Skykeep (23 page)

“Drop him,” Warden Linn ordered.

“If I drop him, he’ll kill—” Nita began to
object, but with a distant clap of gunfire and a sudden limpness
from her attacker, it became clear that the order was not meant for
her.

She released her grip, and both knife and
wielder fell to the ground, the latter featuring a large and
gruesome reminder of the power and skill of the sharpshooters. Nita
placed her hands behind her back without being asked and was
quickly secured.

“What’s this?” muttered the guard.

Nita heard a heart-stopping jingle of
delicate chain. The scuffle with Nils had once again dislodged the
watch chain, and the guard seized it and pulled the watch free. He
held it up to the warden.

While the rest of the workers were secured,
and Lil surreptitiously scuffed out the marks she’d created, the
warden approached and took the watch. He held it in his hand and
looked first to Lil, then to Nita.

“Take them to the infirmary on level five.
Return the prisoners to their cells. Work will resume tomorrow
night, and I will personally select the crew,” the warden
instructed. “I have a number of questions, and before the sun rises
I mean to have the answers.”

#

Nita bit her lip and winced in pain as one of
the guards sewed up the gash Lars had opened on her side. Now that
the intensity of the moment was past, it was clear just how deep it
really was. The guard, who evidently was also the medic for the
facility, had applied some sort of numbing agent to the wound
before stitching, but perhaps by design it had not been nearly a
sufficient dosage.

They were on level five now, which was in the
center of the facility and thus half-immersed in the fug. It gave
the air a choking, barely breathable quality, something that was
doubly trying for Nita as she tried to hold still for
treatment.

“At least give her one of those breathing
things until you’re done,” Lil said.

“Breathers are given only with the warden’s
permission or in life or death situations,” the guard said
coldly.

“And additionally,” came the warden’s voice
from the doorway, “the breathers in this facility will not permit
you to speak, and you both have a great deal to answer for.” He
addressed the guard. “When you are through, bandage the inmate and
stand guard at the door.”

“Yes, Warden.”

It took two more pulls of the needle to
finish closing the wound. Then came a swab of ointment and a
bandage wrapped around her midriff. When the guard was through and
in place by the door, the warden revealed the watch.

“This, I presume, is the ‘destroyed’ watch
for which Assistant Warden Blanc requisitioned a replacement.”

“It is,” Nita said, stifling a cough that
sent a bolt of pain through her side.

“Why did he believe it was destroyed?” the
warden asked.

“Because your supervisor is a fool. But I’ll
wager you already knew that,” Lil said.

The warden looked to her impassively, then
back to Nita.

“We stole it and threw something over the
side to make him think the watch was gone,” Nita said.

“Why did you steal the watch?”

“It’s a nice watch. I never had a watch
before,” Lil said.

“If you won’t speak to me honestly, I see
very little reason to allow you to speak at all. Guard, take Miss
Cooper down to level six. It is deeper in the fug, but she should
be able to survive there until Miss Graus has answered my
questions, provided she answers quickly.”

“Don’t tell him nothing, Nita,” Lil growled
as the guard took her by the arms and guided her out the door.

Nita watched uncertainly as the guard dragged
her friend away, then turned back to the warden. It was truly
unnerving how completely calm his expression was. There seemed to
be no malice behind this action, despite the suffering it was
calculated to cause. It was all simply part of a procedure to him,
a way to get what was required to do his job properly.

“Speak,” he said.

“When you put Lil in isolation, the light is
blocked for a reason, isn’t it? If the isolation was meant to
punish fug folk like you, then it would let the light through to
torture you during the day, but you block the light… It’s because
without light there’s no telling how long one has been inside,
isn’t it? A day is as good as a week, because it feels that way.”
She gave a hollow, painful cough.

“The purpose of this discussion is for you to
answer my questions. Not the other way around.”

“We stole the watch because we both knew that
Lil would be locked up again, and if she had some way to tell the
time, she would handle the isolation better.”

