Steal the Sky (32 page)

B
y the time
he woke he was no longer grinning, but his jovial state wasn't the only thing to have changed. He sat on the deck of a large ship, larger even than the
Larkspur
had been, his back pressed against the wooden rail that wrapped around the ship's deck. His hands were chained above him and were already going numb. He gave them a few experimental shakes to get the blood flowing, and heard a grunt beside him.

He wasn't the only poor creature chained to this ship.

A half-dozen souls were attached to the same chain he was, each with their wrists cuffed above their heads and their feet bound before them. The man he'd disturbed had been sleeping beside him, about three steps away, and looked at him with red-shot eyes.

“Don't fuss too much, lad, or they'll come and make sure you don't,” the withered man whispered.

“Who will come?”

The old man spat brown liquid on the deck before him. “Imperials. Who else?”

Footsteps sounded down the deck, and the old man shut his eyes and let his head loll. Detan craned his neck and saw the now familiar form of that whitecoat, Callia, come round the cabin in the center of the ship with a parasol in the crook of her arm to protect her from the sun. A young girl trailed along beside her, matching the dignitary stride for stride.

The child was dressed in the same manner as Callia, in a floor-length shift the color of a clouded, pale sky, with her hair braided into elaborate whorls. She couldn't have seen more than twelve monsoons, but she kept her chin up and looked down her nose at him, lips pressed together with contempt. For all her contrivance – her walk, her clothes, the braids in her hair and kohl around her eyes – her skin was the shade of wet sand, her eyes hazel and her hair chestnut. A child of the Scorched.

“Hullo.” He beamed at her.

Callia laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. “This is Aella. She will be your leash keeper for the duration of our flight.”

“Aella, eh? What's a Valathean name doing on a Scorched girl?”

Those ruddy cheeks flushed, but her voice was schooled to tranquility. “I was born in Valathea. I am a child of the empire.”

“A what now? Sel-sensitives aren't born outside the Scorched, little lady.”

Callia sighed and rolled her eyes. “Lord Honding, you are not a naive man in the ways of the empire, so I will not bother to dissemble with you. Selium sensitives are not
conceived
outside of the Scorched, but they may be born wherever the parents choose.”

“Really. And just where are your parents, little miss?”

Callia's grip tightened on her shoulder, denting the cloth. “She is a ward of the empire, and is in my care. Now, I must see to other matters. Aella, mind the others but keep a sharp eye on this one. His ancestors were the first confirmed sensitives, and as such he believes he is entitled to certain freedoms, which he is not.”

The girl's sharp little chin bobbed. “Yes, Callia.”

Once Callia had gone, the girl sat herself across from him on a dusty crate, her small ankles crossed in the fashion of all the young nobles of the empire. She plucked a small book from her pocket, its face blank, and began to read.

With the girl's attention elsewhere, Detan took a moment to examine his surroundings with care. The ship felt still and calm, and yet he was quite certain they were moving. It was night, so there was little to see outside of the ship, but the lack of city lights and the gentle breeze on his face gave the impression of momentum, or at the very least being out of doors. Regardless, he was no longer in Aransa, or near enough to see it, and that was a worry.

“Where's this ship headed, anyway?”

Aella didn't even bother to look up. “Valathea.”

“Big place, that. Anywhere specific?”

She sighed. “The city Valathea, not the whole empire.”

“Too bad, could have gone on a tour. Taken in the sights. Have you ever toured the Century Gates? Grand things. Too bad I punched a hole in them the last time I passed through.”

The girl smiled, but did not look up. Detan scowled and shifted his weight, but soon found it impossible to get himself into anything like a comfortable position. His leg was throbbing something awful, and his calf had been wrapped up in sun-bleached linen. Rusty stains seeped through in some places, and he tried not to shift it as he struggled to find comfort. It wasn't working out too well.

“Think I could get a pillow?”

“You don't stop talking, do you?”

“Got nothing else to do, do I?”

“Most of the other convicts sleep on these trips. You should, too.”

“Sleep? Pits below, girl, these people may have their eyes shut but they've got their ears wide open. Isn't that right, grandpa?” He shook his chains, and the old man grunted.

“Please leave your fellows alone.”

“My fellows? Hah, you sound just like Callia. Stiff as a board. Come on, lass, you're too young to be tangled up in this heartache.”

“It's not my heartache. And this isn't the first transport I've monitored on, you know.”

“Oh really? You're a real old hand at the slave trade, eh?”

