Half a Soul Apart, page 1
Half a Soul Apart
By Lindsay C. Sharp
Text copyright © Lindsay C. Sharp 2021
Cover design copyright © Timothy Robeers 2021
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places incidents and maps are products of the author’s imagination and exists purely for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 979-8581036686
Contents
20 years later: Year of the Raven
Lieutenant Halcrow
The Darkturnalus
Magian
Alchemists
Divulge the Darkness
Craggen’s Revolt
Half-Souls
Rudyard’s Revenge
Lost
King Sunny
The Cloudtail
To the Slaughter
Rebirth
To Starsland
Evergreen Express
Arianna Sundstrøm
Ladies and Tigers and Barons
A Clash of Class
Condolences and Invitations
The Ball
Poe Blanchette
Shadows over Scerah
Raphael
Epilogue: 1st February – Year of the Goose
PART ONE
July 20th – Year of the Falcon
Commander’s log entry: 52.
Our hunt, I feel, is drawing to its end.
Fischer, our Cartographer, has been charting our course ever since we left the city of Condervest but navigating these ranges has proved difficult, especially in this growing mist.
A port town exists somewhere below us. And that place will be the final destination for only one of us. The most precious sailor the Dullahan has been carrying. Their evacuation will be something I will personally see to when the time comes.
Our Captain, Lara Buckley, has sailed us through so many storms, and we have always reached a gentle dawn on the other side. She has promised yet another dawn for us but the fear, quiet at first, has now reached my fellow sailors’ hearts in a crescendo.
I’m afraid there will be no dawn for us come tomorrow.
Cpt. Buckley pushes on, even though she must feel it too. Failure is not in her blood. She will not go back empty-handed. We’re the same that way I must admit.
The airship we’ve been tracking was sighted about an hour ago, but we lost it much the same way as we have a dozen times before. It was my first glimpse of it through the spy glass. Our airship, the Dullahan, is a grand one but even she felt small in its presence.
Our mission’s end is looming closer and closer.
There is only one sure way to infiltrate the rogue airship and secure its master. But its master is no ordinary man. Our hunt isn’t for your usual bandits or pirates. It’s for something so far beyond one’s darkest imaginations.
The one we’re after must be taken alive. The Alchemist.
Even as I write the name, my quill hand shakes. Not so long ago I couldn’t have told you much about that word, Alchemist. And now I know everything. Things I would rather forget.
My grandfather used to tell me tales of Demons and Men. Monsters that existed in the deep dark depths of shadow and fire worlds. About monsters who no sane person would dare try and obtain. And yet here I am, chasing one of those very monsters.
That is Dullahan’s true mission: to capture and bring back a monster.
I still have no answer as to the why. Perhaps I never shall. I think some part of me never wants to find out.
Just keep us in the dark. Don’t shine a light on the monsters, my grandfather used to say. Once the light touches their skin, they become more real.
I can hear the wood of the Dullahan groan in the wind. Outside my porthole the lanterns swing. I can almost feel the Dullahan breathing. No one is surer of our fate than the airship that has been taking us through this voyage of uncertainty.
Cpt. Buckley is sailing her hard and fast. I’ve begun to wonder if this is becoming more and more like my captain’s personal mission. She is driven, fueled by determination and whiskey.
It’s no secret that she’s been drinking. The Doctor is on top of it, he says, but I’ve seen her. I’ve tried to console her, but time and time again I fail to reach her. Maybe she is linked with the Dullahan and also knows our fate.
No matter the outcome, this mission shall be seen through to the end and perhaps you shall hear about it tomorrow in my next log.
Or you won’t.
The mist is finally clearing.
There is never enough time in this world. Its fleeting, elusive.
So, if these are in fact my last written words.
Then I leave only a promise.
While the mist has cleared and while I have the time, I shall make sure that my daughter knows no such monsters.
That is my promise.
Commander T. Fairbird.
20 years later: Year of the Raven
Hessy Fairbird stood back from the edge as she eagerly awaited the arrival of an airship from the north. It was unusual for Starslanders to come all the way to Craggen just for a simple neighborly visit, so it had sparked Hessy’s interest.
She heard a whistle of steam as the front hangar doors shuddered outwards. A sharp spear of light shone through the gap followed by a strong gust of wind, forcing Hessy to raise her hand. Clouds drifted away from the sun, streaking the sky in brilliant red: Jupiter’s Domain.
“The Nordlig Aurora sighted, get ready,” one of the marshals alerted.
The marshals stood in two columns signaling with gas-lamp rods in unison to guide the pilot inside.
Hessy saw a grand, pale grey airship emerge supported by two balloons, its fine propellers whirring in the wind. It sailed in from the right casting a shadow as it blocked the daylight for a moment. Its oval body was navigated smoothly into the hangar in the steady hands of a trained pilot. Purple smoke trailed behind it, a clear sign of the use of condensed blue coal.
A dozen ropes cascaded down beside the marshals who began to tie it off.