The warden measured her with his eyes. “And
if I ask your friend, she will say the same?”

“Of course not,” Nita said. “She’d rather
both of us die than give you people a straight answer. She’s lost a
lot more to the fug and its people than I have.”

The warden took a breath. “I have attempted
to show you and your crewmate consideration. I knew that survival
for you would be difficult, and to perform my task of extracting
information from you, it was in my best interest that we maintain a
relationship of respect. Until this moment, I’ve felt that decision
was a sound one. You were not entirely forthcoming, and I suspect
you were not entirely honest, but unlike your friend, you at least
didn’t show contempt for my intelligence. I no longer feel this is
the case. The watch went missing immediately prior to Miss Cooper’s
most recent stay in isolation. She was searched before being placed
inside. She did not have the watch. Your explanation does not hold
to scrutiny. Listen closely, Miss Graus.”

He stopped speaking, but a moment later Nita
knew what she was to be listening for. Distantly she could hear the
agonized coughing of her crewmate. It was a long, painful, ragged
sound. There was little sign that she was able to get a single
breath of air without releasing it again in a fit of hacking.

“It is possible I overestimated the quality
of the air on level six.”

Nita tried to remain strong, but each burst
of the horrid noise cut into her.

“I was forced to order the death of one of my
inmates today. I do not regret it. He had a knife and he was
threatening the life of another inmate. The question of how he and
his brother secured the knife is one that shall be investigated
tirelessly. Nils will be put in the ground, and Lars will for many
weeks wish that he had been. His punishment begins in just a few
hours with the first of several dozen day-long stays in isolation.
It is my duty to keep you all alive and as healthy as I can so that
your incarceration will be a long one. But I can and will end a
life if it serves this purpose. If you want Lil to survive the
night, speak. And if it is a lie, make it an excellent one, because
if I don’t believe you, Lil will stay on level six until
morning.”

He gazed into her eyes. At the sound of Lil’s
distant coughing, Nita shut them and shook.

“We were trying to find out where we are,”
she said in defeat. “A watch, the night sky, and a sailor is all it
takes to find out that sort of thing. So we stole the watch and
manipulated the supervisor into putting us on the repair
detail.”

“And did you succeed?” the warden asked. “Do
you know where we are?”

“No. The Ebonwhites attacked before Lil could
say anything about it.”

“And you wanted to know where you are so that
you could escape?”

“Yes.”

“How did you plan to escape?”

“We didn’t know yet, but we knew this was the
first piece.”

Linn considered her words. The air shook with
Lil’s coughing.

“You will be separated. Each of you will be
kept in separate cells on level four. You will remain separate
until further notice, and you will be permitted yard time on
alternating days. I do not take this breach lightly. The isolation
cell is going to be getting a great deal of use in the days ahead.
You, Miss Cooper, and the surviving Ebonwhite will be taking turns
in it until I decide that you’ve been made to properly regret your
actions. Guards! Take Miss Graus to the northeast cell block on
level four. Cell one with the window. When she is secured, take
Miss Cooper to cell three of the same block.”

A guard entered, and Nita was manhandled out
into the hallway. The rough treatment made her side ache terribly,
but right now nothing mattered to her but the terrible sound of
Lil’s suffering. She could still hear it even as she was brought up
the stairs to the next level, where the air was marginally more
tolerable but a haze of purple still hung in the stinking
atmosphere. Her cell was identical to the one she’d shared with Lil
with the exception of the presence of a window, and it was clear
that it was not there for her benefit or comfort. The glass was
stained with the purple film that seemed to accumulate on every
surface that spent any time in the fug, and the same discoloration
marred the wood and bars around the edge. The window leaked
terribly, which meant that each breath of wind gave her a fresh
dose of fug.

The terrible sound of Lil’s coughing lingered
for a few minutes, then slowly began to draw nearer. When the
guards brought her to the floor, they didn’t even do them the
kindness of walking Lil past Nita’s cell, instead bringing her via
a different stairwell and locking her away with a cell between
them.