The girl's dark cheeks went scarlet and her gaze drifted to the tips of her shoes. “I do as I'm told. Just like you will. It's better this way.”

“And who told you that?”

Aella closed her book with care and laid both of her hands over it. Her hazel gaze was hard and steady, more worldly than any twelve year-old's had a right to be. “Is it true you can make selium catch fire?”

He blinked at her jumping topics, but at least she was talking to him. “It's a bit more than a fire, lass, but yes.”

“How?”

He shook his head. “I don't rightly know, to be honest. The angrier I am, the easier it is.”

“Show me.”

“I don't know what ship you think you're on, but I doubt they'll be letting me blow up any sel on this one.”

The girl rolled her eyes and fiddled with the clasp on her bracelet. It was Valathean made, just the same as Callia's, and once it was unclasped she teased a small pinch of sel from it, no bigger than a grain of Black Wash sand. She re-clasped the bracelet to contain what was left and floated it out toward him, bringing it to rest halfway between them both. Detan licked his lips, leaning forward in his chains.

“Go on then,” she said.

He focused on the granule, let all his anger at having been captured flow toward it. The little pinpoint went up, a glittering spark, gone in a flash. Aella leaned forward, her eyes bright and eager.

“Fascinating. You're one of the more unique deviants we've picked up lately.”

“The what now?”

She arched a brow at him. “Just what do you think we're doing on this ship, anyway? This is Callia's pet project. She scours the Scorched looking for sel-sensitives whose skill sets fall outside the usual moving and shaping. That man next to you, for example,” she tilted her chin toward the man who pretended to sleep, “is here because he can color-shift selium to blue, and only shades of blue. No other color. The woman next to him can make it vibrate so that it sings, like running your finger around the rim of a crystal glass. We're all Callia's little oddities.”

“And what can you do, then?”

She smiled. “How many sources of selium are on this ship?”

“I'm not that refined, lass.”

“Then focus on the largest.”

“Just the buoyancy sacks.”

“Try again.”

Wary, he closed his eyes and extended his senses. There were the inflated buoyancy sacks tied above, huge and out of his reach. Behind him another presence loomed, long and slender. It rose up over the whole of the ship, hemming it in like an old canvas wagon cover. His eyes snapped open, and he tipped his head back.

So far as he could see, there was nothing but black night beyond the ship's railing, spotted with a handful of pale stars. Stars that hadn't moved at all since he had first given them a good look.

“You're doing that?”

“Hah, no. That's another of the deviants, one of my fellows. I'm the one keeping you, and everyone else, from sensing it. You could have a blob of the stuff right in front of your nose, and I could make you think it's just empty air.”

“If that sky's an illusion… Where are we?”

She smiled. “I think you can work that out, Lord Honding.”

Aella went back to her book, but that was fine by him, he had enough to chew on for a while. So Callia was collecting the weirdos of the Scorched, and he was one of them.

When his talents had first been discovered, it'd been after he'd blown his whole line to bits and the workers with it. It'd been an accident, of course, he thought he was just moving sel along with the rest until someone pissed him off so badly he'd unconsciously channeled his anger into the line.

Because of that, his first few weeks in Valathea had been in a prison cell. A well-earned cell, as far as he was concerned. But, once they started the inquiries, the experiments… He shivered, rattling his chains. Aella seemed all right with her place in life, but he reckoned she'd never seen the pointy end of a scalpel. And anyway, he didn't want a single rotten thing to do with the empire anymore.

He frowned to himself. Why did she show him the trick? Why break down the barrier for him? Maybe she wasn't so safe in her role here. Maybe she wanted out, too. They were still in Aransa, he was pretty sure of that now, but he doubted they would be much longer. He was also certain they were on the personal cruiser he'd spotted, its real size obscured by the onboard talent.

Callia was more than likely just lingering to make damn sure there wasn't a chance at retaking the
Larkspur
, or Pelkaia. It would only be a day or so until she gave up hope – and then what? Try to make his escape over the wastelands?

No, that wouldn't do at all. Aella had shown him where he was, and in doing so had shown him a way out. He just needed to figure out how to use it.

“Aella, if we're still–”

“Hush, Honding. Hush.”

She flipped a page, leaving it all in his tied hands.

D
espite Tibal's assurances
, Ripka was certain the crater was empty. Tibal set them down on the internal edge of the Smokestack's collapsed cone, sheltering the ship in a sliver of shade that crept out from the high rim of the firemount's mouth. This was absolute madness. Wherever the doppel had gone, Ripka felt sure it wouldn't be to this sulfurous pit. And from the looks of things, she was right.

