Aethosphere Chronicles: Storm of Chains (8 page)

But now, with it all smashed and heaped in
piles around the truck, slowly winding a course deeper into their
ruin, it painted a depressing picture of a hijacked glory, and one
that Drish could only too-well sympathize with.

Why have the pirates fled to this dead
zone,
wondered the weary noble, hugging his arms close to his
chest for warmth. It had long ago been cleared of any livable
structures, and now stood open to the raw elements of winter
blowing through the city. Sure, no imperial commander could
possible expect anyone to survive out here, and might ignore it,
but any airship patrol would easily spot the activity and know
something was amiss.

Whatever their reasons for coming to this
place, no one said, but instead disembarked from the truck after
pulling up to the empty shell of a foundry warehouse.

The cold, compact ground crunched under foot
as Drish followed through the rubble.

The savagery of the wind coming off the lake
cleaved right through the flesh, to settle into the captive noble’s
very bones, leaving them pained and brittle. Death by hypothermia
seemed a certainty, until they slipped into a sheltered compartment
within the high walls of the factory floor.

Though still miserably cold, at least the
wind was gone from the air, and that in itself was enough of a
relief for Drish to feel grateful. Inside the edifice, which turned
out to be an empty coal furnace, they found perhaps two dozen armed
men and women huddled about barrels of burning refuse, while
standing in their center like some sort of pauper king, was Drish’s
father, Arvis.

The fugitive accountant’s temper flared upon
seeing the root cause of all his trouble, and even though the elder
Larken looked beyond exhausted—even when taking in account his
paralyzed left side—Drish felt little sympathy.

As soon as Arvis noticed the new arrivals,
he came hobbling stiffly over to greet them. A disfigured smile
tugging at his face, but Drish steeled his resolve against the
hated man.

To send pirates to kidnap me…the gall of
that man is mindboggling!

Throughout the chamber the rest of the
gathered insurgents rose to their feet and turned to watch as Drish
was escorted into their ranks, led by Bar Bazzon and his pirate
brigade. These insurgents were beleaguered souls to be certain,
haunted and dirty, with either too much malice, or too much
weariness in their faces to ever find happiness again. Between the
lot of them, there wasn’t an unsoiled shirt or a proper outfit to
be seen; just a hasty assemblage every bit as ruinous as the
structure they’d taken shelter in.

At the fulcrum of all this suffering, Drish
opened his mouth, meaning to berate his father and his
ill-conceived attempt at rescue, but Abigail rushed ahead first.
She scampered right up to the elder Larken and threw her arms
around him. “You made it, Arvis!” she cried happily into his
leathery neck, while jealousy painted Drish’s vision green watching
the spectacle.

“That I did,” he replied readily, patting
the girl’s back with his strong right hand, even as the left hung
limply at his side. “But truthfully, just barely,” he pulled away.
“But what of your assignment?”

“Afraid it didn’t go as smoothly as we’d
have liked, Arvis,” Bar confessed for her, as he locked hands with
the insurgent leader in greeting. Both looked genuinely pleased to
see the other…
and why not?
Drish mulled.
The two were
side by side for nearly a year during the Chimera’s restoration in
the fleet yards.

“It’s good to see you again, my friend; damn
good,” he heard his father spout off in his slurred speech. “Were
you followed though,” he asked more gravely.

“Not on the ground,” replied the captain
cautiously, before glancing up over his shoulder into the low-slung
clouds. The High Crown’s under-spires had become lost somewhere
above the billowing gloom settling in and promising more snow. “Not
sure about in the air though. Saw tale of activity from the old
Cloudfortress…so could be that an Iron warship got a bead on our
escape using ocular magnification.”

“You boys talk strategy a minute, I’m going
to check in with the others,” said Abigail, giving the old
gentleman a pat on the shoulder with all the tenderness of a
diligent daughter. Without even so much as turning to say anything
to Drish, she strolled away. Not only hadn’t his father said a word
to him yet, but Abigail was just walking away…and all because of
this Resistance. But then had he really expected some
heart-to-heart farewell with the girl? He tried to push aside the
silly sentiment. After all, he wasn’t some hero of a war-tale who
was destined to get the girl in the end through his valiant nature
alone. No, this was real life…but then to be so casually forgotten
by everyone blew through him like the chilled wind off the
Lordswater.

