CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Aelsling fared through the sky. Drekki watched the repaired endrin with a cautious eye. No fault could be detected upon the instruments.
‘Good job, Bokko. I couldn’t have done better myself,’ said Drekki, and he meant it too, for once. The endrinrigger bowed modestly at this praise.
The metalith fell behind, revealing itself to be both the biggest fragment of land in the Dead Air, and the farthest out; a wreck-strewn shore on the cusp of a deadly sea. A hundred raadfathoms below the keel, Barak-Minoz waited in the predawn dimness, surrounded by its swarm of floating rocks. Banks of freezing mist bellied up from deeper in the airs, making Minoz and its attendants appear as curios set out on a bed of wool for inspection. Higher up, where the Aelsling was, the air was of crystal clarity, and the vault of the sky above a pale vision of the day to come. The last shreds of night had the crew in their grip, shadows thick, and all was blue and indistinct. They were an audience to the lost port, the lights dimmed before the performance, Minoz waiting on its fluffy stage of clouds.
Hysh burst up through the fog, shining brightly as an aetherlamp. Its rays swept over Minoz, bringing out flashes from metal, glass and ice. The sky turned a painful blue. The fog became a blinding sea.
Narrowing their eyes against the glare, the duardin hunted awhile for a safe place to stop and talk with their guide. Drekki had no desire for further encounters with the local wildlife.
It was Ramarius who chose where to land in the end, descending upon a small floating rock, where he waited for the Aelsling to moor up. Drekki walked stiffly down the gangplank to speak with him. Uzki came with him, carrying a small strongbox.
‘Something pains you, Drekki Flynt?’ the drake asked, as the captain limped up to their meeting.
‘I’ll live,’ said Drekki. ‘I’ll be running endrin-smooth soon enough. We duardin are tough.’
‘For such little things, you are,’ Ramarius agreed. ‘A little hard to chew. Is friend Drekki the toughest of them all? Shall we see?’ He flashed long teeth.
‘Very amusing.’ Drekki smiled weakly.
Ramarius looked out over the vista of port, cloud and snowy islands. It would have appeared picturesque, were it not for the teeming wrecks and debris fouling the metaliths. ‘A small price. Drekki Flynt has success! This is the Dead Air. This is where you wanted to be.’
‘You could have said yesterday, you big lizard,’ said Drekki.
Ramarius let out a blast of fire from his nostrils. ‘Ramarius did not know! We arrived a little early, that is all. This is no easy place to find, especially when the skies are so thick with snow, but find it Ramarius did, for you. You are here where you wanted to be. That is what matters, that is what pays. Our bargain is done. Ramarius has played his part, so you give Ramarius his music box now.’
‘Sure,’ said Drekki. He nodded at Uzki, though the kinks in his neck made him regret it. The beardling set down the chest and flipped it open. Inside was the music box.
Ramarius drew in a happy breath, and his cunning, reptilian eyes went wide.
‘This is yours,’ said Drekki. ‘Like I promised.’
‘Oh, most precious!’ Ramarius extended a claw. ‘You are Ramarius’ now.’
‘Hang on,’ Drekki said, and put himself in front of the box.
‘You step between a dragon and his treasure?’ Ramarius dropped his head and stared into Drekki’s eyes. ‘Drekki Flynt is more stupid than Ramarius thought.’
‘There are finer toys where that came from. Do you want to extend your contract with me to earn them? We could use you, in there,’ said Drekki, nodding at the Dead Air. ‘It’s handy having a drake on our side, I’ll admit.’
The drake shook his neck so his scales and spines rattled. ‘No gifts are sufficient to tempt Ramarius in there, little beard.’
‘Too scared?’
‘Ramarius is kin of the godbeast Dracothion! He has lived for uncountable centuries. How dare you accuse him of cowardice!’
‘You are scared.’
