Spectyr

FIVE Prayers Answered

Winds blew over Arkaym, but Hatipai flew against the prevailing currents. She had been forced to lie to that royal nothing. It would not do to have her believers see that she could be so restrained, so she had claimed to be an angel. Soon enough she would reclaim her power, and then the time for deception would be over.

The hunger inside her burned white-hot; if she had been human, she might have called it pain. This fragile form was not yet physical, and only faith would improve it.

Finding that was far more difficult than Hatipai had anticipated. Before the Break and the arrival of more of her kind, she and a select few had this world all to themselves. They had been the strongest, able to cross between worlds before there was a rift. Competition was the way of things on the Otherside—and if she was forced to compete here, then she would. Hard.

As Hatipai floated high among the clouds, her perception was spread wide, a net seeking faith. She could not linger long in Vermillion—not with the Mother Abbey in control of the city. If she took blood, bone and skin from there, the consequences could be fatal.

Finally, Hatipai felt a tug from below. It was faint, oh so very faint, but there it was. Faith. Wrapping her golden wings around her, the angel fell. Four tiny lives were below, looking up, praying to the Bright One. They could not know what a visitation from their goddess truly meant. They would learn.

Walls, doors and locks made no difference to Hatipai—for at this moment she had no body. A family prayed in the close confines of the cabin on their tiny ship tied to a city dock: mother, father and two teenage boys on the edge of manhood. Ripe and sweet to her senses.

On their knees, they whispered the secret names of Hatipai to a small statue of her. The goddess of wisdom d strength, depicted as a full-breasted woman with spread wings and a beatific smile. She felt not a flicker of compassion; these mortals only existed to supply her with what she needed.

Hatipai began to glow, and the family looked up as the tiny cabin filled with light. Their simple meaty faces spread in delight.

“Great lady,” the mother whispered, and her eyes began to water, “all these years we have prayed—our mothers and fathers, their mothers and fathers, and nothing . . . ” Now her tears were pouring over her cheeks, stricken by the joy of having her faith finally confirmed.

It was a common reaction. The family groveled before her as was just. Hatipai remembered vast churches full to bursting with penitents, the songs, the sacrifices and the heavy smell of incense. She had been truly mighty then, the greatest of all her kin. Now she was reduced to this. Yet, if her plans succeeded, that would change.

She looked down at them through blazing eyes, weighing the value of their meat for her needs.

“Oh, Bright One”—the husband, still on his knees, put an arm around each of his sons—“bless my children with your healing light.”

That was it. They were young, strong, full of faith and fervor. They were just what Hatipai needed. She spread her frail, ethereal limbs wide, her wings swinging up to take in all of the cabin space. “I shall indeed.” Her voice rang like bells around them.

The younger boy’s smile was awestruck when she reached down to touch him. Hatipai’s ethereal body pierced him through, and immediately the boy screamed. It was a pure, musical sound that did not last. Hatipai took his bones, drawing the ingredients that made them into herself, while he collapsed to the floor, a bag of flesh robbed of structure.

The remaining three made guttural sounds of panic, like cattle that finally smell the butcher’s purpose. Yet familial bonds stopped them from rushing away from her immediately. As the mother dashed to the remains of her child, Hatipai stepped forward to wrap her now more structured arms around the other boy. He tried to run. His eyes widened, bright blue and panicked. He burst away from the protective hold of his father and leapt for the door.

She was faster. When her wings curled around him, he howled, feeling the sharpness of her power puncture every muscle and sinew. Hatipai sucked them down greedily, pulling his form into her with a sound that would have been disgusting if she had possessed any mortal sensibilities.

When their second child’s form splattered to the ground, a dry mass of skin and bone, the two parents didn’t scream. Nor did they try to run. The mother’s eyes darted to the remains of her sons as if she thought it some magic trick in very poor taste. Then she looked at Hatipai. The geist was used to worshippers admiring her beauty, so she felt the nakedness of her brand-new body especially sharply. It needed covering.

The man was closest. His skin came free with a sound like ripping velvet, while his screams erupted from a mouth now devoid of lips. The woman wailed with him. It was only bare moments, heartbeats, since she had been pleased to see the gleaming angel in her home.

Mortals were such fickle creatures. They called into the dark, demanded answers and attention from forces they could not comprehend, and yet when they had that attention and those answers, they complained about them.

The skin settled around her form, and now Hatipai could feel the warmth of the room and smll the tang of blood and fear. It was a scent she remembered well. The man staggered, blood pouring from his body like a squeezed sponge, and then shock took him. He crashed into the small altar the family had been praying at, sending food offerings and incense sticks clattering into the gore. Then he was on the floor spasming like a gutted fish.

Hatipai was no longer interested in the man. She was already appreciating his gift.

Looking down, she saw that the body had also shuffled into a familiar pattern; it was modeled on a princess of Delmaire—one that Hatipai had devoured from within in the earliest years of her arrival in this world. In her opinion, this use of bone, flesh and skin was much better than any their original owners could ever have put them to. As she was admiring what she had made, the woman came at her with a knife.