“We're the only ones here, Tibal.” She had to raise her voice to be heard above the wind and the hiss of venting steam and gases. Despite the wind, the whole cursed crater stank of the smoke from the fire that'd devoured the Hub and most of the lines. Any moment now, she was terrified that the firemount would rear to life and throw up massive plumes of lightning-hot ash and molten rock. She shivered. How had she lived so long in the shadow of this beast without fearing it? All of the selium-settlements were founded in the shadow of these angry rock giants. All of them were vulnerable.

“Oh, she's here, don't you worry.” Tibal clapped her on the shoulder.

Ripka hung back as Tibal and the steward strode ahead with foolish confidence. She understood Tibal's convictions, the man had convinced himself the doppel would be here, but the steward? Why was he buying into this madness? It made no sense at all. She sighed and kicked at a cluster of pebbles.

Tibal stopped halfway across the crater, his hands on his hips and his elbows akimbo. He examined the empty air before him, a curious tilt to his head. Ripka was just about to cry out that they should try something else, anything else, to get away from this nightmare place, when Tibal reached out a hand and slapped it against thin air. Thin air that gave off a pearlescent ripple.

Clenching her jaw, Ripka trudged over to stand with the others.

“Come on out now,” Tibal called to be heard above the wind. “I know you're hiding in there, little lady.”

There was a shimmer in the air just before Ripka's nose, and she leapt back a startled step. Before her, the world split. Where once there'd been little more than empty space and rough terrain, the dark-cherry stained broadside of an airship appeared. Just a segment of it, no more than an arm's length across, but the pristine hull was very familiar indeed.

The doppel stepped through that tear and it melded shut behind her. Ripka stared.

“I know you,” Ripka blurted.

“Sure you do, captain.” The doppel's voice was soft, patient.

“You're, um–” She snapped her fingers, struggling to match her list of suspicious names to the faces she'd interviewed. “Pelkaia, that's it. But I remember you being quite a bit older…”

The doppel smiled and brushed a strand of light brown hair from her eyes. Her fingertip touched her skin, and it rippled. Deliberate. “That is what I wanted you to see, yes. Now, why are you here?”

“I need your help,” Tibal said.

“I am… busy, at the moment.”

“Really? Busy hiding out in this pit-kissed place?”

“I have my reasons.” She fluttered one hand through the air, dismissive.

“I'm betting one of them's the proximity to such a large source of sel. I'm betting you can't get the ship out of the area undetected, and the only reason you haven't been spotted yet is because all of this–” he waved to take in what was left of the great selium pumps that fringed the crater, “–is cloaking the
Larkspur
's buoyancy sacks. And you're stuck until you can figure a way out.”

Her lips twisted in annoyance. “You often a betting man?”

“I bet when it's a sure thing, lass.”

The doppel crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her back foot. She pursed her lips, thinking, and Ripka became acutely aware that the woman's posture was the mirror image of her own. Unsettled, she straightened her stance and clothes.

Pelkaia must have seen her awareness, because she gave her a tight smile and let her arms hang to her side. “Forgive me, captain, but it is difficult to shake the body language of a personality I have been studying.”

“I'd rather not know the particulars.”

“As you like. Now, Tibal–”

“Wait,” Ripka said, fingers itching over the grip of Detan's borrowed blade.

The doppel turned two arched brows upon her. “Yes?”

Ripka's palms grew clammy, her muscles laced tight with anxiety. “If I'm going to work with you, I have to know. When you went to… see… Galtro, did you wear my face?”

Pelkaia gave a subtle shake of the head. “No. I met him as myself.”

She heaved a sigh free and closed her eyes. “Thank the skies for that.”

“I hesitate to elaborate, but I feel he would want you to know that he was prepared for his death. He had seen it coming, and in truth did not expect to survive the elections. He was jabbing a rockviper, and intentionally at that. His guilt was heavy, and he was relieved to be free of it.”

She swallowed an angry roar, fists clenched at her sides. “How can I trust you?”

Pelkaia shrugged. “You can't.”

“I'm sorry,” Tibal said, “but we just don't have time for this right now.”