‘Not scared. Wise. You should be too, Drekki Flynt. This place is called the Dead Air for more than lack of wind. But, the little captain has a hunger for adventure, it is understandable.’ Ramarius leaned down to speak to the beardling. His nostrils came within a few grunti of the duardin’s nose, and the beardling flinched. ‘Uzki Frenek, do not follow this mad one. You should go no further. Come, fly with Ramarius instead. We will have a high old time. You will stay in his lair. You will be safe, away from this perilous land.’
‘No thank you, mister dragon, sir,’ said Uzki. ‘My place is here, with my captain.’
Ramarius grunted. ‘As you wish.’ He reared up. ‘Now give me the music box. Ramarius’ task is done!’
‘Fair enough,’ Drekki said. He stepped out of the way. ‘Thank you, oh mighty descendant of Dracothion.’ He bowed.
Uzki shut the chest, and pushed it towards the dragon. Ramarius hopped forward. He grasped the chest in one of his hind claws and stretched out his huge wings.
‘You stay safe, Drekki Flynt!’ Ramarius boomed. ‘Ramarius is not here with you any more to save your thick duardin hide!’
The wind from Ramarius’ wings buffeted the duardin. Drekki raised his hand in farewell.
‘See you around, Ramarius.’
‘Ramarius will be watching for you, Drekki Flynt!’ the dragon said. ‘The next time Ramarius sees you coming, he will make sure to be out.’ He lumbered forward in a three-legged hop to the edge, and dove from the metalith, his precious treasure clutched tightly. He was gone in moments, into the clouds below.
‘Right then,’ said Drekki. ‘Let’s get in there and get what we came for.’
The Aelsling approached Barak-Minoz on full alert, Hrunki Tordis in her station tracking the turret back and forth across the sky. Trokwi clattered ahead. A scene of devastation presented itself. There was no animal life anywhere. The wrecks and rocks were silent; there was no sign of the Skyshoals’ prolific and ravenous creatures. There were the crustaceans, the weeds, the things that drifted through the clouds until they had a home to cling to, and the small and hopping animals that scuttled along the air shore – those things remained. But the airfish, birds, and larger things that flapped and floated through the shoals were conspicuous by their absence.
Evrokk had the helm. He piloted the Aelsling carefully between the tangles of debris, emerging into a clearer run of air that led to the sky-port. Even then, the going was difficult. Strange atmospheric effects disrupted the ship’s buoyancy, making the Aelsling bounce.
They approached in silence, Drekki up by the cockpit, Umherth sitting nearby in a folding chair, his splinted leg out in front of him and his volley gun resting across his knees. Kedren stood with them. The rest of them were in their usual stations or arrayed along the sides as they had been in the strait, ready to fend off rocks and broken ships. At that altitude the pressure was high enough that they could do without their breathing masks. Even so, most of the crew kept their helms on, fearful of poison gases.
As they were coming down on Barak-Minoz from above, the port was tipped slightly towards them, as if bowing to the ship. Their approach hid the underside, but gave the crew a good view of the surface, and they saw that the city buildings on top seemed mostly intact, the cream-and-purple livery of Barak-Nar still bold after years lost. Encouragingly, the processing quarter looked to be in one piece. That lifted the crew’s spirits, and they pointed excitedly. Only towards the far side did Drekki make out damage; black pits that might be holes, the odd shattered building.
‘Some of that looks quite severe, though it’s localised,’ said Drekki. ‘Enough of the endrins are working to keep it up in the air. I’d say it doesn’t seem all that badly damaged.’
‘Optimist,’ growled Umherth, but he was just as excited as the others.
If not too damaged, it was definitely dead. Everything was dark. Not a single light shone in any window. The docks were empty. A few metaliths drifted lifelessly by, strewn with broken bits of metal and wood. Drekki panned his telescope across the whole of the city.
‘It’s a grim sight, and no mistake,’ said Kedren. ‘Think of all the dead.’
‘Maybe they got away,’ said Evrokk.
‘If they had time, they would have evacuated for certain,’ said Drekki. ‘There are no ships in the docks. That suggests they had time. All the prudenzskiff[50] posts I see are empty.’
‘If they got away, why has there not been a single survivor of Barak-Minoz reported in any of the sky-ports?’ said Kedren.
