2

  A few candle-marks earlier, aboard Deathstroke:

  Captain Tormund Arvendahl was called away from his office, just as Valerian got the first, gut-clenching sense that something else had gone wildly wrong. He was mage enough to have part of his awareness always attuned to the ether, and he felt it, cold as a bucket of drenching water, when most of the people he loved cried out in sudden terror and shock.

  Someone… (everyone?) …was in desperate trouble, but Val couldn’t help them or even get off that drekking airship. Couldn’t open his heart up to anyone, either. Filimar had returned to polishing silver down in the galley, while Captain Tormund was off in the vessel's command cabin, receiving an urgent missive. Miri was over in sickbay with Lady Faleena, leaving Val distraught and completely alone.

  The elf’s heart and will were torn in half by his family’s evident peril. He wanted to go to them, but he’d sworn to guard Nalderick as the prince worked to end a vile curse. Moreover, Val had signed aboard Falcon for the duration of its cruise to the mainland, and that obligation couldn’t be broken. (Not without being lashed out of the pirate fleet, one drekt vessel at a time, anyhow. Three strokes per ship.)

  The young mage (court-ball player!) stood in mid-passage, tracked by one of Deathstroke’s crimson magical eyes. Aerriors rushed hither and yon all around him, intent on their own vital business. No one just strolled on a warship, it seemed. No one was simply a passenger. Valerian Tarandahl took a deep breath and turned round to look at that glowing red eye on the bulkhead beside him.

  “Can you guide me to Captain Tormund?” he asked aloud. “I would speak with His Lordship on a matter of great importance, Deathstroke.”

  Something skittered about inside of Valerian’s skull by way of response; nonverbal, but full of intent. Next, the eye began moving off down-corridor, rippling over metal and wood like red-orange torchlight. Val followed, crossing three intersections and climbing five ladder-wells, then stepping out to the wind-swept main deck, just under a big, thrumming tank.

  Val found Lord Tormund standing outside the command cabin; head lowered, one hand on the bulkhead, surrounded by manna lines. He wasn’t alone, but (spotting Valerian) Tormund’s first officer quickly bowed and departed.

  His Lordship looked pale and strained, and it suddenly came to Val that he’d just had some deeply troubling news. Tormund's thoughts leaked a bit, revealing genuine anguish, showing… just flashes and snatches, but enough to surmise that the message had been about him… and that Deathstroke was going rogue, as sometimes happened to airships. As the Flying Cloud had famously done, many long years before.

  Tormund was captain and deeply attached to his mighty vessel. If “Dezi” went bad… its master would turn as well, or else be forced to destroy his beloved airship. Val hesitated for a moment. Then he came forward and bowed.

  “Lord Captain,” he said, causing the raven-haired elf to lift his head. “I would speak with you, Sir, if there is time.”

  Val was a prince, now, but early teachings in courtesy ran deep, and his nana’s lessons persisted. Looking desolate, the captain nodded.

  “I have time, Highness. Speak, if you will, and spare nothing.”

  Valerian nodded back, coming nearer, then casting Cone of Silence.

  “In privacy, Sir, I must return to the Falcon as quickly as possible. Something has happened in Karellon…”

  Tormund grunted morosely. He straightened then, pulling his hand away from the bulkhead, leaving a trace of heal-magic.

  “Aye. The fleet has been placed on alert,” agreed Tormund. “We are under suspicion ourselves, after fleeing the feast, and now told to watch for… certain fugitives… by order of the Grand Council.”

  Arvendahl’s blue eyes seemed to drill into Val. Then, he looked out to sea and the morning horizon, adding quietly,

  “You had best leave very quickly, Highness, before I am forced to detain you. Take my son and your cook and just go. I can turn my back while you open a gate or steal a life-pod, but the candle burns to its end, and this matter will soon be out of my hands.”

  Valerian took another deep breath. Deathstroke could hear them, he knew, and the dreadnought had thoughts of its own; was fiercely loyal to Tormund but growing daily more warped. It would log down all that they said and might have to testify, unless…

  “Sir, with your permission, I would descend to the ship’s lower decks for a look at its keel.”

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  Tormund’s brow furrowed. The left side of his face was lit up by the crimson glow of Deathstroke’s unblinking eye, making him look like a demon prince.

  “Dezi,” he said, “is unwell, at the moment. What would you do below decks, Your Highness?”

  “Just have a look around,” lied Valerian. “Sometimes, sky vine seedlings can riddle a hull unnoticed by even the ship. I might find and expel their rootlets, Sir, if any are present.”

  Lord Arvendahl’s head cocked to one side, as the captain listened to Deathstroke. His focus shifted to Val moments later, as he managed a brief, tired flicker of smile.

  “Very well. And… I am required to report back to the council by the end of the watch. You must be gone before I speak to them, Highness, for your own freedom and safety. I can always plead confusion about my orders, but not if you are still present.”

  Fair enough. Val inclined his blond head.

  “Understood, Lord Captain,” he said. “I shall be swift.”

  There was no other choice.

