Authors: Chris Michaels,Reema Farra
Bound (10 page)
“Well,” He brushed her face with his other hand, down the side of her neck. Fingers probing. “There’s other ways to pay.”
Hannah thought about slugging him, about kicking and screaming and dashing into the street, but she couldn’t move. His pulsating emotion had her rooted to the spot.
His hand stopped at her collar. In one quick movement, Fingers tugged at the neckline of her dress, plucking three gold brooches. He stepped back, pocketing the jewelry. “That ought a take care of tonight. Tomorrow we will discuss” – He looked her up and down – “other payment.”
He gestured inside. “Welcome to the Electric Lounge.”
Fingers grumbled in her ear, “mead at the bar. Food too. When you’re ready to sleep, go upstairs. First room on the left. I’ll try to get some clothes from my sister. She’s about your size. I’ll be by in the morning to collect for another night.” She could feel him smile. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stay down
here
long.”
Fingers vanished into the chaos.
Hannah agreed. She didn’t want to stay down here at all, although some amazing contraptions begged further inspection. Man made lightning arced across metal spheres in one corner, creating a strange sort of show. A track weaved around the ceiling with whizzing clockwork carts to deliver food and drink. One wall was made of thin, stained glass with shadow puppets dancing behind it. A wireless radio emitted strange, metallic sounding music, drowned out by raucous laughter. Sights and smells; thick and overwhelming. The Electric lounge held all the wonders of modern Ilsan life, yet a shiver ran through her. She was still freezing and her clothes felt even heavier. Smells of food came from the bar. Her stomach rumbled.
I need to find Jason.
She crept around tables filled with drunken men, sensing their eyes bore into her. She also felt their emotions – their
desire
. Her stomach churned.
She stopped.
Across the room, half-hidden behind two men in a shoving contest, stood a young man in a bright blue SkyCorps uniform.
Jason!
Hannah bolted through the crowd. She shoved past the men, barreled between illicit lovers and spilled an ocean of drinks. Curses and shouts bounced off her.
Nothing else mattered except getting to Jason. She clawed across the room until she stood directly behind him.
Her heart skipped a beat as she spun him around, pressed in close for a blazing kiss, then froze.
It was Travis who stood in her arms.
Her world collapsed. Fury flared. Hannah shoved Travis hard, anger sparking in her chest. She called up the majick she’d only started to learn. She remembered the girl on the slave barge and focused on the way the Wild Majick in the cave had made her feel. She didn’t know what she was doing, but everything inside her meant to hurt Travis. She wanted him dead.
The lights in the room flickered. The lightning in the corner went haywire. The music fizzled out. Energy shot through Hannah, culminating in her hands as the smell of Wild Majick overpowered the stench of booze and sweat.
Travis drew a Treatus Rune in the air with blinding speed.
Hannah’s energy died. Travis grabbed her, gripping her arms so tight that blood vessels broke. He twisted her around, pulled her close and dragged her toward the stairs. Majick sizzled away, but the anger intensified. She screamed and kicked as hard as she could. His hand covered her mouth.
She bit his hand hard and snaked from his grasp.
“That girl is a Family spy!” Travis shouted. “Don’t let her escape!”
Panic burst through her, chilling as ice water. Men lunged and pinned her to the ground. Her head thudded on the floor. She wiggled to get free. No use.
Travis picked her up, his broken nose inches from her face. Without a word, he pulled her up the stairs to the last room on the right, kicked the door open and threw her inside.
Hannah staggered but kept to her feet. She looked around for a window.
Travis advanced. His face blank. Hands raised.
Where is Jason? He’s supposed to save me!
“Travis opened his mouth. “If you want to find Jason, sit down.”
“The power of flight – a power held only by the First Lords – is wholly beyond the reach of the Majickal arts. If man is to raise himself, he must rely on his own ingenuity. For this we hold no hope.”
– Compendium of the Treatus
Volume 18: Majickal Limits
CHAPTER TEN
NINE YEARS BEFORE JASON’S FUNERAL
“T
his is a r-r-really bad idea.”
The two stood outside the gate to the Academy airstrip, washed in early dusk, on a remote field at the edge of the campus. A familiar smell of burning coal drifted through the air. The smell made Jason bold. It made T skittish.
“What are you talking about? This is the best idea we ever had!”