‘Torn apart by the Eye,’ said Evrokk grimly.
‘Yes, exactly like your brother wasn’t.’ Drekki took his spyglass from his eye and slapped it thoughtfully against his palm. ‘The sky is full of mysteries.’ He sucked air through his teeth. It was cold there, but bearable. ‘I don’t see any signs of the legendary dead either. That’s promising.’
A piece of rock bounced off the prow with a clang. Gord and Urdi worked to fend it away.
‘Steady,’ called Drekki.
‘This will be impossible to get through without a clank or two,’ grumbled Evrokk. ‘You can see that, captain.’
‘Go careful then. Reduce speed,’ said Drekki. ‘Take her by nice and slow. Don’t scratch the paintwork any more than it already is. Poor old girl’s taken a bit of a battering these last weeks.’
‘Aye aye. Reducing speed to one-tenth,’ said Evrokk.
Gases hissed from piston bleeds on the airscrew motor. Its chopping thrum dropped to a cautious whisper. The endrin-ports on the globes dimmed. The Aelsling slowed until it was going only slightly faster than a duardin walking quickly.
‘There must have been an explosion, this much clutter scattered around the islands,’ said Kedren. He pointed to chunks of broken metal embedded in the ice of a small skyberg.
‘I’d say that was likely,’ said Drekki. He recommenced panning his telescope along the length of the sky-port hull. ‘Can’t see where yet though.’
‘I’ll bet it was the aether tanks!’ moaned Adrimm from his position nearby. ‘We’ll be dead and poor.’
‘Let’s not be hasty now, Fair-weather. Both the tanks and the refinery look to be in one piece from here. We’ll have a closer look soon. Evrokk, I’ve seen enough of the upper decks, take us down, under the endrins, let’s do a full ventral pass, then we’ll go up and turn back over the processing plant and view the port from the other side.’
‘The endrins might be leaking,’ said Evrokk. ‘Or the tanks. Last thing we want is to fare through a cloud of charged aether.’
‘Did your brother say anything about that?’ Drekki asked. Evtorr was at the rail, staring out over nothingness, blankly, as if he were blind and could not see a thing. He was hunched but immobile, a duardin made of stone.
‘My brother hasn’t said much of anything for days,’ said Evrokk.
‘Perhaps we could coax some details out of him now that we are here?’
‘Why bother?’ said Evrokk glumly. His brother’s condition was affecting him badly. ‘He must have seen this place for all of a handful of minutes as he fell by.’
‘Then proceed as instructed,’ said Drekki. ‘We’ll be fine. Bokko’s got the dissipation spikes set up. Otherek, can you give us a reading?’
Otherek was pacing along the deck, scanning the debris with his aetherscope. It was still rattling loudly. He approached the cockpit. ‘I can’t say, Drekki,’ he said cautiously. ‘There’s so much free aether in the air that I can get no meaningful numbers on any of the wrecks.’
‘Leaks?’
‘Smells of unrefined aether,’ said Otherek. He sniffed loudly, the sound reverberating in his breathing tubes. ‘This is a natural accumulation, not purified gas escaping from the port. Which would be doubtful after so many years. It would all have gone by now.’ He adjusted the valves on the breathing tubes and took in another loud breath. ‘Definitely. This stuff is free-floating, unprocessed.’
‘Worth taking a full survey to put in a claim?’ said Kedren.
Otherek shook his head. ‘You’d be better off mining the Strait of Tears. There’s a lot of it, but it is diffuse. The real wealth here will be in the port storage tanks and its refinery.’ He tutted. ‘This is approaching shimmerstorm levels of disruption.’ He lifted the nozzle of the device and pointed it at the derelict sky-port. The boxy main unit buzzed even more loudly.
‘Promising!’ said Drekki.
Umherth chuckled greedily.
Otherek shook his head. ‘If there is solid aether or tanked aether, I won’t be able to tell with this. It’s a leak, or an accumulation trapped in a hollow in the underside, don’t get too excited.’
