Sky Song: Overture (2 page)

“Blue Dusk.” Baker spit over the rail. “If you ever see that knight again, I’ll gladly help you gut him.”

“I don’t remember his face. The only thing I remember was his sword. It was curved steel with tear-shaped sapphires on the hilt.”

“All these years later, the blade could have been pawned or passed down.”

“No matter. I’ll kill any man who holds that sword.”

My resolve was brutal, for life without parents had not been easy. After running away from the orphanage, I had taken an apprenticeship at a pawnshop where I learned to open locks. Later I made my living as a burglar, and then progressed to counterfeiter, hired goon and eventually mercenary. I had boarded Dirk’s ship when I heard they often intercepted the supply chain of the Blue Dusk, hoping someday I might cross paths with the Cerulean Knight and plunge my steel into his heart. Fantasies of vengeance carried me through my life of struggle. I survived for the sole purpose of killing that man, even if deep down, I knew I would never find him again. What I truly wanted was to damage the Blue Dusk, for it was their unchecked tyranny that orphaned children every day.

I watched the fields and forests below us. Elsace was a massive country composed of forty-seven provinces. Southwest of the capital was my homeland the valley of Shale. Farther south were the Wastes, a vast expanse of sand inhabited and controlled by anarchist gangs that only traded with pirates. Six other countries touched our borders and several of our crew came from those exotic lands, most commonly Leridia or Nazar. Leridian culture was more similar to ours than Nazari, as Leridia and Elsace had waged war for over a hundred years, appropriating cognates into each other’s languages, borrowing superstitions, as well as stealing and renaming each other’s gods. The three Nazari on board could communicate with the rest of us, but they formed their own insular group and kept to themselves.

Our air routes took us all over the different regions of Elsace. I had waded into the Poison Sea in Amaranthia, gathered sand of the Wastes into bottles and nearly frozen to death in the harrowing mountain ranges of Leffen, but of all the experiences a human being might have in his short life, there was none so grand as seeing the world from an airship’s carriage. At twilight the clouds on the horizon could spread like ink on blue vellum. Or in the day they could gather into great masses that took on an array of animal shapes.

Soaring at this altitude, I saw Elsace as something so much cleaner. Lakes turned to puddles, cities into toys. The squalor of the slums went invisible and everything smelled fresh like rain. It was one of the reasons I loved the Wastrel. I felt so far away from all that misery down below.

II. A Crying Shame

I
was harnessed to the back of the gondola, frozen cold from the wind chill of the gray and dismal morning. I kept switching my spanner between hands as I balled them in and out of fists to rouse my circulation. Fitz was guiding me through a routine engine inspection. The engines were about the only things on the ship maintained at a high standard. Our balloon had the face of a much beloved rag doll, covered in gray stitched patches with sloppy weatherproofing painted across the envelope. Many steel cables between balloon and gondola were frayed and being reinforced by rappelling rope. Our engines held our pride. They were high-speed cloud-munching machines.

“Everything is handy dandy,” said Fitz, wiping grease off his hands.

“Good,” I said through chattering teeth.

“Wind making ice blocks of your bollocks?” Fitz brayed, juggling his spanner with one hand. His flight specs, a steel plate with horizontal slits running across the eyes, gave him the appearance of a deranged cyclops. He was wiry like me, and made a good mate for arm wrestling because he could make anybody look good. Nobody messed with him though, for three reasons: the first, that he was also friends with Baker, the second, that he was our best mechanic and the third, and most crucial, that he could muster the most horrid shriek. The bloke was off his rocker. I personally did my best not to excite him. “I’d bet you miss your fiddle right about now,” he said.

“Fiddle can wait,” I stuttered, exhaling hot breath over my exposed fingertips. “Already mastered that. Time to learn something new.”

“Then learn to invest in a pair of thermal trousers, boy.” He smacked my posterior and used his pulley to climb back on board.

