The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (2 page)

"Oh the pleasure was all mine, believe me. She had it coming." At another breath on Higgins' slate, the cage, sign and snake disappeared. "Not sure if the market stall that receives her will be grateful or angry. Oh well." An escaping strand of curly strawberry-blonde hair stuck out above her ear. Clad in loose brown leggings and a blue knee-length tunic, she plopped into the pink chair. "Have you heard about the Ceremony?" Her left foot tapped the floor in a constant beat.

Skyhammer nodded. "I heard collectors won't need us because they will be able to use their magic powers to go and find their own Relics." He scowled. "The Royal Circle will no longer confine the poor things' use of magic." Leaning back in the chair, his chin sank down to his chest.

"So?"

"That means, in addition to magic users bugging me everywhere on the planet, we are out of a job -"

Higgins sprang to her feet. "That idiot wench didn't tell you?" Her eyes alight with excitement, she grabbed the newspaper and shook it in his face. "About how the other changes to magic powers affect you?"

Chapter 2

Countdown to ceremony: 55 days

"It's magic. How could it possibly affect me?" Skyhammer asked.

"The Ceremony will make magic accessible all over Pingala, yes, but it will also bestow magic powers." Higgins moved her face so close that the tips of their noses almost met. "Skyhammer, the Ceremony will give you magic powers." She sat down with a triumphant smile.

Skyhammer couldn't stop shaking his head. Half of him yearned to believe the ceremony would give him magic powers, the other half feared the usual disappointment. Forcing his head to stillness, he whispered, "Tell me."

Higgins spread the newspaper out on the table. The first few pages were taken up by drawings, one per page.

"The ceremony." A serious look came over her face. "These pictures are of a Relic that the Byndari found. A wall. It's part of the Pinnacle -"

"The one in the middle of Anusaka Ocean?" Skyhammer interrupted. "There's always a storm around that spire of rock, no one can get near there."

"None of the human, Katipo, Flyer or Aridizan species," Higgins agreed. "But in their amoeba form, the Byndari can swim near the base of the Pinnacle, since it's underwater. There was an earthquake a couple of weeks ago and a piece of rock fell off the Pinnacle." She slapped the paper in excitement. "It's a Relic!"

"Guess that proves your theory that the Pinnacle is a creation of the Moksha."

"Not really. There's something at the top that the Moksha are trying to hide with that wild storm but I don't think they actually created the Pinnacle itself." Higgins bent over the newspaper. "Anyway, the piece of wall has carvings on it! The Byndari engaged their best artist to make these drawings since the Wall is still at the bottom of the ocean."

Skyhammer pulled his chair beside her and peered at the drawings. Crowns, human figures, spiders? "I'm confused." The artist was talented though; he could tell that the carved figures were sculpted onto the wall in relief.

"Start here." She flipped back a page. "Each drawing is a detailed rendering of one of six panels from the wall."

Skyhammer stared at them and blinked his eyes. He couldn't focus. His mind raced with the possibility of magic powers.

Higgins' hand squeezed his shoulder. "Want to get out of here? I can explain these later."

He nodded.

"Record each panel with your Retrographs first," she ordered.

His brain felt fuzzy. If she actually had to remind him to record the drawings, he must really be out of it. He watched each panel for at least a minute, then opened his Whorl to double-check they had been recorded.

She was withdrawing her magic slate as he closed his Whorl. Her fingers danced over the blood-glass and her lips puckered, then she blew over the sketch to ignite the spells. Skyhammer's backpack rose into the air. He held out his arms so that its straps could slip over them with his eyes glued to Higgins' slate all the while. It fit snugly in her palm and was about the same shape and thickness. He imagined the soft, warm edges of a slate in his hand and pursed his lips-

"Let's go!" Before returning it to the leather pouch on her hip, Higgins blew one more time over the slate, returning the pink chair to its original wooden form.

They left his office and entered the dark corridor that connected all the offices on the ground floor. The brick building had no other tenants yet the owner charged Skyhammer an exorbitant rent. Another bonus for not having magic. Money wasn't an issue for him though; he was a very successful Relic hunter and, when his Relics were actually paid for and not stolen, he made a lot of money.

