Skies of the Empire Read online

  “Thanks,” Cassidy replied sardonically. She returned to work.

  The rain stopped and the clouds dispersed, making way for the sun to warm the already too-hot surface, which did nothing to help the rancid stench.

  Digging her way deeper into the dragon’s insides, Cassidy found what she was looking for. “Finally!” She exclaimed, extracting a glassy gem with swirling red and gold patterns along it. The matching firegland was still fixed into the stomach lining, but it came free with a vicious tug. Stepping back from the dragon and her crew, she struck one of the stones against the other. A marvelous jet of golden red sparks sailed out and created a thin arc of fire that flew nearly as high as the ship before sailing down, striking the mud and fading out.

  Nieves came from the front of the dragon and tossed her sack full of dragon teeth on the ground. “Good work. Just remember to keep them away from Kek, or he’ll put them both in the same pocket,” She said, eying the blond man with a sly smirk.

  “It was one time!” Kek shouted defensively. "It's been ten years, let it go!" This time the smell and viscera were not enough to keep Cassidy from laughing. That was cut short, however, when she felt her harness begin to pull. That wasn’t good.

  A call from above confirmed that. “Trouble inbound. Gather what you got, we leave now!” Cassidy shoved the fire glands in separate pockets of her trousers and tied her salvage pack shut as the wench above reeled the harness in. Once she was halfway to the ship, she saw what they were fleeing; from around a nearby hillside came a mass of briars that grew across the land at several meters a second, small wisps of light spiraling between the thorns.

  Cassidy's harness snagged, stopping her ascent. She heard the captain issuing orders, but she couldn't quite make them out. She tried to climb up her rope, but with her baggage she had trouble, and her gloves were still slick with dragon guts. She tossed the sack up to the platform to free her hands, but was unable to climb when she felt something grab her right ankle.

  She looked down and saw the briars had reached up and ensnared her. She shook her foot violently trying to dislodge them, but their thorns sank in, tearing through the leather of her boot like parchment and cutting into her skin. She screamed in pain as the unnatural plant wrapped her leg, sending wispy fingers reaching out at her from within. The thorns dug into her calf as the stalk climbed toward her thigh. She reached into her pockets, pulling the fireglands back out. She struck one against the other; the sparks cast off from the gems ignited the briars, causing them to recoil as though they were living, thinking creatures. With her free foot she scraped the tendrils from her leg and struck the stones together again, burning more of the assaulting plants.

  A vine of thorns shot out from the mass, gripping her left wrist, forcing her to open her hand and causing the fire gland to fall. "No!" she screamed, reaching out in vain. Struggling against the briars pulling her back, she forced her hand back to her leg, extracting a small knife from one of her pockets and twisting her wrist to cut the demonic limb that had seized her. It took some sawing but finally released her as her blade snapped through the last fibers.

  She tucked the remaining firegland in the front of her shirt and took to climbing while she was still free, seeing her friends above pulling the ropes to help her along. Despite the assistance, she was struggling. Her heart beat faster than she ever felt possible. Sweat ran down her face in rivers. Her leg began to grow numb and burn all at once. Each pull that made her climb felt an hour apart.

  She finally placed her hands on the platform and was immediately pulled up by the others, all working together. Once she was safely aboard, someone hit the lever to pull the platform up. Her head was spinning. She heard discussion, but it was so distant and muffled she could not determine who was saying what, only that they sounded like they were panicking.

  She closed her eyes, suddenly feeling as though she hadn't slept in weeks.

  When she opened them, she was faced with a swirling sky above her. It was made of overwhelming color and filled with stars of bright silver. She stood. She had no difficulty with that. Distantly she heard music, sweet music that seemed to mask lament. She looked at her surroundings; she was on the Dreamscape Voyager's deck, but there was no balloon keeping her in the air. She heard no engines. She walked to the edge, seeing that despite those facts, she was indeed sailing far above the ground.