Equipment was a regular expense. The deck being open to the elements meant all of us had to acquire appropriate gear: goggles, flight caps and gloves. My own cap was fashioned of cotton twill. It had rain guard flaps that hung about each side of my face. Flight shirts had to be both utilitarian and elegant. The cuffs were fitted to the forearm, but the sleeves hung loose for better mobility. Laces up the front of the tunic could be drawn tight to the throat or given slack down to the navel, as the weather warranted. We kept three shirts, a black one for labor, a white one for sleeping and a red one for raiding. When it came to flight jackets, crewmen owned only one made of wool-lined leather. Trousers varied, depending on whether a man preferred agility to insulation.

Upon returning to deck, Fitz and I discovered our captain pacing, his brow clenched in frustration. With each shift in his walk, his hip scarf whipped about like a tail.

“Clikk!” he shouted, pointing at me. “There you are. I need to see you.” I blinked in disbelief, glancing around deck to see if there was another man named Clikk. When there wasn’t, I stepped forwards and followed my captain into his chambers. He shut the door behind me, locked it and then circled me in a slow, predatory fashion, sizing me up.

“Yes. It’s just as I thought.”

“Captain?” I said.

Dirk took a seat on a luggage trunk, resting his elbows on his knees. “Oh, Clikk, poor, sweet Clikk. There is something that I’ve known about you from the start, but I put up with it because you can manage a sword and you fixed my puzzle wheel. It is time we addressed it.”

“Addressed what?” I asked.

“Don’t play daft!” he cried. “I know you’re a woman.”

“Captain, I—”

“We have a few lads on board who are slight of figure and might even pass for a port in a storm, but if you take off that flight cap, we both know I’ll see it plain as day! You’re more than just a pretty lad with a rasp in his throat. You actually make a fine woman.” My stomach churned. He ripped off my cap, spilling my shorn blonde hair.

My face got hot with shame. “I’ll leave the ship at the next port.”

“You will not. I need your help,” he said, meandering towards his large four-post bed cloaked in heavy curtains. “This is my sister Molly,” he said and pulled back the brocade, revealing a red-haired thirteen-year-old girl. Her eyes were damp with tears and her mouth trembled. She clutched the gathered skirt of her striped gown, bunching the black ruffled edge under her nails.

“Pleased to meet you,” the doll-like child sobbed.

“I need you to make her stop crying so she can marry the emperor’s heir,” said Dirk. “You, being a woman, can surely understand such issues that plague the fairer sex.”

I nodded in spite of being completely perplexed and a little insulted. Dirk went out of the room and closed the door, leaving me with the weeping child.

“Err,” I started, sitting down beside her on the bed. “Hello there. I’m Clikk.”

The girl said nothing, but cried and cried as if her favorite mutt had just now perished beneath a carriage wheel.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

“N-n-nothing!”

“If there’s nothing wrong then why are you crying?”

“I don’t know!”

I tried imagining what made girls cry. I hadn’t wept since beggars cracked my lip with a pewter mug. There were a few tavern songs I’d seen bring a tear to the bar wench’s eye, and I tried to remember what they were about.

“Do you not want to marry the emperor’s son?” I asked.

“I should love to marry a prince.” She sniffled. “It is to be a wedding in the clouds on his ship the Crescendo. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed.”

Tears dribbled down her cheeks. She smothered herself with the captain’s pillow, bawling into it like a dying animal. It bewildered me to see a girl in such a fit without anything the matter. I went and banged on the door.

Dirk opened it a crack, peeked in and hissed, “What are you doing? She’s still crying!”

“I don’t know what to do!”

“You’re a woman! Figure it out!” He shut me in and turned the lock.

“Bugger!” I kicked the door. “Thinks he can lock me up.” I grumbled a string of filthy words that didn’t make sense in a sequence. If I went back out there as a failure, Captain Dirk would let everybody know Clikk was a woman. The men would never treat me the same again.