‘Still,’ Umherth said, ‘the processing quarter looked fine, so we know there’ll be aether round here.’ He licked his lips. ‘And it could be a lot of aether.’
They went quiet at that, peril forgotten for dreams of wealth.
Manoeuvring the Aelsling continued to be difficult under the strange effects of the Dead Air, yet Evrokk managed, venting steam from the upper endrin surfaces to help push the vessel down below the sky-port, and they passed once more into shadow. The huge, globular endrin clusters of the city swelled the underside into a series of pregnant rounds, their inspection ports still glowing with the activity of the machines housed inside.
‘The endrins are working,’ said Drekki. ‘Some of them, at any rate.’
They encountered their first duardin of Barak-Minoz then. A loud clang announced something metal connecting with the forward endrin. It scraped along the globe, and emerged slowly, showing itself to be an endrinrigger hanging limply from a dirigible rig harness, fatally tangled in the wreckage above.
Trokwi came back in a hurry, tweeting madly. He landed on Drekki’s shoulder and shivered metallically.
‘Watch out, lads. We’re in for a sad sight here,’ Drekki said.
Sure enough, Bokko called down from up top. ‘Dead duardin! Shall we bring them in?’
‘Push them off,’ Drekki shouted back. ‘If we’ve time we’ll come back and collect the bodies. They’ve been here for years, they can wait a little longer.’
‘There’s a lot of them, captain,’ Bokko replied. ‘It’ll be slow going.’
They fared into a cloud of corpses, gathered like a macabre flock of birds. All were endrinriggers, most dangling from safety lines attached to the sky-port, others in dirigible rigs meshed with the wreck. Thick duardin skulls glared at them where helmets had been torn off. Many were missing limbs, their suits burned and pierced by black shrapnel holes. Tools hung from rusted chains attached to their wrists.
‘Go slower,’ Drekki commanded Evrokk. ‘Locklann, Adrimm, go help the others push them away. Respect the dead. No shoving! Khenna, you too if you’re up to it. Gently now!’
The ship was going so slowly a snail would have outpaced it. Bodies drifted by, spinning around on their safety lines in a kind of bizarre, aerial, post-mortem dance. Twists of free aether glittered around them.
‘Grimnir alive,’ Otherek breathed.
‘They must have been trying to repair the damage,’ said Drekki softly.
‘So many dead,’ said Kedren. ‘There are scores of them.’
‘It looks like the city’s whole rigger company. What happened to catch them like this? Was there a secondary explosion?’ Drekki wondered aloud.
The crew was silent as the dead went by. Each one of the broken flight suits contained the mortal remains of someone who had been someone’s son or daughter, wife or brother. They did not know these dawi and kvinn, but they mourned them.
Otherek remained intent on his instruments. They were buzzing less loudly than before, and less constantly, peaking occasionally. ‘We’re moving away from the main source of free aether. I’d say it’s got caught up under here. It can happen sometimes, where it gathers beneath the uneven underside of something, and cannot escape.’
As the Aelsling sank through the corpses and went under the near endrins, they got a clear line of sight to the far underside of the port and the endrin banks there. Though the near endrins still functioned, those on the far side were utterly devastated. Black hollows gaped in the place of round-skinned globes. As they passed, it turned out that the nearer endrins were not untouched either, for their sides were scorched by fire and peppered with holes. No aether gleamed in these.
‘That’s what did it,’ said Drekki, pointing. ‘Must be half the endrins blown. It’s amazing it’s still afloat.’
‘None of this tells us how it went into the Eye and out again,’ said Kedren.
They passed close under, close enough to see where steel had melted and run like wax. The frame of the sky-port itself was distorted, the huge main beams that made up its skeleton drooping like dying flower stalks. A hole appeared in the port, much smaller at the top than on the underside of the city, but still big enough to allow Hysh to bathe the ship in light as it passed underneath. The substructure was open to the elements, the gridded patterns of rooms and corridors wrenched open and revealed in full three-dimensionality.
‘What would cause such a thing?’ Drekki mused. ‘An attack maybe?’