  The ship floated above an almost familiar forest of red and yellow leaves, but the stars and unfamiliar clouds of shifting colors killed any feeling of recognition in the landscape. The sky shifted between various combinations of gold and red and purple, but neither the blue or green or gray of the skies familiar to Cassidy. Clouds and stars formed unrecognizable constellations and patterns, and strange celestial bodies filled the sky between them, leaving no emptiness in the sky.

  She heard a voice, small and gentle, whisper in her ear. "You smell as the other," it said. It sounded feminine. "But you are not her. You are not the one who sails the Dreamscape. Who are you?"

  "My name is Cassidy," she answered, looking for the source of the voice.

  "You lie." The voice sounded intrigued, rather than offended.

  "It's a nickname, not a lie," Cassidy argued, looking around.

  "How is it not? You said it was your name when it is not. That is a lie."

  "It is not a lie, because it's what I choose to call myself."

  "So you lie to yourself, too?"

  "It's not a lie," Cassidy insisted. Why was she arguing with a disembodied voice? "If anything, it's more like an abbreviation."

  "But what you said was 'my name is Cassidy'. That is untrue, isn't it?"

  Cassidy sighed. "If I say 'yes', will you stop harassing me?"

  "The only thing I did is ask who you were," the voice countered. "It was you who lied."

  "Fine. My name is Cassandra. But please, call me Cassidy."

  "I shall consider it."

  "I guess that's good enough," Cassidy conceded. "So, who are you, and what do you want from me?"

  "You may call me Hymn," the voice answered.

  "Hymn? Like a song?"

  "That is correct."

  "So, Hymn," Cassidy asked, looking around, "just who are you?"

  "I gave you a name," her disembodied voice replied. "If that means nothing to you, perhaps a better question to ask is what I am."

  Cassidy paused as she stalked the deck, looking out beyond it. She had heard tales of a place like, she was sure. It was the dreamscape, the namesake of her ship. The motherland of sirens, of wisps, of nightmares. And most terrifyingly of all, home of the Fae. That the voice spoke narrowed the possibilities already, but its aversion to lies was a damning indicator.

  Cassidy's hand darted to her trouser pocket to pull out a piece of iron, be it a wrench or knife or coin, but she discovered then that she was naked as the day she was born. Reflexively she covered herself with her hands. "What do you want from me?"

  "I find you interesting," Hymn answered casually, as though that were all the answer she would need. Cassidy looked up and down and to all sides and still could not find the source of her voice. The helm of the ship creaked as it turned hard to starboard, back the way it had come.

  "I'm interesting?"

  There was no answer.

  "Hymn?"

  Silence.

  The wheel straightened itself up, sailing out into an inky black void in the sky that sounded of roaring thunder and smelled of static and rain. The void extended around the world, surrounded the ship, and consumed it.

  Chapter Two

  The first thing Cassidy noticed when she woke up was the feeling of the ship beneath her flying through the sky. It felt right, constantly shifting ever so slightly in the wind, far from the cursed ground below. It also felt real, especially the weight of the ship around her being supported by the engines and the balloon, unlike that dream when the Dreamscape floated like a cloud of its own accord. It was right. It was real. It felt good.

  She slowly became aware of her more immediate surroundings. She could feel she was in her bunk, her blanket wrapped around her like a cocoon. It took her what felt like several minutes to open her eyes, but when she did, she was greeted by the golden-red kiss of the sunset cascading into the room. She rolled onto her side to try and get up, only to fall asleep. When she woke up again, however — this time awakened by the growling and gnawing pain of her empty stomach — she pushed the blanket off and embraced the icy air on her skin. Apparently, she’d been stripped to her underclothes at some point. A flash of indignant annoyance rose from her chest but faded quickly and was replaced by gratitude when she remembered that she had been wearing clothes soaked with dragon innards.

  She rolled out of bed, bracing herself to fall from the top bunk only to find herself on the bottom, touching the floor almost immediately. She stood up, only for her leg to give out and cause her to stumble. She caught herself on the top bunk and steadied herself before kneeling to inspect her leg. She hadn’t realized it was bandaged from foot to thigh, but the wrappings were tight and fresh. The same could also be said of her opposite wrist, though with far less coverage.