Hessy climbed down the wrought iron ladder off the balcony and joined the marshals below.
“What an airship,” Hessy said sharing a smile with a marshal.
“A new-build by the looks of it,” he said and gave a low whistle. “Revolutionary work they do in Starsland, but that’ll be the only time I compliment those cold noses.”
Hessy put her hand solemnly over her heart. “I hear you.”
Tall, smartly dressed gentlemen with fur top hats and long, thick coats exited the airship. They held their high collars tight against their necks from the wind. A man with a tidy moustache and monocle stepped forward.
He touched the brim of his fur top hat.
“Fine dawn, gentlemen,” he greeted. “We have business with your Mayor, Lady Analisa. We have a sealed letter of voyage given to us by Baron Cuthbert of Scerah himself.”
“Hoi sir. She’s aware of your coming. Lady Analisa will be waiting for you at Spire Hall,” the marshal replied, extinguishing his gas-lamp rod. “Can I fetch a guide for you?”
“That won’t be necessary. I know my way around Craggen quite well.”
Hessy was just too curious to bite her tongue. She didn’t think she’d get any answer from them, but she wanted to ask anyway.
“What business do you have with Mayor Analisa, sir?” she asked.
The aristocrat turned to look at her, just noticing that she had been by the marshal’s side all along. He frowned impatiently whilst still managing to maintain natural politeness. She was a hinderance to him, nothing more.
“And why would that be the concern of a marshal?”
“Oh. I’m not a marshal,” Hessy said. She rubbed her greasy hand on her boiler suit before offering it to the Starslander.
“Hoi. Hessy Fairbird, sir. I’m a mechanical-engineer apprentice here at Craggen. If there’s anything I can fix or help you with, I’d be more than happy to give my time for a small fee. I could look inside your airship if you like, make sure it’s in order.”
The aristocrat looked at her hand and did not smile.
“That won’t be necessary, miss. The Nordlig Aurora has been meticulously crafted. I’m afraid if I indulged you, I would only be wasting both my time and coins,” he said.
She let her hand fall and shrugged off the awkwardness. Even the marshal behind her had edged away.
“Well, I can’t disagree with you there. It is a beautiful ship. Still, if you need a maintenance check you can ask for me. Hessy Fairbird,” she said, trying her best to salvage this chance.
“Apologies, my dear apprentice. I must turn you down. We shan’t be long in our visit,” the Starslander said. He didn’t sound sorry at all.
“Miss Fairbird!”
Hessy turned and cringed. She was caught.
Mr. Arman, her instructor, was limping steadily along the hangar, his watery blue eyes bulged as they locked on her. His crooked cane tapped with annoyance at every step. As he got closer, she could hear him wheezing out of breath.
“Allow me to get this pest out your hair, gentlemen,” he said, making his leathery face crease with age old skin as he spoke.
Hessy’s collar was snagged in Mr. Arman’s grip as soon as the aristocrats were out of sight. He took her down to the back of the hangar.
“You missed my briefing, but I had a feeling I’d find you here. What were you thinking, personally introducing yourself to aristocrats? As if you’re more important than the head of engineering himself?”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Hessy huffed, twisting free of him. He was surprisingly strong for the oldest man on Craggen.
“Just trying your luck, ay?”
She gave him a grin. “Nothing you haven’t taught us, Mr. Arman. To seize opportunity whenever it prevents itself.”
A vein bulged in-between his flimsy white eyebrows.
“Don’t get nifty with me, Miss Fairbird. Show a little restraint and judge your opportunities better than this. Now get back down to the workshop and have one of the students give you an update, since you thought yourself better than to grace us with your attendance. Now out my sight. And don’t let me catch you at this again.”
Hessy left before he could scold her further.
When she glanced back at him, she frowned slightly. He was looking at the Nordlig Aurora but not with awe or any kind of positive impression. He looked afraid.
Mr. Arman was many things; old, grumpy, and mainly unamused by everything, especially her. But she had never seen him as a man capable of fear, until right at that moment.
Hessy walked on uneasy. A mild thought began to settle in the back of her mind, that something was going to change in the steady reliable wind. A change that could only bring about a storm.
The other apprentices were in the workshop when Hessy went back to work. She could hear the hammering and whirring of steam powered tools even before she opened the door. It was like whimsical music to her ears.
Hessy dodged a rogue mini propeller on her way to her station.
“Sorry, Hessy!” Richard Hefley, a fourth-year apprentice, called from behind his bench, giving her an apologetic grin.
She waved it off, taking her place by her own bench. She looked down at her hand-drawn diagram of the invention she was currently working on. Many instructions had been scored out at the edges making the messy scribble no longer recognizable as writing. She narrowed her eyes, trying to read her own handwriting from yesterday.
She was just opening her tool chest when something struck her heavily on the head. She turned to fend off Nattie Song; the bossiest, most annoyingly accurate apprentice in the academy. Who also happened to be her best friend.