“Anyway, Arvis,” continued Bar, “I’d say
staying here too long is about as suicidal as staying at that
tavern of yours.”

“Agreed, we’ll make preparations to retreat
down into the Smugglers’ Redoubt as soon as the last of the cells
have arrived.” For a moment Arvis shifted his eyes to his son as
though to address him, but Bar interrupted before he could.

“Listen Arvis,” he said in hushed tones,
“this isle’s got edges. Eventually they’ll stumble upon the
Redoubt. You’re stuck on a floating trap, my friend, so what about
leaving…join one of the other factions…on Crowswaine maybe, where
the Empire isn’t as entrenched?”

“Bar, even if I knew how to get in contact
with them, I wouldn’t risk it. That list’s got me thinking we might
have a snitch in our midst, and I won’t put any more men and women
in danger.” Suddenly frustration draw a clear path across the
malleable parts of Arvis’s wrinkled face. “Damn it!” He turned and
stalked, limp-legged across the cold, hard ground. “I hate to have
to think that any of these fighters are untrustworthy; not after
the sweat and the tears and the blood we’ve all shed together. I
don’t want to have to start thinking like that, because once we go
down that road—of accusing one another—well dammit, there’s no
going back. We’ll tear ourselves apart quicker than those imperial
siege hulks ever could.”

Bar signed heavily and offered his old
friend a tired smile that set Drish squirming in place. “Sorry to
say, Arvis, but that’s something you just don’t have any control
over; not now; and I’m sure it’s only going to get uglier from here
on out. Now you know I got my ship, and you know you’re more than
welcome to come aboard—as though I got to remind you of that.”

“Thanks, Bar, but no thanks. King’s Isle
isn’t lost. I won’t let it be, not
my
isle—not on my watch,”
vowed the crippled leader. “Damn those snitches! I can’t think of
anything worse than a traitor.”

Drish felt guilt flush red-hot through his
cold-numbed face. Given the chance, snitching was exactly what he
aimed on doing. But then right here was exactly the reason why he
supported collaboration with the Empire in the first place. What
were these men accomplishing by huddling up in a burned-out
factory, besides being cold, paranoid, and doomed? If ever he had
to think of a way out of this mess it was now, before he was pulled
any deeper into the muck and the mud with these lost souls and
their dilutions of restoration. Sure, there was a pang of sympathy
for these fellow Candaran men and woman. Most of them looked
younger than him, naïve and simple, and with the dull-eyed
expression of the lowborn class. They were never equipped to think
about the grand picture; it simply wasn’t their lot, and now they
were in over their heads. He pitied them, drawn into a hopeless
conflict such as this. If any of them had a brain they would take
the captain up on his offer to leave this isle.

And then Arvis turned to Drish. “I’m glad
you’re here safe, son, and I wish we had a bit more time for
pleasantries, but… so is the way of the Pantheon. Now I know we
didn’t exactly part on good terms last night. We both said a lot of
things that we didn’t mean—”

“Are you so sure about that?” interrupted
Drish rudely. He wasn’t interested in his father’s olive
branch.

“How ‘bout I let you two talk this one out
alone,” said Bar. “Seems to me like…family business, to be sure, so
I’ll leave you two at it.”

Drish was glad to see the pirate go.
Damn
meddling fool, never should have come in the first place. He should
have stayed on that damn airship of his.

“I—” his father started, but Drish cut him
off. “Why did you do this? Why did you send that oaf to kidnap
me?”

“
Kidnap
…? Son, you were on that list,
you were in danger. I just thought that—”

“What, that I was helpless? That I needed to
be rescued, father? I haven’t needed your help in years.”

“I don’t understand why you’re being like
this, Drish—why you hate me so much. I’ve always told you that
working for the Empire was a foolish idea. That it didn’t matter
how much you tried to impress them. In the end you’re just another
Candaran, beneath their contempt, and easily replaceable. In the
end, they would have seen fit to stick you in the stockades sooner
or later. Why you ever agreed to sign that Oath is beyond me.”

