Maledictus Aether (13 page)

“
It i
s a location a
little west of the Rockies,” I inform him, and he nods, biting his
thumbnail as he looks at the coordinates. “About thirty klicks off,
if I am correct.”

“
This is
where Cephas hid his treasure?” He questions, and I point to the
sentence that precedes it.

“
He mentions here that it i
s ‘the safest place in the world, where none would think of
searching,’” I say, and his eyebrows shoot up. “According to his
account of the location, it is a forgotten wasteland in the sky
that no one is aware it even exists, but it does not say if it is a
Skyland or something else.”

“
Huh,” he muses, eyebrows shooting up slightly. “Well, west
of the Rockies is sketchy, uncharted ground – we’re in for quite a
ride, ‘cause who knows what’s out there waiting for us to bother
it? I hope the
Atlas
is built to last,
Kennedy.”

I laugh at his concern, making
the man scoff and roll his eyes at me, leaning back in his seat. I
do the same, hands clasped behind my head and grinning at him.

“
How about
you worry
about the crew, and I will make the ship my concern?” I suggest,
and with another sigh he nods, relenting. Leaning his head back on
the headrest, the man eyes me carefully.

“
Alright
then, what’s in the box over there?” He asks, nodding his head to a
small wooden box on the desk overlooking the view of the sky. I
frown, just now noticing it sitting there – he notices this, and
laughs all the more. “You had no idea it even was there, did
you?”

“
Not really,”
I admit to the older man, pushing myself to my feet as I close the
journal. He follows me as I make my way over to the harmless little
box, hovering nearby as I lift the hinged lid and peer
inside.

A slip of parchment paper
greets me, and I carefully take it from the box, reading it
aloud.

“‘
Kennedy. At first I wanted to
give this to you myself, but I am sorry to say that
I
did
talk myself out of it. Regardless of that, I
want you to have this as a gift.’”

I look to the box, noticing a
silver amulet shining back at me from the red velvet cushion, and I
gingerly pick it up and hold it to the light. It winks at me, the
design of a compass etched onto the silver.

“‘
It i
s the symbol for
Ylos, and your father gave it to me the last time I saw him, before
he left on the trip to London that doomed him to his fate. To guard
you on your travels and to offer his assistance when you seek your
path,’” I continue, and hold it out so that Lucian can get a good
look at it. His eyebrows shoot up. “‘I wish you the best of luck,
my nephew, and that you return victorious. Best regards, Alonzo
Watkins.’”

I do a double take, eyes
bugging wide as I look to the bottom of the letter, with its fresh
ink not a week old.

By the way, you chose well for
your Quarter Master – he is a trustworthy lad. A bit different, but
well-intentioned. I believe you will both get along quite well.

I place the letter down on the
desk, holding the amulet up to the light and regarding it.

“
I canno
t begin to
even imagine how hard it must have been for him to have to do that
to me, then,” I muse, more to myself than Lucian, but the man has
better ears than I give him credit for. He looks at me curiously,
so I clarify. “Captain Davis had to whip me nineteen times for my
little stunt I told you about... to know that, all this time, he is
my uncle but never told me – well, I was not expecting
that.”

The elder man watches me as I
tie the silver chain around my neck, the amulet sitting comfortably
on my collarbones, almost familiar. He snaps out of it, looking
briefly to the letter before crossing his arms and looking at me
more fully.

“
So, here’s a
question for you, Kennedy,” he begins, and I look at him, turning
my eyes away from the vast expanse of sky that stretches beneath
us, revealed through the window. “Does Angelo know which direction
we’re even supposed to be going in?”

I make a face, and the elder
man sighs heavily, tipping his head up and groaning softly to the
ceiling about three feet above our heads.

“
You still
have a few things to learn, I see,” he muses, laughing lightly as
he shakes his head. Still chuckling, the man drapes his left arm
over my shoulders, steering us towards the door. “That’s alright;
what you don’t know, you’ll learn quickly. I’ll see so
that.”

Pausing in my strides and
forcing Lucian to do likewise, I look into his near-white eyes.

“
I a
m honestly
surprised,” I admit, and here he arches an eyebrow at me, cocking
his head slightly to the side. Shrugging a shoulder, I continue. “I
honestly did not expect you to be openly friendly towards me –
especially seeing as how I am younger than you, I expected you to
be a lot colder.”

He waits patiently until I’m
done, before grinning at me and confusing me even further.

“
Are you
happy about your miscalculations?” He inquires, and after a moment
I nod. “Good. Now what say you we get this show on the road,
Captain?”

This time, I lead the way and
he gladly follows.

• VIII
  –
  Touching the Sky
  

There i
s nothing
quite like standing twenty thousand feet above the earth, the sky
rolling past around you – it is something that is worth more than
all the riches in the world. The scent of ozone all around as you
breathe in, the rumble of an engine beneath your feet and the wind
tugging at your clothes and skin, teasing you with the false
promise of flight...

Yeah, it i
s really
something.

I lean over the rail a little, watching the clouds pass
beneath us as we cross over the Atlantic, into uncharted skies. Far
below, barely a sliver beneath the forming white clouds, the ocean
stretches beneath us, a canvas of deep blue that reflects the sky.
My hands grip the iron bar as I do so, digg
ing a little into my stomach. I have been watching the
sky pass around us for the last few minutes, having left Angelo to
his own devices – I decided to look around, tour the ship a little
and talk a bit with the other crewmembers.

We ha
ve been flying
for about a week and a half now, after having left Aeon’s base over
the Indian Ocean and stopping by Clockwork for some supplies – the
Skyland residing a few thousand feet over the Mediterranean. I have
gotten the chance to talk to more than a dozen crewmembers, and
they have all been much unlike what I had been
expecting.

