Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (10 page)

A steady rhythm of footfalls in the thick grass outside drew her gaze to the window. Kenan jogged up to the gondola, little more than a boy in a long red coat, his face sweaty and breathing labored. Taziri sighed.
I’m going to have to sit up now
. But she didn’t move yet.
Five more minutes, please.

Ghanima stepped into the open hatchway. “What’s your name?” Her fingers rested lightly on the butt of the gun.

“Did the major come back?” he asked breathlessly.

“Name first.” Ghanima’s thumb slipped down to the snap on the holster.

“Corporal Kenan Agyeman.” The young marshal stopped, still breathing heavily. “That’s my gun you’re wearing.”

“I know.” She smiled brightly as she returned his weapon. “Taziri told me to expect you.”

“Where is she?”

“Sleeping. I woke up a few hours ago and she explained what was going on. And she needed the sleep more than I did. She mentioned the major, too. He saved my life.” Ghanima glanced across the empty field. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know.” Kenan peered over her head at the prisoner as he slipped on his gun belt. “We got separated. There was a fight. Ambassador Chaou killed the police captain and took off on a horse, and the major went after her on our horse. I tried to follow them, but they were gone. I’ve been looking for him all night.”

Taziri grimaced as she lay on the bench.
Now what? Am I really supposed to take Hamuy back to Tingis and report to the Marshal General? Or should I wait for the major?

“So what do we do now?” Ghanima stepped back into the shadows of the cabin. “Do you have any idea where to look for him?”

“No.” Kenan sat down on the lip of the open hatch and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know. He told Ohana to report back to Tingis if he didn’t make it back. I never thought he wouldn’t make it back. Or that I would if he didn’t.” He squinted over his shoulder at her. “I guess we should go then, but…we can’t just go. The major is here somewhere. We have to find him. And the ambassador.”

“Then that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” Taziri groaned as she slowly sat up on the bench. “We’ll find them both.”

Ghanima nodded. “Well, that’s fine, but what about the major’s orders?”

Taziri shrugged. “He’s Section Two. We’re Section Four. Technically, he can’t give us orders anyway.”

“That’s true,” Kenan said. “Technically. Although, I bet the Board of Generals would see it differently.”

Ghanima raised an eyebrow. “Okay, but where does that leave us? We have a dangerous prisoner and only one gun, and we don’t know where to look, and apparently the police are as corrupt as the diplomats.”

“Exactly,” said Kenan. “We can’t trust anyone right now. We need to find the major, fast.”

“Wait. We?” Ghanima pointed at the man on the floor. “What about him? What about the airship? We’re not police. We’re not even armed.”

Taziri sighed. “Life is full of small challenges.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just something Isoke says.” Taziri thought for a moment.
There’s no good way to do this, is there?
“Well, one of us needs to stay on the
Halcyon
and the other can go with Kenan to look for the major. I know this ship better than you. Are you up for helping him?”

Ghanima nodded. “Absolutely. Besides, I’ve got the best eyes in the Air Corps. Who better for a search detail? Kenan, do you know this town at all?”

“I should. I was born here,” he said.

“Good. Where did you last see the major?”

Kenan pointed out across the field to the west where the streets flowed downhill to the waterfront. “They rode into town along the coast road. I saw them go into the older warehouses and I searched for hours before I decided to come back here. I was hoping he’d be back already.”

“Okay, then we’ll start looking there.”

“But that’s an entire city district, dozens of blocks with hundreds of buildings. Where do we
actually
start?”

Ghanima smiled. “The closest teahouse. They’ll have heard or seen something, I’m sure.”

Taziri watched them jog away across the airfield and disappear around a distant corner onto some dawn-kissed side street. Alone, she sat and listened to the two men snore until her belly began to grumble and she gently woke the old doctor.

He sat up and yawned. “Is it over?”

“No. I was hoping you might get us breakfast.”

“Oh.” He frowned and wiped at his eyes. “Fine.”

Evander was gone almost an hour, long enough for Taziri to begin worrying what might have happened to him when the little figure in gray appeared at the airfield gates. She took a small paper bundle from the doctor as he stepped inside. “What did you find?”

