Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (7 page)

“Where is the
ordercrafter, then?”

“He was in one of the
ships that scrambled earlier. He said he was going to board your ship, take
over your mind, and make this ship our new HQ.”

“Wow,” Raguc said with
his arms crossed. “It sounds like his ego is bigger than my ship.”

The slaver captain shrugged
and smiled uneasily. “You know, teenagers are already arrogant as it is. Give
them the Power of Absolute Control and they’re insufferable.”

“His service was
cheap.”

“Yes, it was.”

“And you skimped on
crew training.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you’re ugly.”

“Yes, I am.”

Raguc laughed. “If
nothing else, then you are an honest man.”

Attracted by the
commotion, Eric, Nayr, and Tolv descended from the entrance hatch and jumped
into the landing bay. The former’s winged feet slowed his descent and he landed
softly and without a sound. The latter simply landed on his feet and took all
the impact through his legs and spine. For this, his partner criticized him
while expressing concern for him.

“Captain, I’ll add a
fourth point; his training was incomplete.”

“You fought him?” Raguc
asked Nayr.

“I killed him. His only
abilities were negating simple spells and using subjugation collars.”

Eric held out the
keychain. “Are these the keys you need?”

Raguc accepted them and
went about unlocking the collars. Meanwhile, Kallen approached Nayr to get a
better look at him. Then she did a double take.

“Nayr? Is that you?”

Nayr’s face broke out
in a grin. “Kallen! You’ve gotten even uglier since I last saw you.”

She laughed. “You’re as
blunt as ever. Tolv, you must have offended The Trickster to be saddled with
such a partner.”

“Definitely. It’s a
pain watching over this idiot.”

“This must be why
Jessie mistook my ship for a slaver’s; The Trickster wanted us to reunite.”

Nayr laughed. “Then,
for once, I do not want to knock his teeth in. Since you’re one of the uglier
humans I’ve met, humans must consider you fetching. Is there anyone in that
ship with you?”

 “I’ve had a few
admirers. How about you?”

“He still mooning over
this ‘Ariel’ girl.”

“Shut it, Tolv.”

“My little sister?”

“She made that up. I
haven’t crushed on your sister since we were kids.”

Tolv smirked. Nayr face-palmed.
Kallen, by contrast, looked worried. It didn’t look like sisterly
protectiveness so much as genuine concern. It was clearly distressing for both
sides, so Eric changed the subject. Besides, he wanted to puzzle it out on his
own.

“Sooo…Where are you
headed now?”

“Ataidar’s embassy in
Acemo,” Nayr quickly replied. “After we get our bounty, it’s off to a scrap
yard to sell off their wrecks and repair our own. You?”

“I'm on my way home.”

Home for Kallen, Nayr,
and Tolv were their flying metal animals and so they were always home. They
didn't feel Eric's longing. For him, home was a cozy little apartment in Roalt,
the capital of Ataidar. He was still days away and not getting any closer.

Once all the elves
finished thanking Raguc for their freedom, they were escorted to the guest
quarters while their former captors were escorted to the brig. Then the good
captain talked with a cleric to confirm the bounty they were supposed to claim
and how this boosted the community’s income relative to the expenses of
repairing its craft. Finally, having noted Nayr and Tolv talking with Kallen,
he offered to give her a ride to Acemo’s southern border.

“There’s a war going on
between it and Liclis right now. It’s something about monsters or civil rights
or trade barriers or something.”

“It’s straight-up
conquest, captain,” the clerk said.

“I don’t care what the
cause is as long as we can make money off it. Anyway, you’ll be safer in my
flying fortress than your golden dinghy.”

Kallen scowled. “
Albatross
IX
is not a dinghy.”

“I call it a dinghy
because Wiol forbids me from plundering dinghies because people who fly them
are generally not worth the effort. If you insist that it’s not a dinghy, then
I’ll have to reconsider.”

Kallen tensed, then
exhaled it all. “Fine, it’s a dinghy.”

Raguc turned around
with his hands clasped behind his back. “I’m glad we could agree. By the way,
my daughter is a fan of yours. Do you mind giving her your autograph?”

“You’re a father!?”
Eric explained.

Raguc looked over his
shoulder at the young mage and he gulped.

“She’s a lucky girl.”

