Fall of Sky City (A Steampunk Fantasy Sci-Fi Adventure Novel) (Devices of War) (2 page)

Kenna and Kallie, who get a lot of dedications and will continue to do so, keep me young. Kenna is a teenager now, so she knows everything. She’s just not great at sharing her knowledge. She’d much rather keep it to herself. Kallie is just as blunt as I am and says what needs to be said, whether I like it or not. They are my life, my inspiration, and my reason for breathing. I love them so much and there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about them…a lot! I may not always think they’re the most fantastic kids the planet’s ever seen, but my love never dims. It just gets stronger.

Finally, I need to acknowledge my parents. There’s a lot of bad blood between us, a lot of anger, a lot of hurt. It helps that we’re finally building a new bridge, not trying to re-build the one we both blew to smithereens.
That
has helped more than you will ever know. Just remember, there will continue to be bad days. You’ll sometimes be cranky or be in a bad mood. I will do the same. It’s called being human. It’s not the end of the world. At least now, we’re having good days as well. Here’s to hoping there are more good days on our horizon.

PROLOGUE

Our
history books and stories all begin the same. The Ears of the Priests, the highest religious sect known, ruled our world with an iron fist. It was a bitter time for everyone.

Many of the families, tribes and other religious sects attempted to overtake the Ears, ruling in their stead. Some of these dynasties lasted mere hours, others days. Two lasted for nearly an entire turn, five long years under the forgiving reign of someone else.

As the Ears of the Priest regained power time and time again, they became more tyrannical, more demanding.

When the Arrows took over power, almost completely decimating the Priests, the world breathed easy. Finally, someone had succeeded in rousting the tyrannical giants once and for all.

Over the course of that fateful winter, one of the longest in recorded history spanning the course of four full years, it was decided the Arrows were no better than the Priests. To this day, no one speaks of the atrocities that occurred during that painful winter, but those that survived still shiver in fear.

Seven of the larger, more powerful tribes gathered in secret and united. At that same time, another religious sect grew in strength, feeding on the fears and unfulfilled faith of the surviving peoples. The Seven Great Families and the Hands of Tarot rose and destroyed the Arrows. No Arrow, old or young, was allowed to live.

Afterward, the Hands and the Families agreed that total rule was not what the world of Illona required. All we needed were leaders to guide, not hang judgment. The Hands drifted away on their fishing boats, protecting the souls of the tribes, and the Seven Great Families retired to the ocean, the land, and the sky, protecting those that needed it.

For many turns, this was enough. The Great Families came together in a single location, Pleron City, to share wealth and knowledge, to grow their technologies. The Librarium was developed and grew during this great time of discovery.

One day, the Hands took control of Pleron City, stealing all of the knowledge buried within the caves. It was winter, a time when even those residing on land had to relocate due to the encroaching ice shelves. With all the Great Families’ advancements, the Hands discarded their fishing vessels and igloos, and took to the sky in a great monstrosity they called Sky City, the floating fortress.

That wasn’t enough. The Hands took the forgiving faith of those who worshiped them, and destroyed all who did not, all who refused to relent or to obey. With the memory of the Priests so near, there were many who rejected the Hands of Tarot.

One queen rose above the rest, Nix, Queen of Wands. She ordered the destruction of the Seven Great Families. She succeeded in destroying the Shankaras, the Fursts, the Bahrains and the Leblancs, killing all elders and kidnapping all surviving children to be inducted into the fold of the Hands of Tarot.

The only Families that remain are the El’Asim, Ino and Umira. With so few to stand against the Hands, there is no front, no war.

We run. We hide.

We prepare.

CHAPTER 1

NO MARK, NO MEASURE

Morning
broke brightly as Kala, the great orange sun, rose high into our sky.

I clambered down from the crow’s nest and hopped onto the deck with catlike agility. Everyone worked strategically to secure the ship and bring her out of the thin clouds.

The
Yusrra Samma
was one of the sleekest, fastest airships the world had ever seen. She was our home, but she was also a handful. People shouted all around me, issuing and taking orders. The rigging crackled under the hands of her crew. The sails popped with the changing winds, and her sides heaved with the drop in altitude.

“Synn!”

I caught the rigging tossed to me and tied off the sail. My breath let loose a cloud in the freezing air through the grill of my face shield. All, including me, the captain’s son, had to do their part.

I watched the sail fill, the red flatworms attached to it fluttering like banners. The hydrogen-filled air jelly’s harness constricted, dropping us even lower. The air jelly whipped his electric tentacles around, clearly unhappy with being this close to the ground, and snatched one of the fluttering flatworms. The worm’s body changed from red to brilliant blue before disappearing beneath the hood of the jelly.

The El’Asim fleet dotted the horizon with over fifty ships in every direction. It was a beautiful sight to see.

However, the giant beast that dominated the scene was the monstrous jellyfish we approached. We call them
letharan,
and my mother’s people built a city within its tentacles.

Letharan
are capable of living above the ocean, but when winter hit and the oceans froze, this jellyfish had become trapped, his tentacles buried in ice at least a kilometre thick. The citizens had been displaced and were living on the mountainous wasteland of frozen waves far, far below.

