Voidhawk - Lost Soul (9 page)

Jenna studied the floor, not taking the bait.

“She been fed since you tossed her in here?”

When no answer was forthcoming Dexter grunted. “Xander, get cleaned up. Jenna, clean Celia up and bring her to the
galley. Bring some food too, I’m starved and I been sleeping. Can’t imagine how she feels.”

Jenna nodded and started to leave after Xander. She stopped and turned back to Dexter. She stared at him until Xander was out of earshot then said. “I’m so scared!”

He took her in his arms, though they felt like they already had coils of rope dragging them down. “I’m back and I know where to go now. We’ll get her back.”

“You were gone too,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to anything louder. “I thought I’d lost you both.”

“I ain’t that easy to get rid of, haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“We’ve been through a lot,” Jenna said, pulling back enough to look him in the eyes. “But this feels different. It feels worse. A scratch from someone we trust and that’s it, you’re gone.”

“No more scratches then,” he offered.

Jenna wiped at her eyes then shook her head.

“Now go do as I ask. Don’t forget I’m the Captain,” he grinned and earned a roll of her eyes. Having just a brief glimpse of the Jenna he knew and loved was enough. She turned to do as he bid while he made his way, slowly, back to the bridge.

* * * *

“I miss Jodyne,” Jenna said after she sat the fourth plate on the table. She took the empty spot and studied the meager fair. Elven bread and a dry elven cheese awaited them. Water filled their cups. Jodyne had been the ship
’s cook and the wife of Kragor, Dexter’s original first mate. Both had been lost in the battle between the elders and the elves, and both were sorely missed in spite of their heroic sacrifice that won the battle.

Dexter sampled the bland food on his plate. He was tempted to agree with his wife, but a surge of self-preservation kept his mouth shut. He filled his mouth with more, surprised at how his body was calling for more of the boring meal.

He noticed Celia was eating more like an ogre than an elf. Her face had been washed and fresh clothing provided, but there was no hiding the bruises and cuts. Her nose was freshly swollen after Jenna had set it. Now the girl stared at her plate, eating like a dog denied food by its master.

Dexter waited until she finished. Her eyes darted around the table, searching for more food. He pushed what remained on his plate over to her, then saw her glance up at him. The fleeting contact was gone an instant later, but in that moment he’d seen surprise and hope.

“Celia, I need you to tell me what happened.”

Celia choked on the piece of cheese she was eating. She coughed it up, gasping for breath, and took a drink to sooth her startled throat. When she’d regained her composure she pushed Dexter’s plate away and risked a look at him. “I told them.”

“I need to hear it from you.”

Her chin quivered but Dexter held her eyes with his own. In a trembling voice she spoke. “I was with some friends at
the Fluvian gardens when a man approached us. He wore a hooded gray robe so I never saw his face. He sounded funny too, like it wasn’t really him talking.”

“What did he say?” Dexter was sure it was the same man that had spoken to him, but he needed to know more.

She took a deep breath before continuing, “He didn’t say anything at first, he just walked up to Rowen and held out his hand. Rowen stopped in mid-stride, even though he should have fallen over from losing his balance. The man released him and Rowen fell, but he was on top of him and he twisted his neck until I heard it pop.” Celia turned away, her shoulders shaking as she struggled with the memory.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Dexter consoled her. “But I need to know more.”

She nodded and looked back, then shook her head and let out a pitiful laugh. “I don’t think I’ve got any tears left,” she said. She looked at all three of them, then bit her lip. “Blayn tried to help. He ran over but I knew it was too late. I think Blayn did too, but he pulled his knife and tried to stab the man. The man paralyzed him too, then walked around behind him. Blayn tried to turn when he could, but the man in the robe used magic to throw a stone from the ground and hit him in the head.”

Something about the attack nagged at the back of Dexter’s mind. He’d never encountered anyone who could do something like that, had he?

“He turned to me and I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I just stood there. My friends were dead, just like that.” Celia searched Dexter’s eyes for understanding.

“You had every right to be scared,” Dexter said. “Where there’s magic there’s bound to be a seasoned warrior ready to soil his armor.
I once knew a man so strong there wasn’t a man nor beast that could kill him. Magic ended up being the only thing that could put him down.”

She nodded. “Maybe, but I should have run.”

“Maybe he’d paralyzed you as well?” Jenna suggested.

Celia gasped, then her expression fell. “No, I could move. I just didn’t. He walked up to me and told me he needed me to do something for him, and if I refused he’d do to my family what he’d already done to my friends.”

“And what did he want you to do?”
              She stared at her hands before answering. “He said he needed to talk to you about your daughter. I had to poke you with the ring he held out for me. He showed me how to flip the charm in it and warned me not to let it touch anyone else, or my family would suffer.”

“What about the rest of it?”

“The rest?”

“Aye, the part about being a skilled deckhand and helmsman?”

“She doesn’t have ‘Shira’s strength, but she’s as good on the deck as any we’ve ever had,” Jenna answered for her.

Celia nodded. “I know things about ships, Captain. I meant everything I told you before…”

Dexter nodded. “What now, then?”

“What?” Celia’s mouth gaped open, confused by his question. “Whatever you’re going to do to me. I deserve it all. I didn’t ask for this, but I went along with it.”

“Might just have turned out you done the best thing you could have, for all of us.”

“What?” The question was asked by all three of Dexter’s tablemates.

“I had a talk and it wasn’t much of one. He wants a port, but he didn’t say which one. Can’t be a port on a moon or a world, I’m thinking, so it’s got to be one of the elven flying salads or maybe something like a bandit sanctuary in the void. We’re supposed to head to Port Freedom and he’ll meet me there.”

”Maybe he wants Port Freedom,” Jenna said.