“Oh, sure,” Kallen said.
“What's her name?”

Tasio appeared between
them, carrying a little girl in a pink dress. She jumped out of his arms, ran
to Kallen, and glomped her. The older girl smiled and patted her head. Eric
shook his own, but couldn't resist smiling too. Then Emily rushed from her
observation platform and tackled Tasio. Pinning him to the ground, she
demanded, “Tasio, send me home right now!”

Tasio blinked. “‘Bend
the gnome night plow’? Kallen, I think your sidekick inhaled some of the
chaotic exhaust.”

Without warning, he
disappeared. Emily looked around for him but didn’t find him. A cage appeared
above her head and clattered to the ground around her. Tasio’s head emerged
from the bars in front of her. He said, “Do you consider me your jailer?”

“
Yes.
”

“Jails are full of
people who committed crimes. This is because they have done something wrong.
You have done nothing wrong and so you are not a criminal, which means you are
not in a jail.”

The bars melded
together and created transparent screens of many locations both urban and wild.
Emily recognized them from the many traveling pamphlets in her desk drawer.
From all of them came a single voice, like someone speaking over an intercom: “Thank
you for flying with Trickster Help Service, where we make dreams come true.”

It took a moment for
Emily to process what Tasio said, and when she did, she screamed.

“You kidnapped me
because I said I wanted to travel!? Well, I
don’t
anymore, so give me
heavy-duty help and send me home!”

“A kidnapping is
resolved with ransom. The way out of jail is to post bail. A lock will only
open with a key. A child safety cap needs an adult.”

“Milard, please humor
her,” Kallen said.

The travel screens
vanished and Tasio, in his floating guise, appeared next to Kallen.

“Okay, but only because
it’s you asking.”

He ruffled her hair and
floated over to Emily. He sat cross-legged in the air and placed his right hand
on his left arm. From his “skin,” he pulled down a chart of Noitearc. It was a
tree with fruit of three colors: golden-brown, granite grey, and zebra stripes.

“There are more colors,
but only these are relevant for this discussion: golden-brown is Chaos, grey is
Order, and zebra stripes is neutral. This is the territory involved in the
First War. Neutral zones are basically de-militarized. Both sides agree to stay
out of them, and if they go in, they face numerous restrictions on their
actions. One of mine is that I can only reveal myself to someone asking for
help.”

He pointed at Eric.

“That’s why I followed
Eric for a while; I didn’t want to miss such a rare opportunity. Because he
asked for help in an empty room, I was able to interpret that as a request to
me personally. Likewise, I could tell he was trying to invoke me, so I appeared.
Then while I was at it, I thought I’d help you by putting you in an airship.”

“Okay, then why
wouldn’t you send me home now?”

“Because I think you
still need help. I’ll check back later after you’ve gone a few places. Don’t
worry about losing time in your world. I’ll return you to the same moment you
left.”

“Oh…alright then…” A
smile crept across her lips. “If I won’t lose time, then I guess I can waste it
until –”

“You’re not telling us
the whole story,” Eric declared.

Tasio grinned. “Then
what is the whole story?”

“‘You are no longer in need
of help.’ You told me that before you sent me back. That’s another restriction,
isn’t it? You have to send them back when they don’t need your help anymore.”

“It’s an ugly hassle,” Tasio
said with theatric annoyance. “I have to do strange things with reality. Time
and space don’t like it, you know?”

Suddenly, he was on his
back and pinned to the floor of the deck, but this time, it was Eric who was on
top of him. The mercenary mage was torn between resentment and guilt. It was
hard to tell if he was madder at Tasio or himself.

“Why didn’t you tell
me?”

“Change is unplanned
and unpredictable. It is also often inexplicable.”

“You
couldn’t
tell me. That’s a third restriction.”

“The ways of the gods
are unknowable to man and thus the gods do not need to explain themselves to
man.”

“The fourth restriction
is that you can’t tell anyone about the previous two restrictions. You can talk
about the basics if someone asks for it, but no more. They have to figure out
the rest for themselves. Am I right? Yes or no?”

Tasio’s grin grew so
wide it left his face, grew arms, and then hugged Eric. He groaned at the
silliness, but at the same time, it reminded him of Aio’s antics.