It i
s nice to be
wrong sometimes.

“
I hear
falling a few thousand feet is a painful way to die, you know.” The
voice is good-natured, chuckling lightly as its owner comes to
stand beside me. I roll my eyes, shaking my head at Lucian’s words
and deciding to not rise to the bait this time. In response to my
silence, he crouches so that he can rest his chin on his arms
folded over the railing. “You’re a very strange man – you know
that, right?”

“
So I ha
ve been told,”
I reply, chancing a glance at the elder man. He is watching me with
a smug smirk and an arched brow, a silent question in his gaze.
“You have told me a handful of times already, and I doubt you will
be stopping anytime soon.”

He barks a laugh, shaking his
head in response to my statement, and with a scoff I look back to
the sky around us.

“
What is strange about what I a
m doing?” I question, and he pushes himself back
upright, leaning back while gripping the guardrail.

“
Well, you
seem just about ready to jump off into the sky – and I doubt you
can fly.”

Rolling my eyes, I feel claws
digging into the fabric of my clothes as they scuttle up my person,
the creature pulling itself onto my right shoulder and settling
there. I look to Orin a moment, deciding against asking about his
previous whereabouts.

“
Whoa, look at that, Kennedy!” Lucian pulls on the fabric of
my shirt, g
esturing to the
dark cloud that has gathered beneath us. I lean over the railing,
Orin’s tail wrapping around my arm for support as I do so, and
watch the lightning scuttle through the black mass, arcing through
the dark collection of water vapour.

Its colo
urs range
from blinding white to a vivid blue, splintering away from the
cloud at times – finger-like tendrils reaching for its brethren as
they gather, coiling and forming a storm cloud the seas are famous
for. I whistle lowly, watching shadows dance in the clouds with
every strike of lightning.

One of those shadows darts out
from the collection of clouds and disappears into another dark
cloud nearby. My awe is short-lived, leaning in for a closer look –
as if the few thousand feet will suddenly become clear – to see the
shadow dart out towards the nearest cloud again, this one higher
up.

“
What i
s that?” I
question, liking the looks of it less and less as it climbs higher
through the relative safety of the clouds. Lucian’s also sobered,
watching it with a frown.

“
Nothing
good,” he mutters, worrying his lower lip. “Bear in mind, we’ve
crossed to the skies no one travels – there’s a good reason people
never come through here.”

“
Do no
t remind me,” I
groan, making the man chuckle lightly. The shadow-like creature
shoots its way up, bypassing the airship and missing it by about an
arm’s length. I swear something fierce, falling back onto the
platform in a fashion that is imitated by my companion. Craning my
neck, I watch the animal as its rippling form shoots up above our
heads, arcing back around in a circle as it backtracks.

I canno
t really get a
grip on its appearance, Orin at my shoulder hissing under his
breath, taught as a bowstring, but I can see its skin shifting in
colour, blues, whites and greys dancing across its body. We both
scramble back as the creature shoots back down, swearing again when
it bellows.

“
Lucian, get up to the helm and warn them,” I order, pushing
myself back to my feet and handing him my lizard
. The creature does not protest, scrambling into
the Quarter Master’s arms – an action quite unlike him.

“
Please tell
me you’re not about to do something stupid,” he pleas, and I cast
him a grin, placing a hand on my chest in mock surprise.

“
I would
never
!” I gasp, and
the man sighs in response, letting my lizard cling onto his
shoulder.

“
That’s a
yes
, then,” he
mutters, shaking his head. “Just don’t get killed,
alright?”

I salute the man, dismissing
him with the gesture, to then pull my goggles over my eyes and
running over to the guardrail.

“
Arm the ship
and steady port and starboard!” I shout at him over my shoulder,
the wind whining in my ears as it picks up. Luckily, the fabric of
my clothes keeps the worst of it from chilling my skin. “Slow her
down and cut engines three and four!”

“
Are you
serious?” He shouts, his eyes bugging wide. He, too, has pulled on
his goggles so he can keep his eyes on me from the other end of the
walkway. “Kennedy, we’ll drop five feet!”

“
Just do as I say!” I snap, my eyes rooted to the creature
darting in and out of the clouds, getting closer and closer. It
cries out again, a sound the bone-chilling mixture of a hiss and a
growl. It roots itself in the marrow of my bones and drags itself
out with hooked talons, bringing actual
pain
with
it.

I can make it out more clearly now that the wind isn’t
blowing into my eyes. The glass offers muted shades of brown around
me, giving no indication to colo
ur, but otherwise, I can make out its shape relatively
well.

This creature moves through the air the way a fish
navigates through the sea, although vertically rather than
horizontally. Its face is startlingly similar to a snake’s, with
fangs that are the size of my hand and a tongue the
colo
ur of the night. I cannot
make out the colour of its eyes, but its scaled body is almost the
size of my ship, perhaps a bit shorter, and it has a hood on either
side of its body that travels from its head to its tail.

This hood expands and contracts the way lungs would, and
its back seems to be covered with small spikes that appear in a
sort of pattern. Of cours
e,
it has no feet, but it does not mean that the creature does not
invoke some sort of fear.

It sails back up, heading for the ship as it opens up its
mouth and shrieks again, the sound making the very air vibrate. I
grip the guardrail as I hear Lucian depart to give out the orders
I’ve issued, so I step back around ten paces and wait with my back
to the
Aether stretching over
the hull of my ship.

The serpent shoots up again,
leaving behind the scent of helium and various other gases that are
highly flammable. I watch it turn around again, wondering to myself
exactly what makes this beast so dangerous, and push myself off the
hull as it doubles back.