Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (14 page)

“Such as?”

Chaou sighed. “I suppose it would be hoping too much to expect you to stop trying to interrogate me. It is your duty, of course. I respect that, more than you know. You provide a vital service for our people, protecting their lives. I can’t tell you how much I regret everything that happened last night. I had a plan, of course. A very good plan.”

“Right.” Syfax chuckled.
They always have a plan.
“So what went wrong?”

“My informants were misinformed. Something arrived in Tingis that was not supposed to be there. The plan fell apart and I did not have a contingency. I told Hamuy to make certain no one left Tingis after I departed in the airship. I never thought he would destroy whole engines or airships, or kill all of those innocent travelers.” Chaou swallowed. “The whole night was a dreadful fiasco and I take full responsibility for it. But good people died and now I must continue on or else those deaths are meaningless.”

“Continue on to do what?”

Chaou grimaced and shook her head.

So, she’s a patriotic lunatic, she’s recruiting, and she’s not a big fan of the queen. Delusions of grandeur and dreams of regicide. Always nice when they stick to the classics.
Syfax glanced out the window to see the ferry was just entering the mouth of the Zemmour Canal and bearing east to Nahiz.
Well, that’s enough of this crap. Time to go.

Chapter 13. Taziri

Kenan yelled over the droning propellers, “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Taziri waved and watched him and Ghanima climb back down the spiral stairs inside the lighthouse, thumping on wrought iron steps that rang and clanged with every footfall.

“Now where are they going?” Evander asked. “We finally find them and they just run off again. We’re never going to get to Orossa at this rate.”

“They’re just going to get the major,” Taziri said. “It won’t kill you to wait a few more minutes. When they get back, I’m sure they’ll take Hamuy and we’ll be free to go. We’ll tell them about the doctor in Arafez and let them deal with it. All right?”

“Fine.”

Two minutes later, Taziri heard the wrought iron stairs rattling again and the two young officers leapt up onto the landing. Kenan waved sharply, gesturing for them to come closer to the lighthouse. Evander pointed at the marshal and said, “What’s he want now?”

“I think they need a ride. Right now.” Taziri steered the
Halcyon
closer to the tower and then stepped back to the open hatch and kicked the rolled rope ladder over the threshold. “Climb up!” she yelled into the wind. As Ghanima began scrambling up the wriggling ladder, Taziri heard a new pounding and rattling on the spiral stairs behind the marshal. “Kenan! Climb up with her! I can carry you both away on the ladder!”

But the corporal remained on the landing, glancing back over his shoulder at the stairs. As Taziri pulled Ghanima up over the lip of the hatch, Kenan stepped out onto the ladder and yelled, “Go!”

A man’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. He squinted into the sunlight and shouted, “Hey, they’re taking off!”

“Taziri! Go-go-go!” Kenan kicked away from the railing and the rope ladder swung out from the lighthouse as two men dashed out onto the landing. One pulled a short knife from his sleeve while the other drew a gun. “Taziri! Go!”

She dashed to the cockpit to find that Ghanima was already in the pilot’s seat and wrestling with the controls. The young aviator threw a frown over her shoulder. “What is this? It’s all different from the
Crake
.”

“Move!” Taziri slid into the seat and shoved the throttle forward as the propellers flipped over to thrust down and away from the lighthouse tower. She peered down through the window by her feet to get a glimpse of the corporal, but the ladder swung out of view. “Ghanima, take over. Just hold the flight stick steady and get us into open air. Don’t touch anything else.”

The young pilot took back the seat with an anxious nod. Taziri ran back to the open hatch, noting that the doctor was sitting in the far corner with both hands clutching the handrail by his shoulder. The Hellan’s boot rested on the still-soaking shoulder of the unconscious man on the floor.

Looking down the ladder, Taziri saw they were still perilously close to the tower as the
Halcyon
’s engine battled with a light breeze coming in off the sea. The brute with the gun leaned far over the railing trying to grab Kenan’s legs while his friend slashed at the empty air, trying to skewer the dangling marshal.