“In other words…” Emily
said. Her arms were crossed, her stance wide, and her eyes so cold and powerful
that they froze Eric. Being kidnapped and tossed into another world where your
life was imperiled on numerous occasions was scary, but she could handle that.
Learning that your boyfriend was responsible for it was worse, but she was
dealing with it and he hadn’t meant for her to come. Then she came to the same
conclusion Eric did, and realized that her life was deliberately ruined as
collateral to loophole abuse. This was done by a god who exploited her private
dream to advance his own agenda. All of the anger, sorrow, and fear of the last
month boiled over. It resonated in her eyes as the power of Evil Eye.

“You created the portal
for me so Eric could jump through on his own. You never cared about me or my
dreams. You only cared about giving Eric a one-way ticket. You used me, lied to
me, and condemned my friends and family to a lifetime of wondering what
happened to me. Then you tried to justify it as ‘helping me realize my dream’.”

She pushed Eric away
and stepped on Tasio’s stomach. She stepped on his stomach several more times
and he grunted in time with each. “And now you’re pitying me by pretending that
this hurts. You are a self-serving, manipulative asshole.”

Tasio shrugged. “Yes I
am, but look how happy I made cute little Sara.”

The girl was still
hugging Kallen’s legs. “I wanna be just like you when I grow up!”

Tasio slipped out from
underneath Emily’s foot and arched over her head. Now floating above her, he
dropped a book into her hands. It was labeled “
Looming Shadow
by
Brian Wilkerson
.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s your copy of the
script. It has the role you’re supposed to play in this story.”

Curious, Emily opened
it. She flipped a couple pages and then rushed through all of them. Finally,
she threw the book at Tasio. It sailed through him and tumbled across the deck.
When it landed, it opened onto a blank page.

“You don’t like it?”
Tasio asked. “It’s total artistic freedom.”

“That means you have no
idea what I should do.”

“You are a bit
character in Eric’s story. Resign yourself to it and enjoy the world.”

He snapped his fingers
and disappeared.

“Nayr, Tolv.”

“Yes, captain?”

“Show our guests
around, explain things to the Otherworlder, and keep an eye on my daughter.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

Two months ago, the
United Island Autocracy of Liclis declared war on the Republic of Acemo and
sent regular fleets to its border. When international authorities denounced the
war and demanded that Liclis cease attacking a peaceful nation, the tyrant
replied that it was bringing predictability and clockwork to a chaotic system.
Naturally, the airspace between the two countries was rife with warplanes,
carriers, supply ships, and all the bells and whistles of war. It was the
perfect feeding ground for
Flying Whale
.

The outlaw ship was
part of a delicate balance of predator and prey. Merchants carried money and
resources from place to place and were preyed on by rogues, i.e. criminals. The
rogues were preyed on by national armadas. Outlaws preyed on all three. Unlike
the rogues, who lacked any kind of restraint, outlaws were ruled by three
planetary avatars and a warrior goddess. By their rule, the outlaws raided
malicious targets like slavers and deterred war by preying on armies.

 At three miles wide
and ten stories tall,
Flying Whale
was a moving town. From the raider to
the cook to the engineer to the janitor, everyone had a job to do and
everyone's job was important. It left Eric nostalgic for the Dragon's Lair. When
the tour reached the crow's nest, Emily leaned over the railing and stared at
the sun.

“Beautiful, isn't it?”
Eric asked.

“Yes it is....but so is
the one on Threa, and I know that one won't shoot heat rays at me.”

“Are you really that
unhappy here?” Eric asked.

“I miss my family, I
miss my friends.” Her voice became hard. “Unlike you, I
had
those
things.”

Eric scowled. “I have
them on Tariatla. I never wanted to hurt you, but to get back to
my
life, I was willing to do anything. I hope you understand.”

“He's not at all cute,
so make him mute. Silence.”

 Eric grabbed at his
throat and made gasping motions. Emily didn't move. Eric stood straight and
crossed his arms. Then a smirk crossed his face and he pointed a triumphant
finger at his fellow Otherworlder. Pulling out a pen and paper, he scribbled
something, then handed it to Emily. The contents of the page made her red with
fury. She stomped on Eric's foot and marched out of the crow's nest. Nayr
picked up the discarded paper and read aloud.