Baker would feel so betrayed. He’d pissed in front of me countless times and had even put faith in me to look at his little pirate whenever he had anything resembling a rash after whoring. Worse yet, I’d heard all his disgusting jokes about wankers and shite and I’d actually laughed. I’d laughed because they were hilarious, but if he knew he was speaking to a woman like that, he’d never have the nerve to face me again.

Too much was at risk. I went back to the girl, trying to think what helped me the night I was mugged. Beaten and robbed of my coin, I had curled up in the darkness, taking shelter beneath a broken cart as it began to rain. I had wept and pled with the gods to send me to my mother in heaven.

Then it struck me. This girl was missing the maternal love her sod of a brother couldn’t convey. Whenever I felt sad, my own mother would cradle me in her arms and sing an old song, a song passed down through the generations. I hummed the melody to Molly, surprised I remembered it. The girl rolled over, her teary eyes blinking themselves dry.

“What is that song?” she asked.

“I don’t know the name,” I said. “I’m sorry for my voice. I had an accident.”

“I don’t mind. Please, go on. It lifts my sorrows.”

I continued to hum, hearing my mother’s voice in my head as I did. The song conjured a feeling inside me that had been numbed for years. It was a yearning for something I knew I could never have again, and while the melody eased this child’s pain, it nearly brought on tears of my own. I heard the lock in the cabin door turn over. Captain Dirk re-entered.

“You made her see reason!” he cheered. “Oh, Molly. Whatever was the matter?”

“I swear it was nothing, brother,” she said. “It was the strangest thing. The tears came upon me like a fever.”

“Thank you, Clikk!” Dirk cried, kissing both my cheeks. “The wedding is the day after next and you’ve saved us.”

“Happy to help,” I said. “And I hope I may remain on the Wastrel.”

“Yes, of course!” Dirk’s celebration was a bit premature; once again, little Molly began to cry. “Oh no no no no! What’s wrong now?”

“I… can’t… stop…” She had to force the words out as she choked on her sobs.

“Clikk! Do something!”

“Shhh,” I hushed her and began to hum again. The tears vanished.

“Don’t you see?” the girl said, exhausted. “The song helps me think clearly.”

“Well then by all means, keep humming it, Clikk!”

I did as my captain asked, but I couldn’t very well do this for the rest of the girl’s natural life, so I halted to present my theory on what was going on. “This has to be the witch’s curse.”

Molly began to weep yet again. Dirk bit his lip and scratched his head, pacing about the chamber.

“Damn. Damn. Damn,” he kept saying. Molly sniveled helplessly. “Ugh! Clikk!” Dirk snarled. “Would you please keep humming while I think?”

“Yes, sir! Hmm-hmm-hmm,” I continued.

“Only stop humming to answer me. What is that song?”

“I don’t know the name! Hmm-hmm.”

“Do you know any of the words?”

“No!”

Molly tried humming it for herself and I stopped to see if she could keep up the tune. She could not, and collapsed back into her crying fit.

Dirk rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. “All right, you’ll just have to be singing that song when we board the emperor’s ship, as well as throughout the wedding ceremony.”

“Captain. My voice is rubbish, but I do play fiddle. I could be playing the tune softly so it would be more pleasing to the ear.”

“Yes! Of course!” he exclaimed, whacking me on the back. I almost fell forwards. “You must practice the song.”

“Yes, Captain,” I said, bowing my head.

“Miss Clikk?” said Molly, sniffling. “Could you perhaps sing to me just a bit more? It is so hard for me to fall asleep.”

“I suppose,” I said, and began humming the melody from the beginning.

The girl lay on her side and closed her eyes. The cushion beneath her head was damp, so I turned it over and fluffed it for her. I pulled the fleece over her shoulder. This was a strange role for me, as I had never taken care of anyone but myself. My only example of nurture came from memories as distant as the stars.

Dirk watched in silence, eyes unfocused, arms folded. As much as he pretended to have a callous heart, deep down lurked some familial compassion for the girl. Big brothers pretend not to care about their younger siblings, and pirates are the most adept men in the world at hiding their sentiments, but I could see the relief in his eyes as Molly drifted off to sleep.