There was still a very substantial portion of the beast’s body above the frozen waves, including his massive medusa, or hood. I’ve been around
letharan
my entire life, but Ino City still gave me a feeling of awe.

Each floor of the city was tied somehow to the thicker trunks of the jellyfish, stacked one on top of the other. Ino City sprawled in the protective arms of the largest creature on our planet.

I could never live in one of those. To be unable to see my sky through the towering creature. To be trapped to the ice every winter? I shivered at the thought, glancing up at the rigging and checking it for ice buildup. I chased a gold ring ice eater further up the line. It inched along the rope at a steady pace, the ice disappearing while it left a gold trail of glowing slime behind.

I preferred the freedom of the sky any day.

The ice cracked and popped as spring tiptoed into existence. The
lethara
was still waking from his frozen slumber, his jellyfish body barely moving with the warming breeze. His flesh took on a golden glow. Soon pinks and blues would join the gold, but that was still weeks away yet.

His shorter tentacles worked to bring small platforms from the ice to the cityscapes. As we drew closer, I could see people latched onto him, applying the warming creams with great care, love and respect.

Others milled around the city entangled almost magically within his tentacles. They chipped away the ice on the buildings and warmed the floors and streets with sand.

I, however, was looking for someone specific. I pulled the face shield down to hang around my neck so she could hear my shout. “Oki!” I waved wildly, the air nearly freezing my nose as I pulled my goggles to the top of my fur covered head for her to see my face. “Oki!”

A girl swathed in a seal leather jacket twisted in her rigging, scanning the ship. Her features were hidden beneath a leather and brass face guard, similar to our shields, but less advanced. She pulled it away and shouted. “Synn!” She said something else, but the wind caught her words and took them from me.

I pantomimed our landing.

She nodded, her eyes hidden behind deeply shaded goggles. She turned to the person on the other side of the trunk and clambered out of the rigging.

I couldn’t remove the grin from my face if I tried. I hadn’t seen my youngest sister in an entire turn, six years, and I missed her.

The Ino and El’Asim Families might be married, but that didn’t mean we were close. The only times my mother and father saw one another were at times of celebration and the breaking of the ice.

I hurried to my room. Stripping off my long coat and face shield, I changed into a fresh set of clothes and quickly tied my dark hair off at the base of my neck. Stepping in front of the mirror, I sighed.

I’d gained another few inches since the last time Mother had seen me. I was more of a man, and less of a boy. The red pants didn’t balloon around me anymore. My tall, black leather boots rose to the knee. A thick belt held my knife and static array pistol. I opted to remove my hat, but kept the goggles. They were shaded. With the coming season, the suns ruled the sky, constantly shining blindingly off the ice and snow.

I met my own blue, slightly slanted eyes in the mirror, and raised a single black brow. I wasn’t going to get any prettier.

I donned my half-coat, the collar of long black wolf hide riding along my chin. I stopped and turned back to the mirror. For a second, I almost looked fierce, almost like a man. I made a face at myself and left, my ears popping with the pressure change, the cracking of the ice almost deafening. We were nearly there.

Father was topside, standing tall and formidable on the quarterdeck.

Father’s spitfyre falcon stood proudly on his shoulder. Saqr’s wings were tucked in. His reptile-like, prehensile tail came out from his feathered flight tail and wrapped around Father’s shoulders while the finger claws at the apex of his wing curled in reflex.

This spring, I would have my chance to capture and train my own falcon as I proved myself a man capable of leading, first an airship, and then the Fleet. We would also work on making my ship. I was more than ready.

Father’s goggled eyes shifted in my direction, his main attention on his fleet. His face shield was stowed in the pouch on his belt. In the lower altitude, the bitter wind of winter was warmer. I followed his lead, stashing my shield in the pouch on my belt as well, but the goggles were staying. The sunlight stabbing its way back up from the mountainous waves of ice were painful.

I stood next to him. From there, I could see the whole ship. The new foremast, the veins of copper shining in the light, the gleaming deck, and all the men and women working the rigging. Falcons watched from the trestle trees of each mast, chirping to one another. Several climbed along the full sails, their claws and wings working to keep them close to the cloth. They were hunting the luminescent feather worms, a parasite that was deadly to the air jellies. These currents were filled with similar parasites, one more thing to watch for. Ino City hadn’t found a good location to wait out the winter.

Father turned and headed down the stairs to the main deck. “This is as far as she goes.”

An airship never touches water and most certainly never touches land.

I grinned and followed.

He waited for me on the loading platform. As soon as I leapt over the railing of our ship and onto the flat wood suspended in the air by ropes, we were headed down. The counter-weight rose beside us.

Saqr fluttered his wings and resettled closer to Father’s bearded neck.

Father made a point of studying the hull as we descended and I attempted to follow his lead. The blue feather stars fluttered along the hull, ensuring the
Yusrra Samma’s
integrity. I was eager to see my sister and really didn’t care too much about the feather stars. They were capable of taking care of themselves.

The cold of the ice barely had a chance to seep through my boots before a whirlwind of leather and arms attacked me with a screech that made my ears ring.