‘Who’s got the firepower to take out an entire sky-port?’ Umherth said. ‘Even one this small?’
‘It must be that sabotage everyone is talking about,’ said Kedren grimly. ‘The stories are true.’
The crew’s sombre mood darkened further. The dead, the wrecked port, the missing inhabitants affected them deeply. Imagining that such an act of treachery could take place among duardin was bad enough. Seeing the results was far worse.
Most of the duardin had put away their weapons and were working to push away dangling bits of debris from the ship, talking quietly to coordinate their efforts rather than their usual shouting. A grim silence had hold of everything.
They passed under the far side.
‘Take us up, Evrokk,’ Drekki said. ‘Let’s see if the tanks are all right.’
‘They better be,’ growled Umherth.
Evrokk increased the Aelsling’s loft. The ship rose, but strangely. Little eddies had them afflicted with sudden, violent shakings, and Evrokk was forced to perform a complex set of adjustments to keep them level.
‘Steady as she goes,’ Drekki said.
‘The air’s rough here,’ said Evrokk. ‘All this aether is playing havoc with the loft.’
‘You’re doing well, just keep her steady.’
They rose up the walls and the dormitory blocks and came up over the far side of Barak-Minoz, that edge that had been tilted up towards them when they had approached. Hyshlight washed over them again, and they all shivered, as much with relief as with the sudden warmth. Evrokk turned the ship and they began a pass over the sky-port’s upper precincts, close now.
‘The damage looks superficial from here,’ said Drekki. ‘You can barely see the hole.’ He pointed it out, half-hidden by a cluster of solid buildings. ‘Easy to mistake for a shadow in the right light.’
‘Any sign of the inhabitants?’ Kedren asked.
Drekki swept his telescope over the empty streets. ‘Nothing. Not a single corpse.’
‘We’re approaching the tanks,’ said Evrokk.
The moment of truth. The crew moved to the side; even Umherth hopped. The aether tanks were long and low, obscured from most angles by an inner set of fortifications designed specifically to protect them. The first proper view had the crew shake off their sorrow.
‘They look… fine,’ Urdi said, his excitement building. ‘They look more than fine! The refinery too!’
Drekki went to stand beside Evtorr, who was still at the gunwales staring at the wreck, wringing his hands nervously.
‘Fine news, eh? This is thanks to you!’ Drekki said, clapping him on the back, but Evtorr continued mumbling and shaking. ‘Are you all right, lad?’
Evtorr shook his head. ‘We shouldn’t have come here, captain.’
‘It looks perfectly safe to me,’ said Drekki.
‘It don’t feel safe.’
A whoop of delight came from the front. ‘By Grungni, look at that!’ Urdi shouted.
Crew rushed to the prow, making Evrokk curse and adjust the trim against the sudden shift of weight.
Not only were the city tanks intact, but right ahead of the Aelsling, hidden by Barak-Minoz until that moment, was a huge Kharadron vessel resting upon a floating island.
‘Krontanker!’ Adrimm shouted in delight. ‘We’re going to be rich!’
The ship was several times the size of the sky-cutter. It was an odd-looking thing, a large frame made of girders held up by several large endrins, hardly the shape of a ship at all. By far the biggest element were four enormous tanks, big as the temples humans so loved to erect. The rising Hysh shone upon them at that very moment, turning them gold. Reflected light bathed the duardin.
Whoops broke out among the crew, their earlier melancholy completely forgotten. Gord clapped his hands. Locklann and Adrimm linked arms and danced a little arkanaut’s jig. Even Urdi’s sins seemed momentarily forgiven as the crew shook hands and slapped each other on the back.
‘I told you the captain would see us right,’ Adrimm shouted. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’
‘Oh you always do, Adrimm. Born optimist. Everyone says that about you,’ said Drekki sarcastically. ‘Take us in, Evrokk. Let’s investigate the sky-port first, make sure we really are safe.’ Drekki set his hands on his hips and laughed. ‘But if I may venture an opinion so early in our expedition, I’d say there’ll be plentiful shares for all!’