T shook his head. “No, no, no. This w-wasn’t
my
idea.”
“Okay,” Jason replied. “I’ll take all the credit. Now let’s open the gate.”
T fidgeted and kept looking around as if the shadows were going to jump out at them.
“Don’t worry so much. We’ve done worse things,” Jason assured him.
“We sh-shouldn’t have! I’m only twelve years old.”
“And I’m ten. That’s never stopped us before.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to use m-m-majick any of
those
times. It’s against the law in Ilsa . . . r-really
really
against the law.”
T was right, of course. According to the Academy it was “
the fools’ arts for the stupid, lazy and weak.”
Jason heard plenty of horror stories about Ilsan nobles dabbling in majick. Once his dad even made him go watch a trial in Glass Waters where a noble daughter was sentenced to life in Talvek prison for using majick. Turned in by her own sister. Her whole family disgraced.
Even though T was an important foreigner from a nation that still allowed majick, they would never let him teach or even use Majick in Ilsa. Jason and T would be in deep trouble if someone saw them. Luckily, no one was around.
“It’s only against the law if we get caught,” Jason’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “And if we do, I’ll take the heat. They can’t really do anything to me. My
father
won’t let them.”
T stepped up to the gate lock and hesitated.
Jason put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Blood Brothers, remember. I’ve got your back.”
T didn’t look at Jason – didn’t even nod – but at those words his fingers started the Treatus dance.
Jason watched closely. He had only seen T do majick a handful of times. Years ago he filled the girls’ cabin with fog that stunk of rotten eggs, and only a few years ago they enchanted the Dean’s chair to shrink as soon as he touched it. Of course, those were just pranks.
Last year a new magician had made it to T’s kingdom. Over the summer his new tutor taught T how to use majick, not just to make sparkly lights or Animates, but real majick.
Majick they now used.
“Anyone can use majick, right?” Jason whispered, not wanting to break T’s concentration.
“Pretty much,” T mumbled. “If you know what you’re doing.”
“So you can teach me?”
“They’d k-k-kill me. And probably you too, no matter wh-who your dad is.”
Jason nodded. No need to push his luck.
T’s finger’s stopped. The dew droplets had soaked into the metal turning the iron into a sort of putty that stretched and even pulled apart. T ripped the lock off and they snuck through the gate.
“What now?” T asked, a little excitement curling his lips.
“Now,” Jason grinned. “We fly.”
Together they snuck onto the air strip. Electric lamps illuminated the main path toward the hangars, but the two and a half moons were bright allowing T and Jason to creep along in the darkness without being seen. The first hangar they reached was unlocked and unguarded – the war was far from the Academy at Glass Waters and no cadets would ever dream of stealing an aeroplane.
Not that Jason wanted to steal one, just fly it.
Inside he charred smell of coal welcomed them, along with the sight of half a dozen planes. Dragon’s Breath, Ogre’s Revenge, Dreamstealer’s Fury. Which to choose?
If you’re gonna do something wrong, do it right.
The last one in line.
Lightning’s Dagger – a PF7, dual engine, tri-winged raider.
Jason had heard of new planes powered by gasoline and electricity but he’d never seen one, they were still experimental. These top-of-the-line steam flyer were the best, and Lightning’s Dagger was the fastest bird in the sky.
T helped him taxi the aeroplane out of the hanger and onto the airstrip. Together they cranked the engine and started the propeller. Cogs and gears spun and it quickly thundered to life. The flyer was perfect, light glinted off it’s metallic body, large pipes snaked in and out of the craft carrying and letting out steam from the coal combustion. However, nothing felt right until they climbed aboard, Jason in the cockpit and T behind him in the gunnery.
The plane shook and rumbled clanking Jason’s teeth together. He could barely see over the instrument panel.
T stammered something, but the tri-plane rumble stole his words.
The beast wanted to be free. So did Jason. He released the brake lever.
Dagger shot forward. Jason rocked back. Within seconds the wheels released the earth.
Only a few feet from the ground, a grinding sound exploded from the engine block. Jason yanked back on the altitude control, but the stick shook wildly and wouldn’t obey. Smoke billowed from the engine and filled the cockpit, blinding him and burning his lungs.
