Sky Song: Overture

Sky Song

Overture

Meg Merriet

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Meg Merriet

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 151505375X

ISBN-13: 978-1515053750

megmerriet.com

Printed in the USA.

Cover art © Narciso Espiritu Jr.

For gutter punks and street musicians.

And for Kurt, my fearless big brother.

Acknowledgements

From the bottom of my heart, I thank all those people who provided feedback on my earlier drafts, particularly Dmitry Feller, Rachel Poy, Andrew Wahlberg, Sara Stone and Kay Dominguez. Their insights and suggestions were instrumental in the completion of this novel.

I am also indebted to my incredible cousin Sarah Toledo who has encouraged and supported my writing since I was twelve years old, offering critique on all my early manuscripts. When she read my first pirate novel, she was devastated by the violent death of a crewman named Thomas. To make amends for this egregious blunder, Thomas has been restored to life in the Sky Song series. Keep an eye out for him, coz.

Articles of the Wastrel

I. A man who disobeys orders in battle shall be thrown to the cloudswell.

II. A man who steals or withholds prizes from the crew shall be windhauled (bound in rope and flown under the gondola from bow to stern).

III. All quarrels must be settled at port. If any man does bodily harm to another in the crew while on the Wastrel, that man shall suffer such punishment as the majority of the crew sees fit.

IV.  All men shall receive equal rations.

V. A woman discovered on board shall be quarantined in the Captain’s Quarters until she and any who aided in her subterfuge are cast out at the nearest port.

VI. A man who neglects to keep his weapons clean and ready shall be locked in the cargo hold overnight.

VII. A man who shall smoke tobacco in the Sleeping Quarters shall suffer the same punishment as in the former Article.

VIII. A man who forces amorous congress upon a woman without her consent shall be shot.

IX. A man who suffers amputation shall be discharged with one hundred gold pieces for every limb lost.

X. Musicians shall only play above deck, and never past the hour of midnight.

I. The Wastrel

T
he noise of the sky was terrific. Engine hum filled my ears as I tried to make out the commands of my superiors. Remembering all the terminology of an airship was challenging in its own right. I knew the business of locks and clocks quite thoroughly, but sky piracy was still a relatively new enterprise for me.

The Wastrel was a rigid airship of early design, with many elements of naval engineering still employed in her construction. Beneath her contained gasbags, she had a boat-shaped gondola that hung from steel cables and two central masts. She was equipped with twenty-five cannons, a ballista and enough parachutes to save a hundred and fifty men. They lined the rails and each and every day I prayed to all my gods I would never have to use one.

She had a rugged sort of beauty about her and embellishments from a time when embellishment was all the rage. Her railings, doors and archways boasted accents of crown molding and carved sirens. Though the paint was chipping away on these details, the men revered the ship with a romantic wonder and took pride in keeping her. She was an old bird, but for many of us, she was the only home we had.

A small vessel zipped through the clouds in the distance, jarring me out of my thoughts. I called her out to my brothers. “Ship!”

“Full speed ahead!” shouted Captain Dirk from the helm. The propellers pivoted and shrieked as we heaved forwards, ascending rapidly to a height of around two thousand meters. Whenever we picked up speed or attempted risky maneuvers, it was protocol to hold onto something. I grabbed the nearest rail, but kept my eye on that other ship as we gained on her.

“Fly the spade!” Captain Dirk commanded.

People in Elsace knew the Roger of the white spade, knew the stories of gore in the clouds, of severed heads raining down from any ship that gave chase to Captain Alexander Dirk. He had a reputation for brutality and any form of insolence stirred his temper. When targets saw the black flag trail out just beneath the rudders, they surrendered every time.

As one of our men tried to unleash the Roger, he failed to unfasten the buckles before a gust lifted it over the back of the stern. The cord whipped violently, shaking the cylinder. The men just stared, so I dashed over and hopped the rail, hanging off by a knotted rope. I reeled in the Roger, wrapping the cord around my elbow with every pull, and passed it up to the crew. They unfastened it properly and our white spade unfurled and billowed on the wind. My brothers helped me up, patting my shoulders. Captain Dirk stood nearby, a glint of approval in his eyes.

“You’ve got some rusty guts, Clikk,” he said.

“Aye, Captain!”

“Ease up on the thrust!” he bellowed at the helmsman. No Nose Ned pulled a lever on the mounted switchboard. I often enthused how much I would have liked to pilot someday, but it wasn’t a difficult job and the men who got that assignment already had experience. My skills would more likely land me in the mechanics pool.

