Starfinder: A Novel of the Skylords (30 page)

The Redeemer’s joyless expression left Moth bewildered.

 

That night, Moth washed away all his aches and pains in a pool of steaming water. He leaned his head against the edge of the pool, letting the warmth relax his knotted muscles as he marveled at the underground bath chamber, running like a catacomb beneath the tower of Korace. At the far end of the chamber a gentle waterfall trickled down the rocky wall, feeding the bath. Like everything in the Palace of the Moon, the chamber was enormous, yet Moth had it entirely to himself. He floated, naked, his body obscured by the minerals clouding the water.

No one had seen him naked in years, not even his mother. At first he’d been afraid, but he wasn’t anymore. The hot bath melted his shyness away. Esculor, the young Skylord assigned to Moth, had explained that all the Skylords bathed this way. Young and old, male and female, they shared the baths without shame, something unimaginable in the world Moth came from.

“You have everything I have,” Esculor had joked, “except wings. No one cares enough to stare.”

Sure that Esculor would return for him soon, Moth stretched out his arms along the side of the pool, dunking himself quickly, then lifting himself up with a mouthful of water, squirting it like a fountain. Tomorrow, if he was lucky, Artaios would teach him more about flying. He closed his eyes, daydreaming about the cloud horse as the warm water lulled him to sleep.

Moth listened to the waterfall over his own contented breathing. Then another sound reached his ears, very softy. He opened his eyes, expecting to see Esculor. A glimpse of yellow hair appeared behind a column.

“Alis?”

Discovered, Alisaundra stepped from her hiding spot.

“Uh, Alis, I’m naked in here,” said Moth, suddenly self-conscious. “Could you stay back a little?”

The Redeemer looked bemused and grossly overdressed in her heavy cloak and silver chain.

“Something on your mind?” asked Moth.

Alisaundra seemed to struggle with her thoughts, unnerving Moth with her silence.

“You’re staring,” he pointed out. “You told me not to stare, remember?”

She glided closer, her brow ridged in troubled thought. Moth shifted uncomfortably in his bath, glad for the cloudy water. He thought of calling out for Esculor or jumping up to get his clothes, but Alis wasn’t really frightening him. She came to the very edge of the pool, squatting down next to him and threading her clawed fingers through the water.

“Listen,” said Moth, trying to distract her. “I never thanked you for saving me the other day. From Artaios, I mean. I got a little mad when he started talking about Fiona. I shouldn’t have done that. So thanks. Okay?”

Alis went from squatting to kneeling. She tapped a long fingernail against her blonde head. “In here. I see pictures. Old things.”

“Pictures? You mean memories?”

“I remember,” she said, “because of you.”

Moth wasn’t sure if she was happy or just accusing him. He kept his voice low and said, “Because you’ve been around humans again, right? You’ve been mucking around in my head. But this is good, Alis. You see? You
are
human.”

“I am a Redeemer,” Alis insisted. “I serve the Skylords.”

“Yeah, all right. Tell me about your memories. What do you see?”

“They scream at me. They want to come out! I can’t let them.”

“Who? Who’s screaming at you?”

Alis put her claws to her face, driving her nails into her scaly cheeks. “Family.”

Moth stayed very still. “Tell me,” he whispered.

“I remember . . .” Alis hesitated. “Remember . . .” Her reptilian eyes glazed over. “Sitting. My father’s lap.”

“Go on,” said Moth. “You remember sitting in your father’s lap . . .”

“He smelled like earth. I remember being afraid.”

“Why?” Moth rolled onto his side, intrigued. “Why were you afraid of him?”

“Not of him,” said Alis. Her eyes sparkled as the memory took hold. “Afraid to move. Afraid to make him uncomfortable. Afraid he would tell me to get off his lap.” She made a little noise of happiness. “That was the best place. On Father.”

Her fanged mouth smiled. Her black wings shrouded her body. But she was human, and Moth saw it.

“I would sit with him for hours,” Alis continued. “And he would touch my hair.” She pulled at a tangled blonde tendril, horrified by it. “Not this hair. Real hair. He would sit and I would sing, and he would stroke my hair.”

Then she started humming to herself, her voice softly echoing through the cavernous baths. She no longer looked at Moth; her vision turned inward instead.

“Alis?” said Moth. “Look away.”