Ripka's stomach twisted. She wanted this woman, this tall, proud woman, to tell her everything. To explain why Galtro had to die, why the warden had to die, and why she had stolen Ripka's face to facilitate it all. She could guess. She knew the creature – Pelkaia – was a grieving mother. She knew the empire had done her wrong. Still, she wanted so much more than what she already knew. She wanted it from Pelkaia's own lips. She needed to hear the hate and the sadness, needed to make it visceral. Needed to squeeze the truth of it all out of her.

But they had no time. Not now. Tibal was right about that. She was beginning to realize that Tibal was right about most things.

“Get on with it then.” Pelkaia sniffed, her expression one of pure boredom, but her fingers tapped the side of her leg and her glance kept shifting. Ripka allowed herself a bitter smile, recognizing her own ticks of anxiousness.

“Lord Honding has been taken by the whitecoat.”

A momentary widening of the eyes flitted across the doppel's face. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Have you felt any large ships move out of the city?”

“How would I know?”

“Come on, Pelkaia, we both know you've been monitoring the ships in the city to see if the imperials have left so you can make off with the
Larkspur
without them giving chase.”

“Fine, fine. I sensed a large one moving up from the south edge of the Fireline into the city a few marks back.”

“South? Near the Salt Baths?”

“Sounds about right.”

Tibal grinned, wide and pleased. “He's on that ship. He's got to be. Can you locate it now?”

“I never stopped watching it. It's in Thratia's dock, where the
Larkspur
was kept.”

Ripka frowned. “We can't go back into the city, we're all too recognizable. Pelkaia, would you consider–”

“No bones, captain. I can't get too far from the
Larkspur
or I'll lose my hold over the sel hiding it. I've already lost control of a few little misdirections I left in the city.”

“I can go.”

They all looked at the steward, the young man whose name Ripka still didn't know. He stood alongside Tibal, his uniform well pressed despite the heat, wind, and steam. His sandy hair was still parted to perfection straight down the middle.

“That could work,” Tibal said, tapping the end of his chin with one finger. “You could go in, say you're there on behalf of the doppel. Tell Thratia she's feeling guilty and wants to make a trade – Detan for the
Larkspur
.”

“I will not,” Pelkaia protested.

“Easy, Pelkaia, you know Detan and I don't want them to have access to that ship any more than you do.”

Indignation filled Ripka, raising the small hairs all over her body. She turned to glare at Tibal. “You two planned with this murderer?”

“We didn't plan for
this
.” He shot a glance at Pelkaia, one laced with grudging respect. “She just didn't give us much choice. All right, New Chum. I guess that means it's up to you. Think you can get her to come out here?”

“Certainly. It is my job to guide, after all.”

“Right then, we can take the flier back to the Salt Baths and let you take it from there. I'm afraid we can't get much closer without being spotted. Will that be close enough?”

He bowed his head. “That will be just fine. The ferry will come for me if I call it.”

T
he sun was
at its zenith when they left the steward on the little ledge where they had last seen Detan. Ripka stood behind Tibal, her arms wrapped around her waist against the breeze, her gaze fixed on the sticky, rotting stain throbbing with flies at her feet. Detan had been injured, and not lightly. They had no way of knowing how bad off he was. The pool was big enough to be worrisome, but Tibal seemed certain that they would have left the body to bloat if he were dead.

Ripka wasn't so sure. It was possible they would take the body back with them to perform whatever experiments they had in mind on what was left of his flesh. Were the secrets to his strange ability hidden in the workings of his brain? She didn't know, but she was sure that whitecoat would be very much interested in finding out.

“He'll be all right,” she found herself saying to Tibal, just to fill the void of silence.

He snorted. “It's not Detan I'm worried about, lass, though I appreciate your thought.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“This whole sand-cursed city. You've seen what he can do when he's angry, you saw that flash on the cliffside. Make no mistake, he's gotten it under control some since we first met, but there's a reason he went to the sel-less middle of the Scorched when he got away from Valathea the first time. And a real good reason why he doesn't stay long in sel cities. Why he doesn't dare go home. They got five firemounts in Hond Steading. You know what he could do with that?”

Ripka swallowed and tried to pull her arms tighter around herself. “You're saying he could blow this whole mine?”

“Lass, he could blow this whole city if he's good and riled. Come on back up now,” Tibal called as he turned back to the flier. “We've got to pay a visit to the salvage men before that pit-crusted woman comes to pay us a visit.”

Ripka stoutly avoided thinking on what in the blue skies Tibal would want with the minders of the city's garbage heap. But not as actively as she avoided thinking of the whole of Aransa torn to bits by the anger of one man.