“Hold on,” said Ghanima. “I’m going to try something.” Halcyon juddered and shook, throwing Taziri to her knees and she grabbed a rail to stop herself from falling out the open hatch. The deck tilted suddenly as the airship began nosing up and Taziri saw the harbor master’s office falling away faster and faster. The rope ladder swung wide and Kenan swung with it toward the great glass eye of the lighthouse lantern. He kicked one of the men on the landing as he crashed into the stone wall beside the lantern and the second man leapt up to grab Kenan’s feet. The marshal yelped and fell several feet before he wrapped both arms around the bottom rung. As the airship rose, the two men rose with it. Kenan shrieked as he was dragged up across the jagged roof tiles and the man hanging on his leg lost his grip and fell back to the landing. Taziri winced as she watched the marshal’s shoulder crash into the flag pole at the top of the roof, and then they were free in the open air.

“Oh no, his arm. He can’t climb!” Taziri fumbled for the winch rope, yanking it free and hurling it down beside the ladder. For a moment, Kenan looked up and she saw how little was left in him. His eyes couldn’t quite focus and his mouth hung open, gasping for breath. As he reached for the winch cable, Taziri almost thought he would fall, but Kenan jammed the cable hook into his belt. She hit the winch switch and the marshal flew up into the hatch. He rolled into the cabin and Taziri slammed the hatch shut with the ladder still dangling outside. “Doctor!”

Evander grunted and knelt at Kenan’s side with his black bag. Taziri got out of his way, hesitated, then went up to the cockpit. “Ghanima, let me take over. Help the doctor. And get the ladder up.”

“Right.” The pilot moved aside and gestured at the switchboard. “You’re going to have to tell me what all this does sometime.”

Taziri took the controls and glanced up at the mirror where she saw the doctor and Ghanima bent over Kenan. Ghanima held Kenan steady and Evander pulled on the soldier’s arm. Kenan gasped and groaned as his shoulder shifted and popped back where it belonged, and then he fell quiet as the doctor fabricated a sling out of bandages.

With restless feet on the pedals and anxious fingers drumming on the throttles, Taziri waited for the marshal to sit up. Through the windows, she saw the harbor waters glittering blue and white around the gray and brown shapes of boats. “Are you all right back there?”

Kenan grunted and nodded.

“Well, we’re going to need a plan, and fast. The major is still down there somewhere, and those two heavies may be looking for him right now. What do we do?”

Kenan-in-the-mirror shook his sweaty head. “I don’t know.”

“Kenan, we have no time.” Taziri looked back over her shoulder. “The major is in danger every minute that we’re up here and he’s outnumbered down there. You said you just left him, so where is he? Where did he go?”

Ghanima slipped into the cockpit and sat down beside her. “We left him near the ferry. He said he was going to check the ships.”

“The ferry.” Taziri unbalanced the throttles and the
Halcyon
spun a long and lazy half-circle. The view of the harbor below rotated to reveal the lighthouse, the pier, and the empty slip beside it. “Where is it?”

“There!” Ghanima pointed across the water to the far side of the harbor, where the white bulk of the ferry was slowly churning its way into the mouth of the Bou Regreg River heading toward the Zemmour Canal.

“Well, that’s just perfect,” Taziri said. “So either he’s still wandering the docks, or he’s sailing inland, or he’s somewhere else entirely.”

“I think we should go back to Tingis and tell the marshals. Let them figure it out.” Ghanima raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “We’re just pilots. They should have a whole team of marshals and police officers tracking down the ambassador and the major. We should get out of this mess.”

“There’s nothing I’d like more,” Taziri muttered.
Menna. Yuba. Isoke. My arm. So many reasons.
“Which is why this is so hard to do.” She turned the propellers up and eased the throttles forward, driving the ship down. 

“What are you doing?” Ghanima rose from her seat, eyes darting from window to window. “We can’t land there!”

“Of course we can. We shouldn’t. We really, really shouldn’t. But we can.” Taziri watched the shapes below resolve from toys into ships and the ants evolve into women and men. Directly below them, a slender brown finger sharpened into the broad wooden pier where dozens of people, many brandishing fishing poles, were pointing upward or jogging back toward the street. In the center of the pier a ring of bizarre figures became a carousel of tiny wooden sailboats and airships rotating around a central engine, all dressed in waving flags and painted in garish blues, yellows, and reds.

The propellers flipped back down and the
Halcyon
roared, cavitating violently as the engines chewed through their own downwash, and then the tires thumped down on the pier, which creaked and groaned beneath them.