"We'll fly back to the harbour." A rolled-up blue and green carpet, about seven feet long, hovered outside Skyhammer's door. After they passed the carpet, it began to float down the hall behind Higgins. "Then we can sail up the coast a bit, relaxing until the ceremony happens in two months. That way we can be here when the King moves the Royal Circle to the Kingmaker Tower and simply fly there with it."

"No." Skyhammer stopped with his fingers around the handle of the door to the street. He turned to face her. "We have to get the mesh glove."

An astonished look crossed Higgins' face. "Haven't you been listening to me? The ceremony will give you magic. You don't need the glove anymore. If we go all the way out to the Uncharted Territories we may not get back in time for the ceremony. And the King has decreed that everyone should be in the Royal Circle for the ceremony."

He rolled his eyes. "We'll be back in time. We know exactly where to go."

"You do," she grumbled. "You won't even tell me how you got the glove's location from that Aridizan Relic protector."

Skyhammer said nothing. That Aridizan had seen the mesh glove. The Relic was located over a ravine that required two people to get across. The Aridizan had been stuck in town recovering from the loss of her partner to the ravine. When he entered her roon, she was alive. When he left, she was dead. He had promised the Aridizan never to reveal what was said between them. Guilt pricked him for hiding from Higgins what he had done. He hardened his heart. No matter the cost, that glove and the magic powers it bestowed were destined to be his.

"Once I explain the ceremony to you, you'll realize we don't need to go. Open your Whorl now and I'll show you!" Higgins began circling her arm.

Skyhammer caught her wrist, then dropped it. "Higgins. I believe you." A note of desperation tinged his voice. "I do. You believe this ceremony will give me magic. But I can't just wait and see." He looked into her eyes, searching. Would she understand? "You know what my life has been like." He took a deep breath. "Meeting Spark, then having her disappear without a word. Getting chosen as Keeper of the Retrograph when it was the last thing in the world I would have expected or wanted." He felt a tide of words rushing up his throat. Words he'd never said to his best friend. He guessed she probably knew how he felt but they'd never talked about it. "That was it, the Keeper thing. I couldn't live there next to the Retrograph Vault, alone in the middle of the forest. For the rest of my life? I want magic powers. That's all I've ever wanted."

Higgins remained silent, her gaze fixed on his face.

"I feel like everything has been snatched from my grasp, you know? Like I've always been given something with one hand while the other takes something else away. I was born with the Retrograph ability but not magic powers. I fell in love with Spark and she left me. I was accepted to the Relic Hunting Academy, did the training, then got chosen as Keeper. Expected to squander my life as a figurehead guardian of a Relic, with no idea of how it works." His bitterness threatened to overwhelm him.

She began to nod.

"Now you say there's an opportunity for me to get magic powers at this ceremony when I've just learned from a reliable source that the mesh glove Relic is accessible." He sighed. "Can you see why I would be excited about the ceremony but still want to attempt to get the glove?"

"It's dangerous out there." Higgins massaged her eyes with her fingers. "What do you want to do?"

"If we leave now, we can be back here in 40 days." He couldn't go without her. No one else would hunt with him and he needed a second person to get across that ravine.

She sighed. "Fine."

Skyhammer hugged her.

"Get off me, you great lout." She pushed him away, smiling. "You said 40 days and I'm holding you to that."

"Of course, Jacqueline." He'd known her for six years and still had never managed to guess her first name. At the Academy, it had started as a way for her to tease him. All this time later, and he was beginning to think she actually didn't want him to know it. That made him all the more curious of course. He hauled open the door to the street. "Let's get back to the ship and get that glove."

"You guessed Jacqueline last year," she chided him. "You need to start writing them down. This is why we have Retrographs. Human memory is very unreliable." Higgins followed him out into the streets of the Four Hills business district called Market Hill.

It was mid-day and dark. Across the street, a floating lamp illuminated the bald head of man clad in tight red leather closing his Retrograph Whorl, then stepping onto a thick dark blue carpet suspended a few inches off the dirt road. He kneeled, looked up, and the carpet shot straight into air.

