The Boiling Sea, page 2
"Your turn next, then," Annette replied as they reached the anticipated spiral staircase that led into the tower where Athos was supposed to be picking them up in The Silent Monsoon. "How do we get Jo up those stairs?"
Svetlana checked the hallway behind them. None of the guards were looking in their direction, as most were gawking out the windows at the inbound ship. Pulling a well-concealed knife from her boot, Svetlana slit the bindings they had used to keep the stretcher poles in place and slipped her arms under Jo's still body. The pilot, despite her slender build, was heavier than Svetlana was prepared to carry on her own, but she cradled Jo in her arms and gestured at the staircase with her chin. "Go."
~
From the top of the watchtower, Svetlana could see for miles. Below, the Kavisoli ship hovered just inside the range of the cannon at Aldfort, but so far, no shots had been fired. The skies around the tower, however, were dishearteningly empty, aside from a few puffy white clouds.
"Where's our pickup?" Svetlana muttered.
Annette reached where Svetlana was standing and scanned the skies. "Not here," she said, reaching out to take Jo from Svetlana's aching arms.
"Sure, now you'll carry her, after five flights of stairs."
"You seemed like you had it under control, Captain, and far be it from me to doubt your strength." Annette smiled at Svetlana in a way that might seem patronizing coming from anyone else. Svetlana knew the doctor was being genuine.
"Well, I guess we wait, then." Svetlana looked around the tower. "Maybe lean Jo over there, against the wall?"
A clattering from below covered any response Annette might have made. Svetlana ran to the top of the stairs that led to this watchtower. Pounding footsteps followed from somewhere down the stairs.
"We've got incoming," Svetlana said, pulling her guns out from beneath her loose-fitting shirt. "I'm going to need help."
"You want me to fight?" Annette asked, her eyebrows knitting together.
"No, but I might need your weapons."
"I didn't bring any," Annette said.
"Really?" Svetlana asked, blinking at Annette. "Then check for Jo's."
Annette returned Svetlana's dumbfounded look. "She's been in prison."
"If you search her body and don't come up with a single weapon, I might die of shock, Doctor Campbell."
"Point taken," Annette said, turning back to where she had propped Jo into a corner.
Svetlana turned back to the stairs in time to spot the first of their pursuers coming around the last curve in the staircase. She aimed both her pistols toward the woman in the lead. "Hi there," she said with a grin, fingers on the triggers.
"Halt!" the guard said, holding up her left hand, fist clenched, as a signal to her troops.
"How about you halt on back down those stairs?" Svetlana suggested.
The guard steeled herself, her gaze boring straight into Svetlana. "You are charged with aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner of the High Council—"
Svetlana lowered one of her guns and fired at the guard's leg.
The shot hit the guard's thigh solidly, and she screamed, clutching at the wound.
"Captain, is there any possibility we know anyone who can fly a cloud?" Annette asked.
It took a moment for Svetlana to parse what Annette had asked, and even then, she wasn't sure what the doctor meant. "Fly a cloud?"
"There's a rather substantial cloud making its way toward us at a faster than your average cloud pace."
Svetlana arched an eyebrow but kept her pistols trained on the lead guard. "Still want to arrest me?" she asked.
The guard whimpered in response. A pair of her compatriots seemed to be attempting to pass the wounded guard down the stairs.
Svetlana shifted her aim to the legs of each of those guards and fired.
Again, her shots were met with screams, and the lead guard tumbled out of her troops' grasp.
"Why don't you people put doors on your towers?" she grumbled. With the situation on the stairs temporarily contained, Svetlana hazarded a glance at the sky. She, too, saw a massive cloud moving toward the tower at a quick clip. The water vapor swirled in a hypnotic, unnatural pattern, and Svetlana cocked her head to the side. Then, for the briefest of moments, there was a glimmer of red at the top of the cloud, and she grinned. She'd recognize the bright red "rose" balloon on her ship anywhere.
"It's the Monsoon," she told Annette.
A rope ladder fell from the cloud as it came to rest above the tower, obscuring the view from the staircase with billowing warm mist.