This can’t be happening! We just got off the–
The pitch control danced. Gauges spun frantically. Dagger’s nose dipped. The propeller spluttered and stopped. The tri-plane pointed straight at the ground. They crashed into the earth with a deafening roar and balanced precariously on the propellers. Jason feared the plane would tip them upside down, trapping and crush them inside its metallic body. Instead it fell sideways. The wings shrieked and the metal cords holding the wings to the body pinged and snapped. The beast rolled and bounced as it fell away from its right half. Jason’s head slammed on the instrument panel. White, hot pain blazed through his skull. Blood splattered into his eyes.
Jason lost sight of the world.
When he came to, unfamiliar faces surrounded him. Smothering. He tried to sit up but an officer in a blue SkyCorps uniform pushed him back down on the hard earth. Crackling fire and thick plumes of smoke were just visible beyond the officer. Jason tried to speak, but couldn’t make any words come out.
A woman in a white Nurse’s frock, kneeling beside Jason, poked around the gash on his forehead. Without warning he rolled to his side and vomited. The pressure and swelling in his head intensified from the movement, he could barely see straight.
After a minute his vision cleared somewhat and he caught sight of T on the ground a few feet away. Three adults surrounded him, hiding his face. One laid a stretcher on the ground while the other two lifted his friend onto it.
T didn’t move.
Jason forced air through his throat but all that came out was a cracked, half-whisper, “brother.” He reached out, but didn’t have the strength. The adults whisked T away.
Sixteen hours. Not a word about his friend. Very few words at all. The Colonel Master of the airstrip “debriefed” Jason as soon as he could talk. The Colonel’s questions were short and harsh. From there, they took Jason to the Academy Dean, but the only word there was, “suspended.” Jason’s bunkmates begged him to talk about the adventure while he packed his things, but the headmaster forbade him to speak about the incident.
On the train home, many words were spoken around him, but none to him. Even at home, there were few words. His mother simply said, “Dinner at Eight,” and, “Emergency Chancellor Vote this afternoon.”
Now he sat in his room, picking at his bandage, trying to ignore the words that threatened to tear him apart.
Was T alive?
Father stepped through the door. “The foreign boy is expected to recover.”
Jason snapped to attention. “When can I see him?”
“How did you get past the gate?” Father shut the door.
“Like I told the Colonel,” Jason blinked, “we climbed.”
“You’ve been suspended three weeks. You’ll miss exams.”
“Where’s T?”
“You’ll be a year behind.”
“Did they suspend T? It wasn’t his idea. I told–”
“These are dangerous times for Ilsa.” Father stepped closer, eyes fixed on Jason. “The colonies are in riot. The Barbarian Kingdoms are watching. We must be strong. Decisive.”
Jason clenched his fists. “What did you do with T?”
“
I
must be strong to protect the Senate. Those fools are on the verge of electing Slake Diamond as emergency chancellor. I can’t do anything if I’m cleaning up your mess and apologizing for your shame.”
“I don’t care!” Jason shouted.
Father froze. Jason had never gone that far, never shouted like that, but now he let the words roar out. “I don’t care about the Senate
or
your fight with the Diamonds.”
“You’ll care when it’s your fight. When
you
finally become Master Everett.”
“I’m not like you! I’m never gonna be like you. I’m not going to be Master–”
“You shamed us, Jason. The entire family! We know you used Majick. Everyone knows you almost got the foreign boy killed. And this isn’t the first stunt you’ve pulled. You may have even cost me my bid for Emergency Chancellor.”
“I don’t
care
. What the hell did you do with–”
“This is the last time.” Father strode forward, nostrils flaring. He swallowed Jason in his shadow. “The last time I save your neck. Next time it’s Talvek–”
“You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”
Master Everett’s chest expanded.
Jason wasn’t sure if Father would strike him, he hoped he would. Then Jason could finally . . .
Father dropped a strong hand on Jason’s shoulder, heavy like an anvil.
Jason shrugged it away.
“Family title before family member. Think hard about that, Jason.” He reached for the door. “We all have our place. Still, you show recklessness. You
could
be quite the Son of Ilsa.”
“I don’t want to be a
Son of Ilsa
!” Jason shrieked. “I don’t want to be an Everett! I want to fly – just me and T!”
“You won’t be seeing the foreign boy. I had him expelled.” Father stepped through the doorway, into the hallway. “The Chancellery Voting Ceremony begins in an hour. Be presentable.” Father slammed the door.