget. This interloper was at least
partially to blame for Drish’s falling out with Arvis. “You’re the
bastard
who convinced my father to bankrupt our
family…trying to restore that battle-gutted strata-frigate of
yours?”

Bar Bazzon’s rueful grin soured to a frown.
“Well, I see you’re just as
agreeable
as ever,” and while
Drish climbed to his feet, the former captain clomped his way over
to the bay window.

“Just what the hell are you doing here…?”
asked the noble, “I thought you fled with the remnants of the royal
navy after the Siege of Throne?”

Bar turned from an afternoon darkened by
clouds. “Did,” he said with a curt nod, “but we’ve since joined up
with the Guild.”

The Guild… Pirates? You’re telling me you’ve
joined up with that band of lawless cutthroats? You’ve got to be
kidding me! I knew you a man of questionable heritage and honor,
Bar, but that…”

“Gods…” Bar gasped in exasperations,
“throwing out insults before you’ve even offered me a well-deserved
thanks for coming to your rescue. You definitely haven’t changed
one bit, have you?”

“Rescue?” snapped Drish, at first confused
by the word, but that old sickness growing in his stomach explained
it all just the same. “Rescue, no…there must be a misunderstanding
here. If it’s my father you’re looking for, Bar, you’ve come to the
wrong place. He isn’t here, he’s back—”

Captain Bazzon raised a fingerless glove to
stop the aristocrat midsentence, “No,
you
misunderstand.” He
finished with a dirty finger pointed at Drish.

“Yeah, Drish, we’re here for you, under your
father’s orders,” finished explaining an unseen woman, and from
between the ranks of the rogues appeared a young woman. She was
dressed just as scandalous as the rest; beneath her dusty
trail-blazer coat, the girl wore a leather corset of all things, a
yellow halter-top, and evergreen slacks striped with white. Over
her shoulder she’d roguishly tossed back an indigo scarf, and
topping the braids of her winter-blonde hair was a black top hat
that matched her knee-high boots, both in color and buckled
adornments.

“And you are?” barked the aristocrat
testily. He disliked the way the six men surrounding him were
glowering like buffoons. He was tired of all these people meddling
in his affairs, especially when it was neither appreciated nor
wanted. He had figured out his plan of action, and the means to
salvage the rest of his life, and these brigands were going to ruin
everything if the Empire showed up and found them here.

“It’s Abigail,” the girl stately plainly, as
though that were a name that meant anything to Drish at all.
“Abigail Fellkirk.”

“Abi—” he was in the process of shrugging
away this nonsense, when he stopped.
Of course.
It was the
same tawdry girl from the tavern, and he felt his heart lurch with
conflicting emotions. He remembered the way her eyes had glistened
with empathy just a few brief hours ago; and the way she dashed his
ego just as quickly when she’d uttered his father’s name. “Abigail,
yes, it’s just…I didn’t recognize you.”

“Yeah, without the hideous makeup.” She
smiled back lightly.

Drish discovered he was glad she was free of
it as well, finding her actually quite lovely in the plain; the
light chestnut hue to her naked face nearly flawless. “That, by the
way,” she added, “was your father’s bright idea of going
unnoticed
…but we can talk all about that later; after you’re
safe.” She reached out and grabbed hold of his hand.

Drish was surprised. He expected her hands
to be soft, but they were anything but. Instead they were calloused
and held an undeniable strength.

“Anyway,” Abigale looked relieved, “I’m just
glad we got to you first.”

“First... for what?”

“So we can get you out of here before the
Empire comes. Your father’s filled me in on what you’ve done—”

“Done?” Drish wasn’t exactly sure on what
she meant by that. Could Arvis already know his plan to betray the
Resistance? The man knew Drish held absolutely no sympathy for the
insurgents, but he had only just written his confession…
My
confession.
Drish felt a sudden upwelling of panic, and he
clenched the note tightly. If just one of these bandits spotted it
he was finished.

“Yes,” she gently squeezed his free hand in
appreciation. “And we owe you so much because of it. We were able
to move key players in time; and now, let’s get
you
to
safety.”

Safety
—he shook himself free. “No, I
can’t go.” Drish backed away from the cluster of hooligans, and as
he neared his desk, he dropped the note into the waste basket, but
it hit the rim and fell to the floor. Drish was horrified when
Abigail laughed.

“What…” she said, holding out her arms, “do
you have engaging plans you’re not telling us?” She scanned the
pirates surrounding them, each chuckling back in a compulsory way.
“Now if what your father told me is true, then you’re in grave
danger, and you’d be a fool not to come with us. I thought you’d
understood that by the way you flew from the tavern last night. You
looked like a dead man after we talked.”

“This is all very touching,” interrupted
Bazzon, “but I really didn’t risk flying into King’s Isle, and
sneaking into Throne for some sort of heartfelt reunion. Now pack
up your crap, Drish, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“No…I’m not going,” stated the aristocrat
defiantly. “You don’t understand.”

Lance stepped in, jostling everyone aside
with his cumbersome equipment. “Listen,” he explained breathless,
“we can’t stick around here much longer. I’m starting to pick up
some garbled radio-chatter that sounds an awfully lot like
positional orders.”

“Right,” agreed Bar. “Okay, we don’t have
time for this anymore; I promised your father I’d get you out, so
let’s get.”

“Well, you’ll have to disappoint him
then.”

“Drish,” interjected Abigail. “Come on… Why
are you being like this? I’m not leaving you.”

“No,” argued the noble, beginning to back
around his desk to put some distance between himself and these
outlaws, but he backed into the tattooed old man instead, who stood
like an immovable wall.

“Cap-i-tain,” urged the radio-bearer, and
that’s when Bar’s patience must have snapped.

“That’s it,” he hollered, and as Drish took
his attention off the Glenfinnan Candaran, he caught a brief
glimpse of Bar charging at him, and then a burst of light exploded
through his vision.

In the darkness that came, Drish suddenly
felt weightless, and the whole world turned upside-down. It seemed
he was flying, and shapes and colors were swirling around him in
dizzying circles.
“Was that necessary,”
he heard Abigail say
faintly, but she sounded a hundred kilometers away, and as if
speaking through a tin can. Everything felt strange. Drish could
see the floor, the stairs; realized he was moving.
Where am I
going? I don’t feel like I’m walking… and why does my cheekbone
hurt so much?

The fact was, he wasn’t walking at all, and
he could feel his legs dangling loosely beneath him, and the stench
of something musky hung close to his face.

“What are you doing,” Drish muttered through
the fog swimming in his head.

“He’s already coming to,” said a man, one of
the pirates—or insurgents—or whatever they claimed to be, and Drish
opened his eyes to the foyer stairs, and to him being carried down
them.

“Good, he can walk on his own if that be the
case,” grumbled Bar Bazzon. “For a wiry guy he sure is heavy.”

Drish was planted on his feet, upright on
the floor, where he wobbled on unsteady legs until someone braced
him under his armpit, and then wrapped a supporting arm around his
waist.

“You hit me,” Drish complained groggily, his
indignity growing in time with the beating of his heart. He could
feel it throbbing as he gently rubbed his swelling cheek. But his
accusation was responded to with an unapologetic smirk from the
pirate captain.

Bar Bazzon pulled an antiquated revolver
from the folds of his stinking coat. “Thought it was the easiest
way to end that conversation,” the man offered sheepish, before
taking a peek outside. “Coast seems clear enough, so let’s move out
while the getting’s good. We got a lot to do, and I still want to
make the Redoubt before nightfall; put out for Black Blood under
the cover of darkness. In a couple-days’ time, we’ll all be back in
the Notch, just like I promised, boys.”