Evander sat down in his seat at the back of the cabin. “I don’t know. Some sort of tavern, I suppose. What do you call them?”

“A café. There aren’t any taverns in Marrakesh.”

“Whatever it was, it was a mile from here and my hip is aching. This was the only thing they had that I recognized. Leftovers from last night, they said.”

Taziri opened the bulging flatbread and found cold yams, rice, and peas. “Thank you for this.” She eased back into her seat, closed her eyes, and began to eat.

“So, do we feed him or is that against the rules?” The doctor pointed at the unconscious man on the floor as he began to shovel food into the gap in his beard.

Dear God, please give me five minutes of silence. Just five.
Taziri raised an eyebrow, shook her head slightly, and continued eating.

“Did you hear me? I said—oh, sorry, I forgot you people don’t talk during meals.” Evander sniffed at his breakfast, and then resumed shoveling. “Well, I hope you don’t mind listening while you eat.”

Taziri sighed and tried to focus on biting, chewing, and tasting. Each warm mouthful slipped down into her belly and quelled the angry demons that had been plaguing her since she first leapt up from the supper table the night before. She thought about each fiber and seed entering her body, all the simple mysteries of plants, water, earth, and sunlight flowing into her flesh, the divine energy sweeping through her blood. The infinite names and faces of God traveling from one form of life to another—

“…don’t understand why these things keep happening to me. That’s the curse of being a doctor, you see, you’re too valuable to everyone. Everyone needs a doctor, sooner or later, and if you’re too good then everyone wants you personally, and you end up sailing or flying all over the world to do look at boils and infections and bloody, maggoty messes…”

Taziri slowly swallowed what was in her mouth, turned a little farther away from Evander, and continued eating with her eyes closed.

“…wasn’t so bad in those days, but after the wars with the Persians, well, you can imagine, my services were needed everywhere. They wanted me for everything, every little thing! Stabbings, burnings, limbs hacked off, some clean as a butcher’s stroke, some all torn up and ragged…”

Taziri quickly finished her breakfast and wiped her hand on her pants. “That’s a wonderful story, doctor. I’m sure you’ll do a wonderful job in Orossa.”

“If we ever get there!” Evander wiped his sleeve through his beard, removing some but not all of the food from his face. “I was hoping to arrive by noon today. Clearly, that is not going to happen. Maybe I need to find a train or something.”

“Maybe.” Taziri stood and stretched, and a shadow of movement outside caught her eye. Two men were approaching the airship from the field gates. “Doctor, stay there.” She picked up her long wrench, the one she had identified just a few hours earlier as her new favorite. The strangers were plainly dressed and clean shaven, and Taziri began to relax slightly. Then she saw long knives poking out of the men’s boots.

Evander knelt on the bench and stared through the window. “Trouble?”

“Well, they’re not the ground crew.” Taziri waited until the men were closer and then called out, “Can I help you gentlemen? I’m sorry, but we’re not taking on passengers here. You’ll need to speak to someone at the office over there to arrange tickets. I’m sure something will be available later in the week.” Then she thought of the
Grebe
and the
Crake
and realized there probably wouldn’t be another airship in Port Chellah for quite some time unless they came from the Southern Air Corps in Maroqez.

“Medur!” The men paused in the grass to shout. “You in there?”

Hamuy shuddered awake with a sharp grunt. “Eh?”

“Medur! The old cow sent us. Medur!”

Taziri glared down at the man and tried to force him to keep his teeth together with a silent prayer, but a sinking weight in her stomach told her that God wasn’t going to weld her prisoner’s mouth shut.

“Eh?” Hamuy rolled onto his side, squinting and coughing. “Baako? Is that you, you ugly sack of crap?” He grinned at the floor. “I’m in here!”

The men started forward again and Taziri grabbed the hatch and slammed it shut, spinning the lock until it clanged tight.

“What are we going to do?” The doctor pushed away from the window and sat down on the opposite side of the cabin, his back shoved against the wall.

“The only thing we can do.” Taziri fell into the pilot’s seat and started flipping switches. As the electric motors whirred to life, the two men pounded on the hatch, demanding to be let in.