It was certainly not the first time a mortal had attempted such a thing, but it was quite possibly the most pathetic. Hatipai caught her arm before it had even completed its downward descent.

While a knife blow could not have killed her, it would be a shame to mar this fine new form. It might not be enough to contain her for long, but she still enjoyed it. Holding the woman in place, she looked down. Her eyes still blazed gold; for some reason, the human eye was something her magic could not replicate. Her first instinct was to kill the pathetic creature, but when she looked deeper, she realized that would have been a kindness.

Hatipai was not prone to kindnesses—so instead she smiled, working her lips around teeth made from the woman’s child. That was when the new widow broke down. Sobbing, she slumped to the floor.

“What . . . what are you? What are you?” Her questions were squeezed out of a chest that appeared to be having trouble breathing.

Hatipai raised an eyebrow—an expression she had always been fond of. Her voice was sweeter than honey, more vicious than grief. “I am the goddess you called for. You did call, didn’t you?”

Through her pain the woman nodded, unable to deny their prayers and offerings.

Hatipai smiled again. “So for your faith and your offerings, I thank you.” And then, naked, she walked from the room, her tiny, perfect human feet trailing patterns of blood and gore after her. The music for her progress was the wretched lamentations of the woman.

As he stood on the quarterdeck of the Dominion and looked toward the shambling hulk of the ship on the horizon, the Young Pretender’s stomach clenched in anger.

Many people, Raed among them, acknowledged that the new Empire had brought with it advantages: warfare was a thing largely of the past, commerce was flourishing and the people were no longer plagued as frequently by geist activity.

One of the terrible things that remained, however, was a rotten, stinking carcass at a fine feast: slavery.

His grandfather had often been tyrannical—holding an Empire together was not an easy task—but the issue that had haunted his reign most of all had been slavery. His crusade against it had been one of the reasons the Assembly of Princes had turned on him. At least a half dozen of them claimed their kingdoms could not manage without it.

The new Emperor, the one who the Princes had imported from over the ocean, had proven far more compliant to their wishes. He looked the other way while islands off the coast were raided for their inhabitants, who were set to work in distant parts of the Empire. Perhaps he didn’t want to test the loyalty of his benefactors so soon. Perhaps he felt he needed to wait and find his feet. Whatever his reasoning, Raed had none of those concerns.

Slave ships were his natural prey. His hunting earned his father much kudos among the ramshackle towns of the scattering of small islands between Arkaym and Delmaire. Today he would free more slaves and then use the stinking remains of the ship for his own purposes. Two birds had never been more efficiently killed with one stone.

With nod of his head, Aachon called for the topsail to be unfurled, and the Dominion leapt through the water to her purpose. Her crew meanwhile sharpened cutlasses and prepared for battle. No slave ship, low in the water and with the blunt scow features, could ever hope to match the brigantine’s speed.

At his left shoulder, Tangyre drew her sword. “I find I am rather growing to like your plan, my Prince.”

“This is the easy bit,” Aachon observed in a low undertone.

“But also the most satisfactory,” Raed replied, as the Dominion bore down on the slave ship. This close, the grubby lettering on its hull could be made out.

Sweet Moon might be a very unlikely name for a ship of this ilk—slavers often had a curious sense of humor. On the deck, several of them could be seen, also preparing for battle.

Raed called out, and Aleck quickly raised their flag. The Rossin’s mer-shape flapped free and loose, spilling out into the breeze with a sharp snap. The Young Pretender felt his throat constrict at the sight of his tormentor. Yet it was not just he who feared the image. A cry arose from the slavers. They now knew whom they faced.

Skimming across the waves, the Dominion came on fast like retribution. Aachon steered them skillfully, until they were stealing the wind right out of the Sweet Moon’s sails.

“Heave to,” Aachon bellowed, “or we will blow your sorry arse out of the water!”

Perhaps the Rossin flag had been the wrong choice, because the slavers did the exact opposite. As the sailors of the Dominion scrambled to navigate their ship up within grappling range, the slavers on the Sweet Moon began throwing struggling forms off the stern.

“By the Blood,” Raed roared, standing on the rigging. “Filthy murderers!” He knew there was no time for grappling hooks.

“My Prince—” Aachon surged forward, but it was too late.

The Young Pretender wrapped one arm around a portion of the running rigging and kicked out hard from his ship. The ocean raced by under his feet, but years of sailing made Raed very adept at judging distance. Behind him a half dozen of his crew followed in his wake.

He landed on the swaying deck, dropped down lightly from the rope and grappled a swarthy shape that was about to thrust a manacled woman into the heaving sea. The slaver howled as Raed buried his knife into his neck. Blood poured onto the deck, while the woman screamed like it had been her who had been cut.