We neared the foreign ship, which hovered in the air as if waiting for us; it made no signal of surrender. The bird was unlike any sky vessel I’d ever seen: a copper-plated sphere crowned in red fins with glass doors on its sides and a façade shaped like a beak. Heavy winds blew down from the single high-speed propeller fixed to its top. A menacing figure could be seen in the fuselage, a pale woman dressed all in black. An aircraft operated by a woman was unheard of in the sky. Women were bad luck, started fires, caused fights.

“On your guard, men,” said Dirk. The Wastrel slowed. The other ship bounded over at a delicate speed. It landed on our deck and with a hiss of pressure, released the side doors. The tall woman stepped out and every man drew pistol, sword and dagger on her at once. She touched her collarbone and emitted a girlish snicker. Black feathers trimmed her collar, licking at her jawline. She could not have been younger than thirty, but she conducted herself in a sprightly manner.

“Well, well, well, Lexi,” she said to our captain. “So this is your beloved Weasel.”

“Wastrel,” he corrected. “Why are you here, witch?”

“I have come to punish you for your crimes.”

Dirk laughed. “Oh, have you now? Are you going to peck at us with that pigeon of yours?” His jest broke the tension across the deck as some of the men chuckled.

The witch tossed her long black hair. “My pigeon, as you call it, is a globe copter. It has mechanized weaponry that could decimate this rickety hulk in a matter of seconds. I have learned that you seek the emperor, but you will find your efforts wasted, for soon your most valuable prize will be as worthless as your promises. I curse you, Alexander. I curse your entire ship and its crew.”

Dirk only laughed at her but the rest of us did not join in this time. Curses do not bode well for men who live on airships.

“Farewell, Lexi,” she said.

“Seize her!”

The witch’s hands flew into the air and she shouted a foreign word harsh and guttural in sound. Time shrank and in a flash of blurred movement, she climbed into her ship and soared off into the horizon. The back of my neck tingled and I looked around to see the many haunted expressions of my brothers.

Captain Dirk dropped his chin and glared off into the clouds. “If we chase her, we will miss our rendezvous with the emperor. Our prize is safe, gentlemen, and still stands to make rich men of us all. We’ll not let a woman frighten us off our course.”

We were to exchange a priceless heirloom of the old monarch so valuable the emperor was willing to negotiate with pirates to get it. Captain Dirk would not provide us any details, but our quartermaster Mr. Bentley assured us the deal was sound.

Captain Dirk had his faults, but he was a compelling figure. One could always find him in his stylish striped scarves and fitted patchwork britches. He wore a leather skullcap to hide his receding hairline and had a flare for brightly tinted goggles, which he wore in variant shades of red, yellow or blue depending on his mood. He wasn’t young—the skies had aged him fast—but he had a fiery spirit that made him seem invincible. A captain like that could make any man feel intrepid against gravity.

A witch’s curse was different however, for any man who underestimates the efficacy of magic, knows nothing of nature and gods.

Night fell and the air grew choppy. The ship lost altitude several times and sent my stomach lurching in my throat. I ate dinner too fast again. In the back of my mind, there was always an instinctive fear of starvation. Going hungry for days and weeks is a feeling the body never forgets, and I no longer believed any meal was guaranteed.

Some might say I became a pirate for the food, and they would be right. We ate well by our country’s standards. Fresh fruit and vegetables filled the hold and Cook would reheat frozen meat pies over a coal-burning stove until their crusts were crispy hot.

Now my pigeon pie took flight. I bent over the rail and hurled my guts out, lamenting the long and painful hours I would inevitably spend yearning for breakfast.

I got that eerie feeling that was all too common out in the black skies. Perhaps it was our ship’s dim electric lanterns glowing greenish in the fog, but it was more than just vertigo. In the abyss, I felt physically adverse to my own skin. The witch’s curse had me nervous and I could have sworn I heard a voice on the wind, something like the sad, sobbing sound of a child.

“They say spirits haunt the clouds up here, that there is no heaven, but only aimless mist,” said my friend Baker. He leaned his mop against the rail. He had a talent for finding me, and had hardly given me a moment to myself since our first encounter when he informed me I would be shadowing him on the Wastrel. An adept crewman with some savvy of piloting, he taught me everything I knew about the art of piracy.

Baker was the third tallest brute on the ship, a good friend to have amongst pirates, especially for a scrawny creature like myself. He was swarthy no matter how much sun he got, and he almost never wore his flight cap. He let the wind muss his long dark hair into dreadlocks and wore them pulled back in a thick cord. His most distinguishing feature was a silver fang that glistened when he smiled. We’d been drinking in Amaranthia when some rough characters assaulted him and chipped his tooth. When he went to have it crowned, he insisted he get a fang to scare off future troublemakers. “Do you believe in ghosts, Clikk?” he asked.