“Thought about that,” Dexter said. “Maybe that’s what it is, too. He said he’d been planning this for years, then got kind of uppity when I told him you’d renounced your crown. He seemed to think we might could still help him out though.”

“He’s got Jianna’s soul?” Xander asked.

“Claims he does.”

“Then we find a way to give him what he wants,” Jenna said with an air of finality.

“Don’t let your sails get too full of wind,” Dexter said. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to end up governor of some trading post floating through the void.”

“Aye, but if we get Jia back, does it matter?”

Dexter nodded, she made a good point. “We’ll see what we’ve got to do. We’ll get her back and deal with whatever we have to along the way. Celia, once you’re feeling up to it I need you back in the rotation. I’m adding you to the helm too. I’m right in thinking you’ll be working for me and only me this time?”

Celia’s eyelids nearly opened wide enough to let her eyeballs fall onto the table. She nodded vigorously. “I…I can’t believe you’ll have me. Yes, Captain! Yes! I can’t go back, not now. Not after what happened.

“Turns out you was working for me before too, but that’s hardly the point. When this is over and things settle down we’ll see about patching things up with your father, too.”

Her elation dimmed somewhat. “Sir, if it’s all the same, I’d rather stay here.”

Dexter glanced at Jenna and got a shrug in response. He could tell she had a few words to share with him on the topic, but they weren’t the kind of words he allowed in front of his crew. He almost grinned at how easily they were falling back into their roles as though it had only been six days instead of six years.

“
I’ll be sure the spixers don’t undo what improvements you make,” He said, closing the subject. The spixers were what the Navy sailors had come to call the constructs the elders had shown the elves how to build. Xander, in particular, had taken great interest in them. The spixers were a metallic sphere with four articulated legs to allow them to climb all over the hull of a ship and reach damaged sections. Additional arms with tools built into them emerged from the sphere as needed to repair the damages. The name came from a cross between a spider and a fixer.

Dexter turned to face the rest of his crew
’s direction. “I mark it a couple of weeks to Port Freedom,” Dexter changed the topic. “Time enough to get some practice in. I’ll lay good odds that we won’t get out of this without it getting bloody. But first, send Keshira to my cabin.”

He noticed the lines around
Jenna’s eyes tighten briefly. She’d wanted to say whatever she needed to. “Captain, I—”

“Will accompany Keshira to my cabin? Good, I can’t think of a better idea,” Dexter interrupted. He flashed her a smile then finished the water in his cup. “Ladies, wizard,” he said by way of dismissal. Dexter put his cup in the washing bucket then made his way to his cabin to await Keshira and Jenna.

His wait was short lived even though he’d nearly nodded off to sleep in his chair. In spite of two days of sleep he was exhausted by the brief activity. A sharp rap on the door and then Jenna pushed it open, leading the woman in. Dexter looked at her and was amazed at what he saw. Instead of the ready smile she shared with everyone and permanent erect posture she carried herself with, she looked defeated and miserable. She’d once been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen but now even Xander in his wizard dresses seemed more fetching.

“Captain!” Keshira said, her eyes brightening a little. The corners of her lips twitched, threatening to grow into a smile. It faded before it could be realized. “Sir, are you real? I can’t feel you anymore.”

“I’m real, Keshira. Xander says that because of what happened to me, something about me not being connected to my body anymore for a little bit, that our bond was broken.”

“I’m all alone,” Keshira said. It sounded like she was whining, but Dexter knew it was a simple statement.

“You’re the same as any of us now,” he tried to reassure her. “Just an insecure about what other people think of us and alone in a void filled with other lonely people.”

Jenna scowled at the analogy, which prompted a wink from Dexter.

“Some of us get lucky and we find someone special,” he said. “You know what I’m talking about, you’ve felt the love Jenna and I got for each other. I hope you can find that yourself someday. That takes away the loneliness.”

“I’ve felt it,” she echoed. She looked at Jenna and then Dexter. “I felt your love for Jianna too. I tried to make her like me.”

Dexter chuckled. “She knows, she’s just young. She didn’t understand how you could smile so much.”

“I’m not sure how I did either.”

“You’ve known nothing but happiness. Even some of our miserable times were happy times for you – you were fulfilling the only existence you knew you had. Now you can do anything, Keshira. You can be anything. You’ll always have a place on my crew or as my friend, but should you want to go and find your own life I won’t hold it against you.”

“That’s it?” Keshira asked.

Dexter’s smile faded. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he said. He frowned. He’d hoped it would go better. “I can tell you what to do on the ‘Hawk, but I can’t tell you who you should be or how you should act other than that. And I won’t. “

“Dex, she needs you,” Jenna said.

Dexter’s head snapped around to his wife. “You the same woman that was jealous a few years back?”

His wife shrugged away the accusation. “Yes, I was, but I know better now. I know you better, and I know Keshira. She’s naïve but she’s also my friend. I care for her, and I want her to be safe. She needs you to tell her what she must do. Even if she’s not bonded to you, she’ll do anything for you.”

Keshira nodded. “I can’t do anything else.”

Dexter cursed the wizard that had created Keshira. She was a beautiful and a wonderful woman, but denying her of the ability to choose her own destiny was the greatest crime a man could commit. Greater even then stealing his daughter’s soul
, and that one had earned a death sentence.

“All right, then take what I’m saying as my command, ‘Shira. I want you to pursue what makes you happy. Figure out what fills you up and takes away the loneliness, then do it. Maybe you ain’t so good at figuring out what to do, but once you’ve got something in your pretty head you’re plenty good at figuring out how to do it.”

Keshira nodded, a faint smile coming to her face. “Thank you, sir. And thank you, Empress. I want to make you happy, any way I can. If that means finding something else that makes me happy as well, then I will do it.”