Steal the Sky

Chapter 38

Despite Tibal’s assurances, Ripka was certain the crater was empty. Tibal set them down on the internal edge of the Smokestack’s collapsed cone, sheltering the ship in a sliver of shade that crept out from the high rim of the firemount’s mouth. This was absolute madness. Wherever the doppel had gone, Ripka felt sure it wouldn’t be to this sulfurous pit. And from the looks of things, she was right.

“We’re the only ones here, Tibal.” She had to raise her voice to be heard above the wind and the hiss of venting steam and gases. Despite the wind, the whole cursed crater stank of the smoke from the fire that’d devoured the Hub and most of the lines. Any moment now, she was terrified that the firemount would rear to life and throw up massive plumes of lightning-hot ash and molten rock. She shivered. How had she lived so long in the shadow of this beast without fearing it? All of the selium-settlements were founded in the shadow of these angry rock giants. All of them were vulnerable.

“Oh, she’s here, don’t you worry.” Tibal clapped her on the shoulder.

Ripka hung back as Tibal and the steward strode ahead with foolish confidence. She understood Tibal’s convictions, the man had convinced himself the doppel would be here, but the steward? Why was he buying into this madness? It made no sense at all. She sighed and kicked at a cluster of pebbles.

Tibal stopped halfway across the crater, his hands on his hips and his elbows akimbo. He examined the empty air before him, a curious tilt to his head. Ripka was just about to cry out that they should try something else, anything else, to get away from this nightmare place, when Tibal reached out a hand and slapped it against thin air. Thin air that gave off a pearlescent ripple.

Clenching her jaw, Ripka trudged over to stand with the others.

“Come on out now,” Tibal called to be heard above the wind. “I know you’re hiding in there, little lady.”

There was a shimmer in the air just before Ripka’s nose, and she leapt back a startled step. Before her, the world split. Where once there’d been little more than empty space and rough terrain, the dark-cherry stained broadside of an airship appeared. Just a segment of it, no more than an arm’s length across, but the pristine hull was very familiar indeed.

The doppel stepped through that tear and it melded shut behind her. Ripka stared.

“I know you,” Ripka blurted.

“Sure you do, captain.” The doppel’s voice was soft, patient.

“You’re, um–” She snapped her fingers, struggling to match her list of suspicious names to the faces she’d interviewed. “Pelkaia, that’s it. But I remember you being quite a bit older…”

The doppel smiled and brushed a strand of light brown hair from her eyes. Her fingertip touched her skin, and it rippled. Deliberate. “That is what I wanted you to see, yes. Now, why are you here?”

“I need your help,” Tibal said.

“I am… busy, at the moment.”

“Really? Busy hiding out in this pit-kissed place?”

“I have my reasons.” She fluttered one hand through the air, dismissive.

“I’m betting one of them’s the proximity to such a large source of sel. I’m betting you can’t get the ship out of the area undetected, and the only reason you haven’t been spotted yet is because all of this–” he waved to take in what was left of the great selium pumps that fringed the crater, “–is cloaking the Larkspur’s buoyancy sacks. And you’re stuck until you can figure a way out.”

Her lips twisted in annoyance. “You often a betting man?”

“I bet when it’s a sure thing, lass.”

The doppel crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her back foot. She pursed her lips, thinking, and Ripka became acutely aware that the woman’s posture was the mirror image of her own. Unsettled, she straightened her stance and clothes.

Pelkaia must have seen her awareness, because she gave her a tight smile and let her arms hang to her side. “Forgive me, captain, but it is difficult to shake the body language of a personality I have been studying.”

“I’d rather not know the particulars.”

“As you like. Now, Tibal–”

“Wait,” Ripka said, fingers itching over the grip of Detan’s borrowed blade.

The doppel turned two arched brows upon her. “Yes?”

Ripka’s palms grew clammy, her muscles laced tight with anxiety. “If I’m going to work with you, I have to know. When you went to… see… Galtro, did you wear my face?”

Pelkaia gave a subtle shake of the head. “No. I met him as myself.”

She heaved a sigh free and closed her eyes. “Thank the skies for that.”

“I hesitate to elaborate, but I feel he would want you to know that he was prepared for his death. He had seen it coming, and in truth did not expect to survive the elections. He was jabbing a rockviper, and intentionally at that. His guilt was heavy, and he was relieved to be free of it.”

She swallowed an angry roar, fists clenched at her sides. “How can I trust you?”

Pelkaia shrugged. “You can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Tibal said, “but we just don’t have time for this right now.”