‘Bozki-aethra!’[51] the arkanauts shouted.
They were all laughing, shouting with joy, the dead forgotten. All except Evtorr, who stood trembling by the gunwale as the ship turned in towards the sky-port.
‘We shouldn’t have come here,’ he murmured over and again. ‘We shouldn’t have come!’
Evrokk guided the Aelsling towards one of the sky-port’s docks. After a quick consultation between the senior crew, it was decided not to attempt the wharf. The docking slots were perfectly designed to take Kharadron skycraft, but not when they were leaning so many dregrez[52] out of true.
‘Pull her in close!’ Drekki commanded. ‘Bokko, suit up, take over a line. Gord, get the gangplank in place. Skyhooks ready to fend off!’ he said, taking in the broken edges of the port. ‘I don’t fancy tangling with that.’
There was less of the debris floating about near the port, as if the mass of metal kept the sky clear. The Aelsling juddered; she dropped until Evrokk wrestled her back into line.
‘What the funti is going on around here?’ he grumbled. ‘It’s like she’s developed a mind of her own.’
‘You can handle it.’ Drekki leaned out over the side, looking for a spot. ‘Take us in!’
By the practised efforts of the crew, the Aelsling was soon moored alongside the sky-port. Evrokk powered down the airscrews with an audible sigh of relief.
The crew gathered on deck.
‘I’ll go on foot with Kedren and Adrimm to the spire,’ said Drekki. ‘To see if there’s any logs to be had. It’d be good to know what happened here. Bokko, suit up, take a flight over the top. Otherek, I’d like you to take a second group to assess the aether in the tanks and refinery today. We need a good idea of how much there is and how pure.’
‘Aye aye, it’s not far. I’ll only do a preliminary sweep. We’ll be an hour, maximum. No risk.’
‘That’s not wise, my friends,’ said Kedren.
‘How so?’ said Drekki. He stroked his beard. The rest of the crew leaned in. They really wanted to know how much wealth they stood to gain.
‘This port is still floating. Now, you know my skybeard knowledge is limited, but someone must have been refilling the endrins. You might come across some dawi who are less than pleased to see you.’
‘Could be automated systems running on minimal settings,’ said Otherek.
‘After so long, that’s unlikely,’ said Drekki. ‘Someone needs to refill the machines that refill the endrins. Kedren might have a point.’
‘Bah!’ said Otherek. ‘If there is anyone here, they’ll be overjoyed to see us, and probably so few of them we’d be able to handle them if they’re unfriendly. We’ve got limited time before dark. The sooner we get on with the survey, the better. I can look after myself.’
‘Very well,’ said Drekki. ‘Gord, go with Otherek. You too, Urdi.’
‘It’ll be a pleasure, captain,’ said Urdi, glad to be included.
‘Bokko, keep an eye out especially for traces of survivors, see if Kedren’s right. Any sign of trouble, then you get down and warn us. Trokwi, go with him. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.’
‘Poot poot!’ tooted Trokwi, and he flew off to sit on Bokko’s helmet.
‘That cautious enough, Kedren?’
Kedren nodded, unsure. ‘It’ll have to be.’
‘The rest of you stay here, and stay vigilant!’ Drekki glanced at his timepiece. ‘Everyone is to be back here in three hours, maximum. That’ll give us a long while before Hyshdown. We’ll all be back home in time for ale. Best not be hanging about unfamiliar places in the dark, just in case those stories are true.’
‘What, the stories about the Dead Air being full of dead things?’ moaned Adrimm.
‘Less of that, Fair-weather. The rest of you, watch the ship. Umherth, try not to shoot the place up.’
Uzki pushed his way to the front of the gathered crew. ‘But captain, I want to come with you!’
‘Could be dangers, place like this, that’s why we’re being careful, see? You’re staying here. Hrunki, give the lad something useful to do. Everyone clear on their duties?’
‘Aye aye, captain!’ the crew responded.
‘Then let’s get to it. Today we’re poor. Tomorrow, every one of you will be rich. I, Drekki Flynt, promise you that.’