"Indy?" Svetlana called up into the cloud.
A bright blue mop of hair appeared in the mist, framing a face nearly as white as the cloud itself. "Hi, Captain!"
"Jo's sick. We're going to need to haul her up. Go grab the winch."
Indigo nodded, his hair bobbing around his face like its own little cloud before he vanished again.
"Up you go, Doc," Svetlana said. "Help Indy rig up something to get Jo onboard." She took a step backward, the cloud now blocking her view of the doorway at the top of the stairs. Muffled voices came from beyond the doorway, indistinct enough that she couldn't tell if they were approaching or leaving.
Annette scaled the ladder, her doctor's bag slung over her shoulder to give her full use of her limbs for climbing. Muffled voices came from above, now, and the ladder jerked as two figures made their way down.
Svetlana recognized the new arrivals as Kavisolis, based on their superficial family resemblance to Lar—dark hair, olive skin, and physically fit—but she wasn't sure of their names.
"Doc says you've got an injured pilot down here?" the taller of the two asked.
Svetlana nodded and pointed at Jo's prone body.
The Kavisoli scoffed. "Why'd she send two of us for that little thing?"
"That little thing is the best damn pilot I've ever met," Svetlana said. "Handle with care."
The young man nodded sheepishly and picked up Jo, cradling her against his body as though she were an infant. The other man held on to the bottom of the ladder and kept it steady as the man carrying Jo went up.
"After you, Captain," he said, still maintaining his grip on the bottom of the ladder.
Svetlana hazarded one more glance back at the doorway into Aldfort Prison and then climbed the ladder onto her ship.
~
Svetlana made her way directly to the bridge as the cloud-shrouded airship flew away from the tower top. On reaching it, she found several Kavisolis at the helm of her ship.
One of them was Martin, one of Lar's younger cousins who had helped her and her crew with previous endeavors. Though smaller in stature than many of the other Kavisoli cousins, most of whom towered over Svetlana, Martin had proven himself to be a competent fighter and pilot, invaluable to Svetlana when she was in a pinch. He stood in front of a device Svetlana didn't recognize, twisting knobs and toggling a large switch. The device was a good-sized box, still smaller than most of the crates The Silent Monsoon normally shipped, set on a spindly-legged table near the back of the bridge, not too far from the speaking tube that allowed those on the bridge to communicate with those below. It was covered with knobs, gauges, buttons, and the single switch, with several lights flashing on its surface.
"What's this, then?" Svetlana asked, puzzling over the new equipment on the bridge.
"Bride gift," Martin replied with a wide grin.
Svetlana was certain she'd misheard him. "Wha—What?"
Martin paled immediately. "Uhhhh, for ... uhhh. You know what? Pretend I said nothing."
Svetlana shook her head. "There's no bride-ing going on, Martin."
"No, of course not." He forced a laugh. "Who would have said such a ridiculous thing? I mean clearly, no one of the marrying sort around here."
"Clearly," Svetlana said. But the implications were unmistakable. Martin was under the impression that his cousin had asked Svetlana to marry him. Lar had done no such thing. If he had, Svetlana would have turned him down. She'd spent thirty-seven years without ever becoming irrevocably attached to another person, and she wasn't about to change that now. Lar had to know as much, based on the conversations they had had, but if he was sending strange devices to her ship, along with his family members as supplementary crew, she could only suspect that perhaps he thought he'd try to win her over to making such a commitment with him.
"How about I tell you what it does?" Martin asked.
"Generates the cloud, I'd daresay?"
Martin nodded. "Or you can just guess correctly, and I'll go back to getting us out of here."
"Sounds like a plan," Svetlana replied.
Chapter Two
Svetlana stood beside Martin on the horizontal controls as they guided The Silent Monsoon into dock at the floating platform city of Rrusadon. They'd spoken little after Martin's gaffe regarding his cousin's intentions.
As the ship settled on its docking struts, Svetlana locked the horizontal controls and moved to leave the bridge.
"Captain," Martin said.
She turned back to look at him, arching one eyebrow.
"Go easy on Lar."