It was nearly five minutes before Lil seemed
able to breathe again without pain.

“Lil! Are you okay?” Nita called out.

“Quiet!” ordered a guard stationed between
the two cells.

“What did you tell these monsters?” Lil
wheezed.

“I told them everything,” Nita said.

“
Why?!
” Lil cried.

“You will shut your mouths, or one of you is
going back to level six,” the guard threatened.

Both women quickly dropped to silence. Nita
climbed onto the top bunk, where the air was marginally clearer,
and began to tap on the wall, forming a slow, deliberate message in
inspector code.

I told them. It saved you, she tapped.

There was a long moment as each prisoner
waited to see if there was any reaction from the guard, but there
was none.

It was a bad idea. Dead was a better trade,
Lil tapped back.

You knew where we were,
Nita tapped
out, a bit limited by the past tense nature of the code.

I didn’t. Needed more time. Needed charts. I
got close. Knew almost. Not exact.

Nita thought for a moment. You told me what
you knew. You and I worked it out.

For nearly three hours the two exchanged
slow, stilted messages, stopping only briefly whenever the guards
took notice. A list of things they knew and things they didn’t were
traced out. They couldn’t have been unconscious for much more than
a half a day at best while being brought to Skykeep, but that
didn’t narrow things down much considering how fast the fugger
vessels could be. They knew they hadn’t seen any airships at all
during yard time. That meant that they were off any standard trade
routes, which stood to reason since if they were near a trade
route, then the prison would have been spotted. They knew they
weren’t near the center of the continent since the fug was too
thick here to be that far inland. Every scrap of information was
considered, from the lack of mountain peaks to the type of food
they were served.

Piece by piece they collected the clues
and—coupled with what little precision they could wring out of
Lil’s calculations—they reasoned out a set of coordinates that was
probably within about a hundred miles of being accurate. That, at
least, should hopefully be enough to get a rescue party within
visual range. Now all that was left was finding a way to tell the
crew. And if what the warden said was true, that much would take
care of itself.

#

Sure enough, the warden was as good as his
word. A day and a half after their midnight meeting, Nita was
brought into the comparatively fresh air of the surface.

“Did your friend give you the rundown?” asked
the guard.

“She wasn’t terribly talkative after her
times in the box,” Nita said as she stepped up to the crate.

They opened the front, releasing a scent that
was best left undescribed.

“You’re here until tomorrow. You get no food.
There’s an empty bucket in there now. I think you know what it’s
for. Every now and then we’ll lower you down and swap the bucket
for one full of water. Do with it what you will. Now get in,” the
guard said.

He forced her head down, shoved her inside
the box, and slammed it shut. Once the crate was sealed, it was
utterly black inside. There wasn’t nearly enough room to stand. In
fact, even sitting left her head almost touching the roof.
Realizing it was designed as a punishment for the tall, thin fug
folk made her wonder just how uncomfortable it must have been for
them. They’d practically have to curl up.

They hoisted it in the air, and she very
quickly learned just how much worse things could get for her.
Nita’s first few hours on the
Wind Breaker
weren’t her
proudest moments. The motion of an airship took some getting used
to, and until she did there was the matter of keeping the contents
of her stomach where they belonged, which wasn’t always a winning
battle. She’d since become quite accustomed to it, but the instant
the crate left the deck she knew she was in for a tough time. Every
little motion of the fairly steady floating prison was amplified
into a ponderous swing, and somehow having no view of the outside
made it worse. For now the lack of meals would be a blessing
because even the thought of food was more than she could
handle.

Nita tried to keep herself calm, and her
stomach settled with very slow, deliberate breathing, counting to
five as she breathed in and counting to ten as she breathed out.
Her sister, who had grappled with stage fright early in her
performance career, swore by it as a method to focus the mind and
steady the heart.