“You seem to forget that my life as a
collaborator
was going fine until
you
destroyed it.
It wasn’t the imperials who put me on that list; it was you—you and
this pointless ‘resistance’. This misplaced loyalty to the idea of
bringing back a lost nation and a dead king. What difference does
it make if we serve a king on the throne here on King’s Isle, or an
Emperor on the throne in Junction? How does it change the simple
rules of survival?”

“Gods, Drish, they invaded us, slaughtered
us—”

“We started the war!”

“That’s what you think? We were already at
war, son, since the Endasol Engagement—before that even—when the
Empire decided to start spreading through the Candaran states of
the Giedi Cluster, and harvesting atmium that didn’t belong to
them!”

“It doesn’t matter,” snarled Drish. “None of
it. In the end life it is what we can make of it; what we can earn;
where we can live; and what we can accomplish under the
circumstances we’re placed in. It’s not in the idea that we’re
bound together by imaginary borders held together by the invisible
force of patriotism. I’m not willing to die for a fantasy like some
people, Arvis! I just want to go home!”

The elder Larken stood shocked into silence,
and he didn’t speak for some time. Meanwhile, Drish fumed angrily
in the cold air that blew in between them, until finally his father
spoke. The man’s tremulous voice issued soft and low, as though
trying not to upset the dead that were buried in the snow and
rubble beneath them. “You don’t have a home, Drish; it was the
Empire who took that away from you the second they invaded. Now I
just don’t know how you can keep making excuses for
them
in
light of that truth.”

“No, dammit, I have a home! It’s at 521
Cooper Street, Arvis. I was there this very morning and would’ve
been there tonight, and the night after that, and the night after
that had you not taken that away through your actions.”

Arvis sighed and looked up past the rafters,
into a steely, overcast sky peeking down through the holes in the
roof. “Occupation under the rule of the Iron Empire can bring with
it many titles,” he spoke softly as wandering snowflakes tumbled
down his cheeks, “imperial and Ascellan, Hierarch and Candaran,
collaborator and loyalist, traitor and insurgent; and yet where do
the titles of father and son fit in the grand scheme of it all?”
His far-flung gaze came to rest on Drish. “A day will come when the
people of Ascella rise up. And I… I don’t want you executed as a
collaborator when that day comes.”

“Really? Rise up?” Drish pointed to the
motley insurgents huddled along the fired-charred walls. “Them?
You’re a damn fool, Arvis! I would have taken my chances against
that
fantasy any day. Make no mistake, the Empire
will
outlast each and every one of you gathered here
today.”

At that Arvis, wavered, his strength seemed
to have been spent. “How can I make you understand?” And then his
legs failed him, and he began to crumple to the ground. Drish was
surprised at himself. He never even tried to help his father;
instead he just stood and watched as the man collapsed into the ash
and melt-water beneath his feet.

Abigail appeared at the stricken man’s side
almost instantly, glaring up at Drish in accusation. “Aren’t you
even going to help him…? How can you just stand there like
that…doing nothing?”

“It’s easier than you think,” muttered Drish
as he turned and walked into the open air outside the furnace room.
The snow had begun to fall again and Drish took off his glasses,
letting the flakes tumble over his naked face. Each bit of snow
that landed melted into a cool drop of water that ran down his
burning skin, soothing that savage anger burning within him. After
only a few short moments he already felt light enough to float away
with the rest of the flurries. It was time for him to leave, he
knew that…and his father must have known that as well. Producing a
handkerchief from his pocket, Drish wiped away the moisture from
his cheeks…not sure what was just snow and what might have been
tears. It didn’t matter either way. Tucking the cloth back in his
breast pocket, the noble perched his glasses on his nose, leaned
forward, and beginning the motion to what was going to be his first
step back into the Empire’s embrace.

But a gunshot rang out before he could
finish even that much.

Drish felt its heat pass him by as it howled
in the air looking for blood. He dropped to the ground. A woman
began to scream, and then someone high above him yelled “
assault
machines,”
just moments before the unfortunate sentry was
silenced forever by a second shot.