"Tell me one thing," she said, her voice quiet. "Did he call it a bride gift or did you?"
"Oh, I did," Martin said, but the skin twitching between his eyebrows told Svetlana he was likely lying.
She forced a smile. "Then I'll be nice." It was only fair to repay his lie with one of her own. She left the bridge and started the small motor they used to lower the gangplank.
The Kavisoli ship that had been outside Aldfort Prison pulled into a docking slip next to The Silent Monsoon. Athos stood at the front of the ship and was waving his arms wildly to get Svetlana's attention.
Checking that the gangplank was aligned correctly to allow her to depart the ship when fully lowered, Svetlana moved toward the stern of The Silent Monsoon to get nearer to the other ship.
"We may have been followed," Athos shouted.
Svetlana's good eye widened, and she ran back to the bridge. "Spyglass!" she shouted as soon as she opened the door.
Martin grabbed the requested item and hurried over to her, carrying it as carefully as he could.
"It's a hearty one," Svetlana said as she accepted the device from him. "Toss it next time."
"Next time?" Martin forced a stiff smile.
"We'll see," Svetlana replied. She hurried back out onto the deck and scanned the skies to the north, the direction they'd just come from. She called out to Athos, "What am I looking for?"
"Fast moving cloud," he shouted.
Svetlana shook her head. "That was the Monsoon."
"No, there was another one, I think. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid."
Svetlana moved the spyglass across the broad expanse of blue sky more slowly, pausing as she came across any clouds. Though plenty of small white spots peppered the sky, none of them appeared to be moving any differently than she might have expected. "I don't see anything."
"Then maybe I was wrong," Athos said. "How's Jo?"
"No word from the Doc yet, and I'm taking that to mean 'still sleeping,'" Svetlana said, lowering the spyglass and looking across the space between the two ships. "You coming over here, or are we just going to shout back and forth all day?"
Athos nodded, running his hands through his short sandy brown hair, just now reaching the length where some of his curls were coming back. He'd cut it previously when they'd been attempting to keep a low profile in Heliopolis a couple of months previous.
Svetlana was a little surprised Athos hadn't torn most of his remaining hair out at this point; he'd spent many long nights with his hands in his hair fretting over Jo's whereabouts. Now that his sometimes lover was back onboard The Silent Monsoon, Svetlana hoped Athos would be able to relax and perhaps get a bit more sleep.
"Do you think Doc will mind if I poke my head in?" Athos asked.
Before Svetlana could answer, Martin's voice came through the speaking tube from the bridge of The Silent Monsoon. "Captain, Doctor Campbell just called up from below."
Athos broke into a run for the Kavisoli ship's gangplank.
Svetlana began to run toward the stairs but stopped and waited for Athos to join her. They both had plenty of questions for Jo, but this time, Svetlana was willing to let Athos get his questions asked first. As he came onboard, she tilted her head toward the stairs. "Do you want me to give the two of you a moment?"
"Doc's still there," he said, his voice strained. "We'll get our moment later. I want to know what she found out too."
Svetlana squeezed her first mate's shoulders, then pulled him into an awkward hug. Neither of them was really the hugging type, at least not with each other, and it felt like trying to comfort a sibling who really didn't want the gesture.
Athos' muscles were rigid beneath Svetlana's grasp, but he patted her lightly on the back. "Yeah, okay. Let's go, Cap."
Svetlana nodded and led the way down the stairs to the small infirmary they maintained on The Silent Monsoon.
Inside, Jo was finally sitting upright, her long auburn hair fanned out to one side, where Annette was gently working out some of the knotted portions of her braid. A wide strip of gauze was tied around her head, holding her jaw up, and a second piece of gauze wrapped from her chin around the back of her head, keeping her jaw from moving forward or backward. Jo's skin was still paler than it normally was, except for some bruising that peeked out from beneath the gauze along her jawline.
As soon as Jo saw Svetlana, she forced a timid smile, which widened when Athos pushed Svetlana forward into the infirmary, rushing over to Jo's side.
Athos's hands fluttered nervously, and he looked at Annette. "Can I hug her, kiss her?"