“Where were you?” Nattie demanded, her almond brown eyes narrowing above her many freckles.
“What did I miss?” Hessy asked, rubbing her head. “Mr. Arman said there was a briefing?”
“If you bother to show up for them at all, you wouldn’t have to ask,” she said.
“Shall we share information?”
Nattie gave her a skeptical look, tossing her dark pleat over her shoulder. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Hessy insisted. “First, tell me about the briefing.”
Nattie rolled her eyes. “Fine. We are to have the Caelum Militia stay at Craggen come next week.”
“Militia are coming here. Why?” Hessy asked wiping her sweaty palms on her boilersuit.
Nattie shrugged. “They want provisions mostly. But I heard they’re also looking to recruit.”
“Us?”
“If you behave yourself,” Nattie said.
“Striking Jupiter, that is big news.”
“It might be our ticket out of here,” Nattie said.
“Yea,” Hessy said. “Maybe.”
“That’s why our boys here are nearly destroying the workshop trying to finish their inventions before the militia docks at Craggen.”
“So that’s why Gruber looks as though he’s on mad mountain fungi again.”
Nattie laughed at that, catching sight of chubby Arky Gruber as he wobbled to his drone with a gas torch in hand, grinning intensely.
“Poor Arky,” Nattie said.
“So why aren’t you working on Lady Fly?”
“You say that as if I haven’t already finished assembling my drone,” Nattie said smugly.
“Have you?”
“Of course.”
Hessy grinned tightly against Nattie’s unattractive tendency to show off. “Good for you.”
“If only I believed your sincerity, but I can see why you’re behind when you have something like this to work from,” Nattie said, peering down at her table.
Hessy folded her diagrams away. “Back off. It’s getting there.”
“So, where were you this morning?”
“A rude group from Starsland came in, flying a classy airship. I was just trying to earn some extra coins, but Mr. Arman got in the way. Also, I’m pretty sure something is going on out there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aristocrats from Starsland? When have they ever felt the need to come to Craggen?”
“Never, I suppose.”
“Exactly. And now the Caelum Militia are coming here too?”
“Coincidence.” Nattie shrugged. “You let your mind drift too much.”
“Oh, come on Nattie. That’s too much of a co-incidence. Right?”
“Just get your head down and finish your invention, alright? Leave what really matters to the people who really matter.”
Hessy raised her eyebrows. Ouch.
She tried not to let that sting, but she knew Nattie was right.
What was important was the work they did. She would graduate her fourth and final year in less than a month and then her world would become bigger than this port town. Instead of constantly watching airships dock and set sail again, sometime soon she could be leaving on one of them, even if it was a militia airship.
***
Hessy worked well past midnight on her hands and knees and didn’t stop until she finished welding the space frame for her drone. She stood stiff and took out the diagram she had drawn up previously and grinned. She compared the drawings to the work in front of her. The frame lifted into an oval and looked pretty sturdy. It wasn’t that big of a drone. Just space enough for a pilot really.
“Nearly there, little Yellow Bee,” Hessy said, patting the frame.
If the Caelum Militia were coming here, she decided to embrace it for what it truly was, another opportunity to show her talent.
Hessy searched in her open tool chest for a brass-bound spirit level and just when she was measuring the frame’s accuracy, an unfamiliar noise began, making her jump. The wailing sound continued to echo across the mountain.
She dropped the level, covering her ears.
At first, Hessy thought that the hangar was empty. It was well past midnight and the oil lantern that burned next to her was the only source of light. But then she heard footsteps slapping hard against the stone floor as someone ran towards Hessy’s light.
It was Nattie.
“What is that?” she hollered above the noise.
“I have no idea!” Hessy shouted back. “Let’s go to the main hangar!”
She gathered up all the diagrams and stuffed them into her satchel and hurried across the platform with Nattie.
It wasn’t until they got outside that Hessy felt the force of an icy gale. The air that Hessy sucked through her teeth came out a frosty cloud. She felt the hairs on her arms rise. They carefully climbed the mountain path, following the snaking rope railings. Oil lamps swung above, the wind threatening to break them against the rocks. Hessy grasped the rope with both hands. “Great Jupiter.”
Every step got slower and slower, her movements increasingly sluggish.
The wind was going to blow her off the mountain. Thoughts of falling and tumbling to her death distracted her. She didn’t want to think what her body would do at the bottom of the canyon on impact and yet, that was all she was thinking about. She got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl.
She felt a firm tug on her wrist but Hessy barely budged.
“You go on ahead,” Hessy said.
“Come on, don’t do this now, we’re nearly there.”
Hessy felt a sharp sting on the side of her face, and it took a moment for her to realize she’d been hit.
“Did you just slap me?”
“I’ll slap you again if it helps,” Nattie said.
Hessy had her tremors under control and managed to run again. “Oddly enough it does help.”
They pulled back the heavy steel door in a sweaty breathless mess. Several airmen were inside the main hangar. Hessy recognized the angsty bark of Mr. Arman as they approached.