Taziri winced at the noise. “Now we just need to hold still for a bit without breaking the pier and falling into the water. How about it? Think you’re up for a little parking management?”

Ghanima nodded and quickly took the pilot’s seat as Taziri slipped back into the cabin and spun the hatch wheel to unlock it. “Kenan, I think I might need that gun of yours again. May I?”

The marshal paused, his eyes fixed on the hatch, his hand resting on his holster. With a sigh, he came to life again and pulled out the revolver. “Keep it out of sight, if you can.”

“That’s the plan.” Taziri shoved the gun into her jacket’s inner pocket and ducked out the hatch onto the pier. There was no one nearby, only a few fish in a bucket beside an abandoned net and pole. She jogged up the pier toward the shore, toward the small crowd of gawkers gathered at the edge of the street near the harbor master’s office. As Taziri neared them she scanned their faces, young and old, light and dark, hair and hats and…there they were. Two men shouldering their way through the crowd. The two heavies from the lighthouse, the same pair from the airfield a few hours earlier.

For a brief moment, their eyes met. Then the two men pushed out of the crowd and strode down the pier.

Taziri stopped just beside the carousel, her hand going to the metallic lump inside her jacket. Her mind raced for options as her gaze came to rest on the little wooden airship on the carousel beside her and she frowned. The toy’s design was all wrong, distorted to create a space for a child to sit in the middle of the balloon.

The heavies reached the far side of the empty amusement ride, their weapons held low. They were muttering to each other.

Taziri closed her hand around the gun in her pocket. “Are you working for Ambassador Chaou?”

The men snorted and exchanged another look. “A little slow, aren’t you?” The taller one shouted over the low huffing of the carousel engine.

“So it is her.” Taziri called back, “Where is Major Zidane?”

“Is that what you came back for?” The shorter one with the gun shook his head. “God, Medur must really hate you by now. Coming back for a Redcoat. How stupid are you? You got away, and then you came straight back here for him?” He grinned. “Girl, you are just begging for a bullet.”

“Where is he?” Taziri thumbed the revolver’s hammer.

The two men sauntered around the carousel. The tall one with the knife called out, “I think he’s a few miles back that way.” He pointed at the canal. “Don’t worry. Chaou will keep him company. In fact, she sent us to keep you company, too.”

That little old woman is holding the major? That’s ridiculous, unless…
“Is Zidane still alive?”

“Chaou’s got him.” The tall one shrugged. “That little bitch is pretty tough, what with that thing in her arm. I bet she’s zapped the marshal a dozen times by now.”

“Zapped? You mean electrocuted?” Taziri’s mind raced as the fragments of conversation slowly fell into place together.

Wait, what did Hamuy say about Chaou? The doctor did something to her, and it’s in her arm. And it’s something that can electrocute a man as large as the major? A powerful electrical device housed inside a human body. The voltage needed to injure a person would require far more energy than could be stored in any conventional battery.
She felt her stomach plummeting into oblivion and her numb fingers suddenly felt cold. She could only come up with one explanation.

“Yeah, she did it to me once.” The tall one winced. “Or twice.”

“Stop right there.” Taziri drew the revolver and leveled it at the two men. “Just get out of here. Walk away now or I start shooting.”

The knife man said, “Take it easy, flygirl. I think we both know you’re not going to shoot anyone. In fact, I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve ever held a gun, isn’t it?”

“Actually, it’s the second.” Taziri swung the weapon to the center of the carousel and started firing. Bullets pinged and thumped against the engine, and one of them burst the oil pan into a small fireball, and another shot ruptured the boiler. The metal barrel tore apart and a roaring gust of steam rushed out directly into the rising curtain of flaming oil. The burning wave swept across the carousel, igniting the rotating dais and all of the tiny wooden ships on its rim.

The men’s eyes went wide as the crimson flare painted their faces in red and yellow. They dove over the railing to plummet into the harbor below as the flaming thunderhead rolled across the pier and set fire to the rail. Taziri threw up an arm to shield her face from the heat as she stumbled back down the pier. She paused to watch the little wooden airships crackle and snap, bathed in flames and spitting cinders. Then she put the gun away and jogged back to the
Halcyon
.