“Why?” asked the Redeemer.

“I want to get dressed. Close your eyes or something.”

Alis obeyed, letting Moth climb out of the pool and grab up his clothing. He didn’t bother drying off, just slipped on his breeches.

“Alis, you can’t talk like this to anyone,” said Moth as he pulled his shirt over his head. “If Artaios knows about your memories he’ll punish you. You shouldn’t even be telling me about them.”

Alis stood up. “Do not trust Artaios,” she warned.

“Huh?”

“He gives you the cloud horse. He gives you a room, servants. Do you wonder why?”

“Yes,” admitted Moth. He felt ashamed suddenly. “I guess I do.”

“Soon he will ask you questions,” whispered Alis. “About Calio. The airships. Things no one else can tell him. About how strong humans are.”

“You mean he’s bribing me? But why? Why does he want to know—”

Before Moth could finish he heard Esculor returning, heading for the bath chamber in a flutter of wings. Moth turned back to Alis.

“Why, Alis?”

Alis flashed her pointed teeth and hissed, “To end the human dream.”

She said nothing more, bowing to Esculor as the young Skylord entered the chamber, then left quietly, disappearing through the steam.

“Hideous creatures,” said Esculor. He turned his perfect smile toward Moth. A hair comb flashed in his hand, ready to pamper his human charge. “Finished?”

“Yes,” nodded Moth. “I think I am.”

He stood, frozen, letting Esculor’s jeweled comb sweep through his wet hair, trying to imagine Alisaundra as a girl.

THE
AVATAR
HOVERED at fifteen thousand feet, the last mark on her vacuum-powered altimeter. For nearly an hour she had been at that height, time for her crew to acclimate to the cold and thin air as they prepared for their ascent. Each man had left behind every bit of extra weight possible, shedding every knickknack and memento brought from home. Canisters and barrels had been tossed overboard, weapons were stripped of their heavy safety shields, and even the furniture in Rendor’s quarters had been discarded, all to make the airship light enough for the climb.

Rendor peered through the rectangle of netting sewn into the tarp stretched across the ship’s damaged bridge. His nose burned from the cold, but he did not shiver as he looked at the sheer wall of rock facing them. Snow and mist obscured the mountaintops. His breath froze on his lips. Already a headache from altitude sickness throbbed in his skull. On the other side of the mountain waited Pandera, warm and thick with breathable air. Rendor blew into his gloved hands. Behind him, Lieutenant Stringfellow sat at the engine console, taking deep, rapid breaths the way Rendor had shown him. Rendor counted ten breaths, then twelve as Stringfellow kept going.

“That’s enough,” barked Rendor. “A dozen breaths, no more.” He looked at the others on the bridge. “If your hands and feet start tingling you’ve done too many,” he warned. “Ten to twelve deep breaths every five minutes. Don’t do it unless you have to.”

Donnar nodded as he paced the bridge, seemingly immune to the dwindling air pressure. Bottling, on the other hand, had already vomited twice. He kept a bucket next to him as he watched a bank of gauges, his eyes the only part of his face visible behind a woolen scarf. Four additional crewmen manned the bridge as well, a pair of them assigned to consoles, the other two ready with tools to mend steam pipes or tears in the tarp. The entire crew had dressed in layers and drunk gallons of water to prepare their bodies for the moisture-sucking atmosphere. They were all well-trained and hand-picked, but none of them had ever flown as high as they would today.

Through the netting, the world was a swirl of clouds and jagged rock. Rendor felt the thrumming of the engines under his feet, felt the way the wind rattled the airship like a baby’s toy, and knew the time had come.

“Commander Donnar,” he said, “get ready to climb.”

Donnar strapped himself in his captain’s chair, pulling a stout leather belt across his lap. Bottling turned his covered face toward the Commander, waiting for the order. His right hand, fitted with a fingerless glove, hovered over a silver lever.

“Slow climb, Mister Bottling,” said Donnar. “Stringfellow, listen for the watch.”

Bottling eased the lever forward. The
Avatar
shuddered as hidrenium swelled her envelope. Rendor peered through his viewport as the airship slowly rose. The wind off the peaks swayed her back and forth. Stringfellow manned the engine deck, listening for Rendor’s orders.

“Steady on the watch,” said Rendor.