  She stood up, more slowly this time, keeping her leg steady, and walked over to her storage trunk. Flicking it open, she extracted a set of clothes, neatly stacked and tied together. She set the pile on top of Nieves’s bed — the one that sat alone with no bunk above it — and dressed. She started with a white shirt with sleeves that covered to her wrists. Usually she would roll the sleeves up in all but the coldest conditions, but she felt she should cover her bandages to keep them from snagging on everything she crossed. She only buttoned the shirt most of the way, stopping where the shirt had once broken under the strain of her bust, leaving her dark cleavage on display. She was grateful
for the excuse to stop buttoning, because her wrist was becoming sore.

  She donned her corset next, a brown leather one with straps and buckles, which she found much easier on her hand. After that was secure, she threw on her stockings, adjusting them around her bandaged leg, and stumbled into a pair of trousers, fastening it with a belt that had a set of extra, stylish straps draping down over her leg. Sitting down, she slipped on a pair of knee-high boots with an upturned trim. After tying her hair back with a leather cord, she completed her ensemble with a pair of iron-rimmed goggles, which she situated on her forehead. A few of her red locks draped over them, hovering in front of her face.

  She returned to her trunk, taking from it a pair of wrenches, a pistol, two knives, a spyglass, and her coin purse, placing every item in its proper place. After closing the chest, she left the room. She was surprised to see her crew sitting in a circle the breezeway on upturned buckets. Kek was speaking enthusiastically about something. He had his hands cupped, about a foot from his chest. "And I swear, she had the most massive — Cassidy!" He interrupted himself upon seeing her. He was the first to rise, brushing passed Lierre to run up and hug her. "Are you alright?" He asked, not letting go completely, but standing half a step back.

  "I'm fine, Kek," she answered awkwardly. "Why are you acting so weird?"

  "No reason," he said, though Cassidy learned his reason when she felt his hand caress her butt.

  "Shove off," Cassidy said flatly.

  Kek obeyed quickly, jumping backward. "Yep, she's alright," he said nervously, standing on the other side of Nieves.

  Lierre came in to embrace her, much more enthusiastically. "Captain said we weren't to bother you until you could get yourself out of bed," she said. "We've all been worried, though. How do you feel?"

  "A little groggy," Cassidy admitted, still not sure what to think about all the concern. "Hungry, too. But I guess that's normal, since I obviously missed lunch. How long have I been out? Six hours?"

  Lierre looked to Kek, who shook his head like he didn't want to say anything, then to Nieves, who answered, "You've been out three days. Well, in and out, but still."

  "Three days?" Cassidy exclaimed. "What the fuck happened?"

  "You don't remember?" Kek asked, leaning in, looking at her like there was something on her face. "What's the last thing you do remember?"

  "A Fae spirit interrupted our scavenging, we escaped, and I got worn out from the fight," Cassidy said, recalling the events. "Nothing about that should merit three days of sleep."

  Kek looked incredulous. "Cassidy, do you remember the most important detail?" he asked, then he nearly shouted, "You were touched by the Fae! You could have died!"

  Lierre shuddered, looking like she was holding back from covering her ears with her hands. "I wish you would stop saying that!" she said sharply, stomping her foot down.

  "Point is, you had a fever running since we pulled you back on the ship," Nieves finished, giving a sideways look to Kek.

  "You were also thrashing and screaming for a while," Kek added, earning a swift jab in the ribs from Nieves.

  "Screaming?" Cassidy asked.

  "Sounded like you were having a nightmare. You kept screaming 'him'," Kek said. "You thinking about some guy at port, or something?" He added suggestively.

  "No, it's been a pretty dry year," Cassidy murmured absently. Realizing what she said, she felt her face grow hot. Returning to the subject at hand, she added, "No nightmares."

  Kek whistled. "A year, eh?"

  "Drop it," Cassidy replied. "So, what were you guys talking about when I came out?"

  "Ah, yes," Kek answered, musing lacing his voice. "Well, Captain said you'd settled down, but we had to wait for you to wake up on your own, so we started swapping tales. I was just telling the girls about what I got up to the last time we made port in Revehaven to pass the time. I'd actually just started. Pull up a seat."