The pinch of envy was hardly noticeable anymore. Instead Skyhammer glared at Floatilla, the floating city above them that occupied the Royal Circle of magic. The bald man's carpet soon joined the flow of travellers going between the human capital of Four Hills and the floating city.

Floatilla was bound to Four Hills or, more accurately, to the King. The King was the physical center of the Royal Circle and the source of human magic. To perform magic spells, humans had to be within ten horizontal miles of the King. Long ago, humans had discovered that the Circle extended hundreds of miles into the air above the King and had built a floating city so more people could live in the Royal Circle and move with the King if he had to go anywhere. He rarely left the Palace, however. It was a lot of work to coordinate the movement of Floatilla and make sure that no one was left behind or hurt.

The floating city almost filled the column that was the extension of the King's Circle into the sky above. A half-mile gap remained around the outside for safety. A column in the middle allowed for transportation of goods and people. Layers of cities, each built on a thin disc of wood, housed powerful magicians closest to the outer edge and less powerful ones in the central slums. The outer walls of each layer were made of glass, the wooden frames faded by sun, wind and rain to a pallid gray.

Skyhammer tilted his head back, always impressed despite himself by the sheer scale of Floatilla, and the organization and amount of magic power it took to keep so many humans and buildings and everything else in the air. He wondered if any of the King's Mages who managed Floatilla ever used up their daily quota of magic power and let something, or someone, drop. Eight or so miles away, sunlight illuminated mountains to the north-west and the ocean to the south-east. He opened his Retrograph Whorl and took a wistful peek at the sunny plains of his last Relic hunt.

A movement out of the corner of his eye alerted him in time to jump backward, out of the way of a group of young women walking by while looking at their Retrographs. They hadn't noticed him. Since they weren't travelling by air, they must only be Conjurer level humans.

His gaze followed them up the street towards the peak of Market Hill. A block up, just outside of the poorest area of Market Hill, humans conducted their business, along with a few adventurous visitors of the Katipo, Aridizan and Byndari species. Carpets flew back and forth a few feet above theirs heads. Almost all the humans had their Retrographs open while they walked, making the street look as though it was populated by roving golden apples on two legs. Skyhammer had to admit he liked being able to appreciate women's legs and hips without disapproving looks being sent his way.

"Ready?" Higgins voice interrupted his thoughts. While he'd been sending negative vibes to Floatilla, she'd spelled her blue and green striped carpet to carry them back to her yacht, which was docked in the harbour at the foot of Port Hill.

"Skyhammer! Wait!" A carpet with a bold daisy pattern, carrying a human female, plunged almost into the ground in front of Skyhammer.

Chapter 3

Countdown to ceremony: 55 days

The woman stumbled off her carpet, the ruffles of her loud pink dress billowing in the wind.

Skyhammer reached out a hand to steady the new arrival, one of his Relic informants named Bernice Young.

Bernice pulled back, avoiding his touch. "The Aridizans know where the glove is," she announced as she performed a spell to tidy her mussed red hair. She tucked her slate away. "They're sending a Relic protector team out to claim it."

Butterflies of fear fluttered in his stomach. Unclaimed Relics were silver-coloured and changed to a species-specific colour when claimed. If any other race subsequently touched the claimed Relic, their life ended in a wet and immediate explosion. If the Aridizans got there first he would lose the glove forever.

"Bernice." Higgins put her hands on her hips. "This is an unexpected surprise."

The informant glanced at Skyhammer, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

"I just wanted to warn you that Relic protectors are after the glove as well. They've taken the eastern route but there are only three of them."

The eastern route took longer, Skyhammer recalled but if only three protectors were travelling, they could move quite quickly.

Higgins laughed. "If I didn't know better I'd think you cared about our well-being."

"I do care." Bernice's smile didn't reach her eyes.

Higgins stepped onto her carpet. "You told us because you want the 1000 gold piece reward that Skyhammer promised for information leading to his retrieval of the mesh glove. If the Relic Protectors claim it, you'll never see that money."