He ignored his growing fatigue and the pounding in his forehead, wrapping his arms around himself for warmth as the
Avatar
floated upward. Unlike the other airships he’d designed, the
Avatar
’s flatter shape made climbing easier, relying not just on hidrenium but also the force of the atmosphere to push her skyward. But it was the job of the engines to move her laterally, and unless he held a steady watch, one stray wind might send them crashing into the face of the mountain.

Rendor scanned the peaks, trying to spot the zenith. Broken clouds obscured his view. Behind him, Bottling was breathing hard to keep from blacking out. He tapped the glass of his many gauges, worried. Donnar sat with steely calm, scanning his nervous crew. When a sudden gust rocked the
Avatar
, he barely flinched.

“Report the watch,” he called.

Rendor squinted hard, trying to squeeze back his nausea. Outside he saw the rocks rising still above them. “Higher.”

Minutes passed. Bottling shivered over his bucket. Stringfellow gulped down nervous breaths . . . four, five, six. Even Donnar had turned blue. Rendor felt his hands and face starting to swell.

“Higher,” he gasped.

He swayed on his feet, fighting for balance. He saw a picture of Fiona in his mind, still alive. Still beautiful, like his daughter. In his frock coat ticked his pocket watch, the only keepsake he hadn’t thrown overboard. He fixed on it, imagining its perfect movement, concentrating on its steadiness.

He tried to speak but couldn’t. He clawed at the net to support his wobbly legs. Behind him he heard someone fall from his chair. Donnar shouted for a report.

Higher,
thought Rendor desperately.
Just a little higher . . .

His eyes turned skyward, staring at the sun. The wind blew hard and the clouds slowly parted, and a glimpse of the mountaintop appeared. Rendor stuck his frozen face against the net in disbelief, blinking through its crisscrossed ropes. Past the mist and ice-covered rocks, far below the churning clouds, he saw a flash of green.

“Ahead,” he gasped, clinging to the tarp. “Stringfellow . . .”

Before he could finish, Rendor fainted.

EACH MORNING FIONA AWOKE in Pandera, she fought to stay asleep just a little bit longer. The comfortable bed of straw and the peace of the valley gave her a happiness she hadn’t known since her parents were alive, and her dreams were sweet with images of meadows and tall, protective mountains. Under Nessa’s care she had healed quickly, her bumps and bruises soothed by the unhurried days. As the wife of a Chieftain, Nessa’s responsibilities were many, but she always found time to involve Fiona, teaching her to hay the beds and mend cloth and to make the traditional bread each dawn.

Fiona, who was accustomed to having servants cook her food, found an undiscovered talent for bread-making. She loved the way flour powdered her hands and the way the dough felt as it rose, like the soft belly of a baby. Mostly, though, she loved the closeness she felt to Nessa. To Fiona, Nessa wasn’t just a centaur. She was also a strikingly beautiful woman, the kind Fiona had always wished to be. The kind her mother had been. Even covered in flour, Nessa was beautiful.

This morning, as Fiona struggled to open her eyes, she reminded herself of her bread-baking duty. Nessa would be expecting her. She dressed quickly, washed in a basin, and proceeded outside to the cooking hearth where Nessa was already kneading dough. A handful of others had gathered to help, mostly young males and females. Fiona knew them all by name now. They greeted her excitedly, still amused about having a human in their village.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Fiona as she sidled up to Nessa. “I overslept again.”

Nessa, who never got angry, merely grinned. “Don’t get your hands dirty,” she said. “You won’t be helping us this morning.”

“Huh?”

A shadow fell over Fiona’s shoulder. She turned to see Jorian towering over her.

“Today you’re coming with me,” the chieftain announced.

Fiona looked up, confused. “I am?”

“Don’t be afraid of him,” laughed Nessa. “It’s time.”

“Time for what?” asked Fiona.

“For you to learn how to defend yourself,” said Jorian. His dark, humorless face didn’t even crack a smile. He reached into a leather sack hanging from his torso. “I made you this.”

The young centaurs gasped when they saw Jorian’s gift—a bow, roughly half Fiona’s size, made of shiny, knotty wood. A string of sinew stretched between its ends, giving it a taut bend. Fiona took the bow, surprised by the present.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I don’t know how to shoot a bow.”