“No,” I croaked. My voice was always hoarse. My vocal chords worked as well as my bow without rosin, and after a bout of retching, I could sound downright fiendish. “I don’t spook easy,” I said, “And phantoms only manifest when a man allows himself to be afraid.”

“Not afraid of anything then?” Baker asked. “Not afraid of lightning? Fire? Falling?” He spoke soft as if he worried the fates might hear him and get ideas.

“Once you’ve experienced your worst nightmare, nothing can scare you.” I closed my eyes, losing myself in my thoughts. “I was orphaned… like every other bastard on this bird.”

“Not every bastard. My mother’s still alive.”

“Oh. Good. You should write her a letter,” I said. “What are you doing swabbing the deck?”

“I got up to some dice with Pierce and the cousins. Mr. Bentley walked right in on it.”

“That reminds me, you still owe me two silver from our card game last week.”

“Lost everything, I’m afraid.”

“‘Course you did.”

Baker smiled. “Captain says we’ll all be rich soon enough. What do you plan to do with your share?”

I pondered a moment and then said aloud, “If what the captain says is true, I should use my wealth to purchase a music store where I might conduct tune ups, offer lessons and such. What about you?”

Baker snickered. “Well, if I’m not dead after the first week, I’ll gather all my favorite girls in Amaranthia and set them up in brownstones as kept women. Then I shall take some property, some mansion on a city block, where I shall host a séance twice a month.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I will be such an eccentric. My home shall be decked with priceless artifacts, a fireplace in every room, and my pantry shall always be stocked with Skye and cricket fudge.”

“Cricket fudge?” I trembled with a mixture of humor and utter revulsion.

“Yes!” Baker laughed. “Have you never had it?”

“That’s foul.” I leaned back over the rail, certain I would be sick again.

“Eh… sorry.”

“Baker?” I said. “How is it your mother’s still alive? You told me you grew up in an orphanage.”

“For most of my life until I was thirteen, I did. My mum had to sell herself to makes ends meet. She kept surrendering me until she could save enough up to provide for us. The orphanage was a bit like boarding school in a way, with ever the possibility of going home with a new guardian.” Baker often made light of the tragic events of his life. I always listened and chuckled along, but endured a buried, stabbing sympathy for the brute.

“You likely spent more time in the orphanage than I did,” I said. “I ran away. The other children hated me, didn’t like the look of my scar.” I touched the fibrous tissue at my throat.

“Such a mark must have quite the story.”

“It’s a stupid story. A stupid story about stupid peasants. Not worth telling.”

“All the best stories are about peasants,” Baker insisted.

“Shouldn’t you be working?”

Baker slumped his shoulders and snatched up his mop. “You’re a grouse on rough air.”

“Wait. Baker, come back here,” I muttered.

“I’ve work to do.”

“It’s a history I’d rather forget is all.”

“We all have histories we’d rather forget. I’ve shared all sorts of pain with you, but every time anyone takes note of your scar, you retreat into your shell only to come out snapping. Someone tried to kill you when you were small and if you won’t tell me, I’d make the assumption you’ve never told anyone, and that’s sadder than any urchin’s tale I ever heard.”

“It was the Blue Dusk.”

My words silenced him. He leaned up against his mop like a walking stick.

“It was just after they’d executed the royal family. My father didn’t think it would affect us in Shale, but the Duskmen came to collect a tax. I was already weak with hunger when they arrived. The revolution followed a drought that left our harvest meager, and my father could not bear to see his only child starve. So when the Duskmen demanded we hand over our goat and the rest of our chickens, father begged pity. He got down on his knees and asked they leave us just one of our hens.”

A dark feeling rang in my bones as I recounted the tale. I could still smell the steel and the horses of those strange men. I could still see them in their blue military coats, standing over my cowed, stooping father.

“One of them, a Duskman called the Cerulean Knight, without a word, stepped forwards and kicked my father down. He ran him through while his face was in the mud. Mother screamed. The other Duskmen watched on and did nothing as this knight ravished her before my very eyes. I begged him to stop. I couldn’t bear it. I promised to give them whatever they wanted if he would just stop, but every time I spoke out, his men would strike me. The next morning, he finally slit my mother’s throat. And then he took me in his arms… and slit mine.” I raised my chin so he could see my finger trace my scar. “I awoke covered in blood, amazed I was still alive.”