  Leaving Lord Tormund to his worries, Valerian next plunged back into the rumbling dreadnought. He wasn’t guided by Deathstroke, this time, but by his own magical senses. He recycled himself at each ladder-well, searching Shizilgastian’s grimoires for all that was known about sentient ships and their ailments. There was a lot to learn, but Valerian stuck to the basics; that each vessel was constructed around a keel formed of a living and sentient tree, cut down in the fey-wild or Blessed Isles. That the tree had to agree to be taken this way, exchanging growth in one place for adventure and travel. That they sometimes went bad, slaying their crew and their officers. Besides the Flying Cloud there was Maree, which no one had seen for long ages. Another sad, bloody tale.

  Val had a plan of sorts by the time he reached the keel hold, which ran the airship’s entire length. Deathstroke's vibrating drive shaft and gear system churned overhead, connecting two powerful Krestar engines to the perpetual motion machine, its wings and steering fans. Below stretched a long, black ash keel, marked with seven flickering control sigils. Val had to shoot down a free-hanging ladder and drop the last ten feet onto deeply lined bark.

  The sputtering sigils didn’t look healthy, but that wasn’t it. Not by itself. A symptom, Val figured, rather than cause. Recutting those signs would only put off the actual problem.

  Grunting, Val crouched down to place a hand on that still-living tree trunk. The red eye that signified Deathstroke’s attention drifted across the inside of the vessel’s hull, adding a sullen red glow to the flare of mage lights above. It came to rest about forty feet away, by the port wing motor, staring at Val.

  “You are infected,” he said to that lone, glaring eye. Meantime, using his spell hand, the elf traced a powerful command sigil onto creaking and flexing wood. “A spirit of air and darkness has planted its young here, draining life from your keel, Deathstroke. You cannot sense the dispersed creature. Nor can I, directly, but…”

  Valerian’s right hand drifted casually into a very near faerie pocket. The one that contained a shared peach and a shimmering, filigree spear. The elf's voice changed as he called out,

  “…but "Ozok" I name thee, offspring of chaos. As "Ozok" I summon thee!”

  At his shouted words, motes of darkness came streaming through Deathstroke’s keel to the glowing sigil. Each mote raised a crackling wake in the trunk like a serpent’s fin cutting grey water. Thousands of them sprang up, all converging at once on Valerian.

  They clashed together around the young elf and then swirled like a chittering black tornado. Began to form something misshapen and hideous, but Val didn’t wait to see what was rising to face him. Instead, he hauled out a shining silvery lance and leapt to his feet with another loud cry. Raising the weapon high, Val plunged it hard and fast through loathsome darkness and into the dreadnought’s infected keel. Thunk!

  “As Ozok, be slaughtered and banished,” growled the elf, pushing downward with all of his own strength and somebody else’s. Some winged and hovering spirit that loved him (and always had).

  The pinned, just-named embryo writhed at spearpoint, screaming silently here, but wild and loud in the magical ether. Next it burst all to tatters that curled and shriveled like ash. Some of them sought out Valerian. He’d been a creature of darkness himself, else-when, other-where, but not here and now. A reflexive shield spell drove them off, pushing all of those shriveling bits out of Deathstroke.

  Val waited one heartbeat… two… then he sat down, hard, feeling utterly drained. The spearpoint was still embedded in Deathstroke’s keel, but it hadn’t splintered or broken the wood. Just pushed it aside. Hand on the weapon’s silver-white shaft, Valerian slumped, letting himself relax.

  Deathstroke’s eye was staring harder than ever, creating a feeling of skittery ants in his head. Felt like a question. Val heaved a sigh, patting the ash-wood keel

  “I am not all that much of a mage,” he admitted, “but my master forced me to read every one of his stupid, drekking books. One grimoire per match, if I wanted to play, a scroll or birch-curl memorized for every team practice. Thanks to Shiz, I have a lot of material to fall back on. Something for just about any problem.”

  That skittery sensation tuned itself in slightly. Through a great deal of flickering static, Val heard/ felt:

  ‘…must…now…forced…arrest…ness.’

  Then power flowed into the elf from the healed ash-wood tree, replacing all that he’d spent freeing Deathstroke.

  “Aye, that,” sighed Valerian, rising once more. The spear discorporated, streaming back into its faerie pocket, where… just for a moment… Val’s groping hand brushed another’s. Where love and promise and hope for a future sparked at their touch. So very familiar. So very close, but not his. Not yet.

  Val drew his hand back out of that bonded faerie pocket.

  “I’m going,” he promised, levitating to reach the metal ladder, but flowing on up and past it rather than climbing its rungs to save time.

  “With your help, I can transport myself and Filno and Miri the rest of the way to Falcon. Gating magic is traceable, so I’ll have to work with your mana, quick and quiet. If you please, send the captain’s son and my apprentice to the weather deck. Tell them I’m on my way, and… if somehow your log skips all of this, I would be very grateful, Deathstroke.”

  He was going to need much more than luck, thought the young elf, too worried to plan beyond right here and drekking right now. He was going to need an industrial miracle.