More of his crew landed next to him, and suddenly the slavers found their mettle was being tested by people who could fight back, sailors and soldiers trained in combat, and not shackled villagers.

The crew of the Dominion set to their work with relish, and for a little while the deck heaved with grunts and groans. Blood madethe deck slippery, but Raed barely noticed—caught as he was in the delight of good, honest combat.

It didn’t last long, however. Raed wiped his blade clean on the cloak of a fallen slaver. In truth he was glad they had put up a fight. He had no mercy for their kind, and yet he couldn’t have brought himself to act as they had. As his crew brought the Sweet Moon to a dead halt in the water, Raed found the ring of keys on the chief slaver’s body.

Gently he touched the woman on the shoulder. She looked up, tears streaking a face that was twisted with fear. “Please,” she whispered through a strained throat, “make it quick.”

Raed bent and unlocked her shackles. “We are your rescuers, not your killers, my lady.”

The look she leveled at him was not just filled with gratitude—it also contained a fair amount of anger—not at him but at a world in which people could be sold like cattle, a world in which you could be tending your fields in the morning and find yourself shackled in the bowels of a slave ship in the evening. Outlying islands were treated like farms by certain principalities.

Raed didn’t know what he could do to dampen that rage. With a gesture but not a touch, he indicated she should go forward to where the crew of the Dominion were flinging open the hatches.

The slaves clambered out, reeking of sweat, urine and terror, unable to even move to have their shackles struck loose. This was a small consignment on a ship designed to stick to the coast and bring slaves right into the Empire via the river systems. They must have spent weeks in a holding pen before being shipped out on this vessel.

Aachon strode up to his captain and looked down at the pitiful scene without uttering a word.

“With everything we suffer, why do they have to add to this?” Raed muttered. “How is it that I thought the geists were the worst affliction of the Empire?”

His first mate sighed. “It is not a perfect world, my Prince.”

Wiping her blade on a portion of fallen slaver’s coat, Tangyre joined them. Her expression was one of distaste. “I had forgotten that such filth had returned to Arkaym.”

It was not his friend’s fault, but Raed knew that in his father’s sphere of influence many things about those left behind had been forgotten. In the Coronet Isles it was easy to forget the world beyond their shores. “Unfortunately, I cannot fix the ills of the Empire, Tang.”

As they had planned, they shepherded the slaves—who flinched from even the kindest hand—over to the Dominion. Aachon stood on the gunwales and looked between the crew and those ten men chosen to remain with Raed.

The Young Pretender stepped closer to his friend. “You are to return these people to their homes and then take shelter in the islands off the Bay of Winds, Aachon. Plenty of places to hide there, just in case the Emperor decides to raise the price on my head. We will look for you there when we have Fraine safely back.”

“My Prince”—the first mate put up one final protest—“there is still time to reconsider this.”

Raed also felt the wrench, but this was the only sensible thing to do. “You swore to protect me, old friend, but you also have a duty to the crew. I will not sacrifice their lives for mine, and I cannot take all of them into Chioma. You’re the only one I would trust to keep the Dominion safe.”Dominiondiv width="1em">Aachon sighed. They had argued long the previous day, and it had taken a direct order from Raed to finally get him to obey.

“Look”—the Young Pretender clapped Aachon on the shoulder—“Tang is here, and you have always been my friend, not my bodyguard—despite what my father said to you. You know we cannot abandon the crew out here.”

The first mate thought for a moment and finally gave a curt nod. “I only do this because Captain Greene is, like I, ordered to protect the royal bloodline.” He gave an elaborate Court bow. “Remember who you are, my Prince, and bring your sister and yourself back safe.”

With that, he stepped across to the Dominion, and in his great booming bass voice ordered the crew to cast off. He did not stand on the deck and watch the Sweet Moon fall away. Raed smiled. No, his friend would never do that.

So, taking a leaf from his book, the Young Pretender would not look after his ship like a love-struck fool, wondering if he’d ever see her again. He had plenty enough of that in his life.

Raed turned his mind away from his ship and toward Fraine. He took stock of those he had chosen in this mission; five of his most reliable fighters from the Dominion. They included Laython, the dour little quartermaster; Snook, the best navigator of river or sea; and Captain Tangyre Greene. These were three women he would stake his life on. It felt like he was always placing his life into the hands of women.

His thoughts were getting away on him again. Sorcha. He pushed that memory away as best he could—as he had for the last season.

Snook, the rail-thin navigator, took the wheel in her hands and looked straight at him. “Where to, Captain?”

It was said so lightly that they might have been going out for a Sunday stroll rather than proceeding into the heart of the Empire. It made Raed smile as he strode over to stand at her shoulder.

“Your best speed to Londis, Mistress Snook. We need to get our papers to travel farther upriver.”

“Your sister will be so proud,” Tangyre whispered into his ear.

“I hope she lives to tell me that,” Raed replied as the Sweet Moon swung to the south, into the night and toward the danger of Chioma.