Ripka’s stomach twisted. She wanted this woman, this tall, proud woman, to tell her everything. To explain why Galtro had to die, why the warden had to die, and why she had stolen Ripka’s face to facilitate it all. She could guess. She knew the creature – Pelkaia – was a grieving mother. She knew the empire had done her wrong. Still, she wanted so much more than what she already knew. She wanted it from Pelkaia’s own lips. She needed to hear the hate and the sadness, needed to make it visceral. Needed to squeeze the truth of it all out of her.

But they had no time. Not now. Tibal was right about that. She was beginning to realize that Tibal was right about most things.

“Get on with it then.” Pelkaia sniffed, her expression one of pure boredom, but her fingers tapped the side of her leg and her glance kept shifting. Ripka allowed herself a bitter smile, recognizing her own ticks of anxiousness.

“Lord Honding has been taken by the whitecoat.”

A momentary widening of the eyes flitted across the doppel’s face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Have you felt any large ships move out of the city?”

“How would I know?”

“Come on, Pelkaia, we both know you’ve been monitoring the ships in the city to see if the imperials have left so you can make off with the Larkspur without them giving chase.”

“Fine, fine. I sensed a large one moving up from the south edge of the Fireline into the city a few marks back.”

“South? Near the Salt Baths?”

“Sounds about right.”

Tibal grinned, wide and pleased. “He’s on that ship. He’s got to be. Can you locate it now?”

“I never stopped watching it. It’s in Thratia’s dock, where the Larkspur was kept.”

Ripka frowned. “We can’t go back into the city, we’re all too recognizable. Pelkaia, would you consider–”

“No bones, captain. I can’t get too far from the Larkspur or I’ll lose my hold over the sel hiding it. I’ve already lost control of a few little misdirections I left in the city.”

“I can go.”

They all looked at the steward, the young man whose name Ripka still didn’t know. He stood alongside Tibal, his uniform well pressed despite the heat, wind, and steam. His sandy hair was still parted to perfection straight down the middle.

“That could work,” Tibal said, tapping the end of his chin with one finger. “You could go in, say you’re there on behalf of the doppel. Tell Thratia she’s feeling guilty and wants to make a trade – Detan for the Larkspur.”

“I will not,” Pelkaia protested.

“Easy, Pelkaia, you know Detan and I don’t want them to have access to that ship any more than you do.”

Indignation filled Ripka, raising the small hairs all over her body. She turned to glare at Tibal. “You two planned with this murderer?”

“We didn’t plan for this.” He shot a glance at Pelkaia, one laced with grudging respect. “She just didn’t give us much choice. All right, New Chum. I guess that means it’s up to you. Think you can get her to come out here?”

“Certainly. It is my job to guide, after all.”

“Right then, we can take the flier back to the Salt Baths and let you take it from there. I’m afraid we can’t get much closer without being spotted. Will that be close enough?”

He bowed his head. “That will be just fine. The ferry will come for me if I call it.”

The sun was at its zenith when they left the steward on the little ledge where they had last seen Detan. Ripka stood behind Tibal, her arms wrapped around her waist against the breeze, her gaze fixed on the sticky, rotting stain throbbing with flies at her feet. Detan had been injured, and not lightly. They had no way of knowing how bad off he was. The pool was big enough to be worrisome, but Tibal seemed certain that they would have left the body to bloat if he were dead.

Ripka wasn’t so sure. It was possible they would take the body back with them to perform whatever experiments they had in mind on what was left of his flesh. Were the secrets to his strange ability hidden in the workings of his brain? She didn’t know, but she was sure that whitecoat would be very much interested in finding out.

“He’ll be all right,” she found herself saying to Tibal, just to fill the void of silence.

He snorted. “It’s not Detan I’m worried about, lass, though I appreciate your thought.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“This whole sand-cursed city. You’ve seen what he can do when he’s angry, you saw that flash on the cliffside. Make no mistake, he’s gotten it under control some since we first met, but there’s a reason he went to the sel-less middle of the Scorched when he got away from Valathea the first time. And a real good reason why he doesn’t stay long in sel cities. Why he doesn’t dare go home. They got five firemounts in Hond Steading. You know what he could do with that?”

Ripka swallowed and tried to pull her arms tighter around herself. “You’re saying he could blow this whole mine?”

“Lass, he could blow this whole city if he’s good and riled. Come on back up now,” Tibal called as he turned back to the flier. “We’ve got to pay a visit to the salvage men before that pit-crusted woman comes to pay us a visit.”

Ripka stoutly avoided thinking on what in the blue skies Tibal would want with the minders of the city’s garbage heap. But not as actively as she avoided thinking of the whole of Aransa torn to bits by the anger of one man.