  Cassidy shrugged and grabbed a bucket from the engineering storeroom, overturning it and setting it in the circle with the others. Once everyone had their seat, Kek leaned in. "So, like I was saying," he said, "Revehaven. Of course, this was right after the incident with the harpies' nest, so I just wanted to get off the ship and drown myself in ale, maybe even literally, depending. Well, I don't make it but two streets when I run into this tall woman in a red dress, and I swear by the Mists, she had the most massive, beautiful —"

  Cassidy's attention slipped. She had actually wanted to hear the story for a while, curious as to why when she had returned to the ship the following morning she'd found him asleep on the gangplank, naked and covered in gravy, being licked by dogs and covered in assorted injuries. But, try as she might, she could not focus on his words. Instead, something else he had said echoed in her mind. You were touched by the Fae.

  She'd heard all the stories, of course, of those who had similar encounters. No sailor worth the iron on her ship didn't know the songs by heart. Few of them were very pleasant. Madness was a common theme; it was said among many sailors that those touched by the Fae see their death at every turn, and paranoia grows until everything and everyone is a perceived threat, resulting in the affecting needing to be put down like a feral dog. Another common rumor was that once the creatures tasted their blood, they hunted them, night by night, plaguing them, until eventually they killed them in their sleep. An only slightly less common variant included the deaths of all other crew members.

  But all of that is just the talk of drunken sailors, right? She tried and failed to convince herself of that. She knew the Fae to be real enough; she hadn't been able to dismiss them as fables told to scare little children since she had taken flight out of Dawnhal for the first time. So, knowing what she knew, how could she rightly dismiss the parts she wasn't so sure of?

  Her stomach growled suddenly.

  "So she pushed me out the window — Cassy, was that your stomach?"

  Cassidy blushed. "Well, yeah, when was the last time I ate?"

  "Fair point," Kek said. He pulled something wrapped in parchment from his coat. "This'll tide you over ’til supper, I think."

  "Thanks, Kek," Cassidy replied. She unfolded the wrapping to reveal a half-eaten sandwich. Not feeling overly picky, she ate it like it was her last meal. It was very dry and she could barely taste the too-thin slice of meat under the very sharp cheese, but she savored it all the same. "So," she said between bites. "You got pushed out a window?"

  "Yep," he replied proudly. "And by the Dread Mother's own luck I landed in a passing cart filled with bags of flour."

  "How high did you say this room was?" Nieves asked. Cassidy was grateful to have her asking for details, because she didn't want to admit she wasn't paying attention.

  "Third story, in one of those tight, clustered places on Clock Street," Kek reiterated. "You know, that really narrow, winding one with the —"

  "Yes, yes, with the clock tower," Nieves said, waving her hand to prompt him to get on with the story.

  "Right," he said, clearing his throat. "So, I couldn't feel my legs before getting shoved out the window, I can't even explain how I feel after, but after a while I manage to roll out of the cart and immediately get pulled into a shady bar by this thug who slams a leather delivery bag in my chest, telling me to deliver it to a man named Veni. Or else. So, by this point, I’m tired, confused, sore, and now I’m being threatened, too! I explain to him I don’t know who Veni is, or who he’s working for, but he won’t have it!

  “He says to me,” he sucked in some air and did his best to make his voice deeper and dimmer, an effort Cassidy found hilarious, “Don’t give me that piss. I got your description this morning. Blond hair, pale skin. Short.” Kek couldn’t hide his bitterness at the last one, earning an undignified chortle from Nieves.

  “By the Mists!” Lierre exclaimed, sarcastically adding, “They described you so expertly!”

  "I'm not that short," Kek protested under his breath. A little louder he said, "I'm just as tall as you, Lierre."

  "Our height is normal enough for women," Lierre answered, patting affectionately him on the shoulder. "For men? Not so much." Kek made a face somewhere between a glare and a pout that made Cassidy giggle.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you delivered to shady folks on the side?” Nieves added. “There must be some good iron in that.”