"Hug, gently," Annette said. "Kiss her forehead, if you like."
Athos gingerly placed his hands on Jo's temples and gave her a delicate kiss on her forehead. "Thank the Skyfather you're back."
Jo made no audible response, but tears flowed down her cheeks.
Svetlana looked between Jo and Annette. "Can she not talk?"
Annette shook her head. "I wasn't lying to those guards when I said her jaw hadn't set right. There's no infection, but I had to reset it on the way back. The gauze should help it heal correctly, since I can't do much more than that without a proper surgery area. It's going to be a while before she's chewing our ears off again."
Jo chuckled, a sound that rumbled in her chest with her mouth still closed, but the sound cut off abruptly with a pained intake of breath through her nostrils. She tapped Athos's chest and pointed toward a notebook on one of Annette's work tables.
"Oh, great, she's going to write us a sonnet," Athos said, rolling his eyes but with a broad grin on his face. He retrieved the notebook for Jo, along with a pencil. "This isn't one of your important notebooks, is it, Doc?"
"No, I brought that one in here for this exact purpose," Annette said.
Jo scribbled in the notebook for a moment, then handed it to Athos.
Reading from the notebook, Athos said, "She says she's seen the map, and there is writing on it, but it's not directions. It's a poem." He looked up and grimaced. "I was kidding about the sonnets, Jo Dean!"
Jo took the notebook back and began writing, more slowly this time, tapping the end of the pencil on the paper occasionally, brow furrowed in thought.
Svetlana took the opportunity to turn her attention to Annette. "I'm guessing she shouldn't be flying the Monsoon until she's recovered a bit more?"
"That would be my recommendation, Captain," Annette said. "I'd like to try to keep her pain under control, and you aren't going to want her flying with the kind of drugs I'm going to get for her."
Athos chuckled. "Well, then let's get extras and just hang out here for a while."
Svetlana shook her head. "Let's see this poetry first. You got it all yet, Jo?"
Jo's eyebrows pulled together more, as the sides of her mouth turned down slightly, and she shook her head. She scribbled a few more words, then handed the notebook back to Athos.
"'The Skyfather alone controls the Air, but whosoever controls the Gem controls the Sea. Were the Oceans to cease ... Geysers would turn to ...'" Athos frowned at the page. "That's just awful. It doesn't even rhyme."
Svetlana nodded in agreement. "Are you sure you got this right, Jo?"
Jo nodded once, then shook her head, reaching for the notebook. She scribbled a few more words, then held it up for everyone to see. "'Still missing parts'," it read.
"Alright, if you two want to debate the merits of poetry, take it elsewhere," Annette said. "My patient needs rest." She glanced at Jo, then back to Svetlana and Athos. "I'll come throw my thoughts in after a bit."
Svetlana nodded and tore the page from the notebook, then handed it back to Jo. "Get better quick, Jo Dean. Else I'm going to wind up yelling at Lar more than is healthy for anyone, and then I'll have to figure out how to hire his cousin to keep this boat in the air till you're better."
Jo rolled her eyes but nodded, giving Svetlana a sloppy salute before the captain left the infirmary.
~
Indigo was on the bridge, tinkering with the device that created clouds, when Svetlana and Athos arrived there with Jo's transcription of the words on the map.
"I find it hard to believe that Lady de Whittvy completely missed the literal writing on the wall." Athos chuckled.
Svetlana smiled in spite of herself, thinking about the charming woman she'd been smitten with. The scientist and noblewoman had been beautiful, intelligent, and possessed of a rebellious spirit, just the sort of person Svetlana was drawn to. However, the timing had not worked out, between Dr. Vertiline Dowhty, Lady Elinor de Whittvy's alter ego, being kidnapped, Svetlana's burgeoning relationship with Lar, and then Vertiline's untimely demise. Svetlana wished she'd had more time to get to know Vertiline.
But that was in the past, and little related to the matter at hand. "The more I think about that, the more I wonder if she saw it, but didn't add it to her version for some reason." Svetlana studied the sheet of paper, then read a bit aloud. "'The Skyfather alone controls the Air.' That's from something, isn't it?"