“But we’re tied down to those metal pins in the ground.” Evander pointed to the mooring lines outside. “We can’t possibly take off.”

“Of course we can.” Taziri grabbed one of the heavy levers under her seat and yanked it up. With a sharp click, the mooring rings on the gondola snapped open and the ropes fell to the ground. In that instant, a brisk morning breeze caught the
Halcyon,
lifting it roughly from the earth and propelling it sideways across the field, away from the men, and straight toward a row of small storage buildings lining the airfield a hundred yards away.

“Uhm…” The doctor began tapping on the window as he stared at the white-washed stone structures rushing toward them. “Up? Up. More up. Up now. Go up!”

“I’m working on it!” Taziri opened the throttles and spun the propellers down. The ship bucked as the engines tried to hurl the cabin up against the huge gas envelope, and after a moment’s struggle against the forces of inertia, the craft began to rise.

“More! Up more!” As though buoyed by the Hellan’s cries, the airship clawed upward foot by foot and suddenly the grass rushing by beneath them gave way to gravel and pavement. And then a rooftop.

A demonic scream of metal scraping on stone filled the cabin as the
Halcyon
shuddered and rocked. The floor vibrated as the scream stretched out longer and louder. The ship twisted to starboard, shaking harder as the hull ground across the slate tiles and crashed into brick chimneys and copper stovepipes. Taziri clenched her jaw, gripping the throttles tighter and tighter, shoving them against the stops with all her strength. Her left arm shuddered and for a moment her left hand lost its grip, but she forced her fingers closed and held on.
Halcyon
shrieked louder.

And then all was silence and stillness. They glided effortlessly over the rooftops, and gradually the dull drone of the propellers reasserted itself in Taziri’s ears. Behind them, the airfield had already been reduced to a small green patch amidst the gray roads and pale stone buildings.

“We’re safe.” Taziri released her death grip on the controls and cradled her left hand in her lap. She massaged the feeling back into her palm, though her little finger remained numb and her ring finger was tingling slightly. “No one can touch us now.”

“Lovely.” Evander slumped down on his seat. “Except we’re up here with this bastard and all your friends are down there somewhere.”

Taziri sighed and nodded. “One disaster at a time, please.”

Hamuy snorted, then winced and shuddered, and lay back down flat on the floor.

Chapter 10. Syfax

The major crouched in a dark corner of the warehouse. Leaning against a wooden crate, he felt a splinter pricking him in the back. Around the corner some twenty yards away, Barika Chaou was speaking in a voice too low to hear. There were at least three other people in the building, two men and a woman. Chaou was doing most of the talking. Syfax crept forward and picked out a few words.

Telegraph. Shifrah. Arafez.

The ambassador’s stolen horse whickered softly from some unseen corner. Syfax wondered absently what would happen to his own horse, which he left tied in front of a dingy excuse for a café at the edge of the district. Chaou had proven remarkably capable in the saddle, leaving the marshal clattering noisily up and down the empty pre-dawn streets of Port Chellah all alone. A quiet hour’s search on foot had proven more productive.

Syfax held his revolver lightly as he tried to gauge the nature of the conversation that he couldn’t hear.
Short sentences with no real discussion, like a commander giving orders. Maybe they’ll break up in a few minutes and leave the ambassador alone. Vulnerable
.
We can always pick up the small fry later when I’m not outnumbered.

The soft murmuring ended. Footsteps echoed faintly throughout the warehouse, though none approached the marshal’s hiding place. Syfax peeked out and saw no one. He stood cautiously, then crept forward down the narrow space between the stacks of crates and surveyed the area. Nothing. The horse whickered again and the major dashed toward the sound. He rounded a corner, stepping out into the street, and leveled his gun at the small woman about to mount the horse. “Ambassador. Long time no see.”

The older woman froze, and then slowly turned around with hands raised. “Major Zidane.”

“Sorry I’m late, had a little horse trouble on the way over. Why don’t you step back and lie down on the ground for me? Right over there, in that mud.”

Chaou stepped back from the horse. “I really wish you weren’t quite so persistent. You might force me to do something unfortunate. I don’t like hurting people, but I am capable of it, as poor Captain Aknin learned a short while ago.”