The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (30 page)

A voice came from the other side of the chamber, near the light. "Is it over?" The King's voice.

Skyhammer felt as though the whole world were listening. Then he realized this was his whole world. The remains of the human race. He adjusted his grip on Higgins. "All the other royals have been killed, my lord." He swallowed. "But the world cannot be returned to magic."

The refugees started muttering amongst themselves and Skyhammer heard some start crying.

The King spoke. "My people." He paused. "My people," he said again, voice choked with tears. "We have to go out now into . . ." He took a deep breath. "We are going back to the nearest town. Gather as much food as you can on the way and check for survivors." The words tumbled out. "We will return soon to honour and bury the dead." The King went down the stairs.

A silent procession followed him. Skyhammer recalled the Queen's warning about the center of the room and trod with care around the edge until he came to the doorway. He carried Higgins down the brightening staircase until they stepped out into the warm sunshine. A small hand touched his arm. Mute.

The boy looked up at him. He wrote: "I afraid you dead. Glad you not."

"The three of us will stay together, Mute." Skyhammer took a deep breath, his glance darting everywhere around the Tower.

The sun blazed, despite the heart-rending debris piled up around the Tower. The wreckage of millions of lives lay around him. Because of him. Closing his eyes, he ordered Mute to find some material so he could put Higgins down until they found a wagon.

Higgins stirred. "I'm alright," she whispered. "I should be able to walk. As soon as I get my strength back." Her eyes fell shut and she was asleep. Skyhammer kissed her forehead.

Mute returned with a filthy piece of blue material. "Best I see. Sorry," he wrote. He laid it out on the flagstones surrounding the Tower's base. Skyhammer settled Higgins on her back and then looked around. The majestic quiet of nature that usually soothed him now emphasized the lack of human noise.

Groups of people were clearing a way across the plateau so they could get to the path that led down to Cheshire. Most of Floatilla had fallen onto the mountains and into crevices around the Tower, unreachable without flight. Maybe they could get the Flyers to help. He hoped they had flown away before Floatilla had fallen.

He forced himself to look at the disaster around him. Objects and bodies mangled or broken. He stared at his feet, unable to face it for a moment. Mute stood beside him, one shoulder digging into Skyhammer's waist, touching him for comfort. Skyhammer knelt and hugged him, long and hard. A child his age shouldn't have to see this. He stood up holding Mute's hand. His mind was frozen. He knew he should be out there looking for something to carry Higgins but he couldn't move, didn't want to start dealing with this new world. It was too soon.

A woman brought them a salvaged wheelbarrow, resting her hand on Skyhammer's arm for a brief moment before walking off. Skyhammer couldn't get the words out to thank her. The metal was dented but the wheels turned. Before Floatilla's fall, no one had ever been kind to him like that. Mute covered the bottom with material. Skyhammer lifted Higgins into the wheelbarrow with Mute's help. They trundled down the path.

Couches, kitchen utensils, flowers, books, all the normal evidence of human life, littered the ground. As did maimed, bleeding bodies. A small girl's body lay horribly twisted, her slate clutched in her fingers, face smashed beyond repair, pink dress stained. Magic couldn't save her. Skyhammer forced himself to focus on Higgins. He told Mute that if he saw any food, he was to pick it up. And that Mute should find a bag in which to carry it. And find a bag for Skyhammer because he could carry food as well.

Mute walked off, reluctance on his face. Skyhammer and Higgins moved in silence except for the squeak of the wheelbarrow. They were the last group to leave the Tower.

Following the path winding down the mountainside, the remnants of humanity trudged back to Four Hills.

Chapter 30

Higgins stood, right hand on the wheel, a bright yellow flower tucked behind her ear. Sails billowed above her, gleaming white in the sunshine. The left sleeve of her tunic had been removed and the resulting hole sewn up.

Skyhammer paused at the top of the steps to admire her, shifting the disc he carried to his right hand. "Flora?" he called out with a grin.

She winked and smiled.

"Helen?" Mute wrote in capital letters, sticking his head and writing board out from under the stairs where he was coiling a rope in the shade. He stomped to get their attention.

They laughed, together, as Higgins shook her head. "You'll never guess."

"No, you'll just never tell." Skyhammer wrapped his arms around her and they kissed for a long time. Mute started clapping. When they came up for air, Skyhammer pointed at the flower. "Where did you get that?"

"From Four Hills. With Floatilla's shadow gone, things are growing!" She smiled and rested her hand on her belly.

Green shoots had been visible in the dirt beside the road as they travelled from the Palace to the Bay of Biscuits a few days ago. Life was returning; it had been six months since the fall of Floatilla. Skyhammer sat down on a cushioned bench behind Higgins and stretched his legs out with a contented sigh. He and Higgins had decided to take a few weeks' break, with Mute, and sail out to the Pinnacle and back.

The remaining humans were still cleaning up around the Tower as much as possible. No one had seen a Byndari since the ceremony.

Skyhammer set the disc beside him and opened his Retrograph Whorl. He had been avoiding his changed Retrographs. Now, looking at one from the Deadlands, he imagined Spark moving the items like pieces in a board game, trying desperately to figure out a way to communicate the danger to him. She was at peace now, he believed. He hoped she knew that her declaration of love had freed his heart and mind for Higgins' love. An incredible gift.

He closed the Whorl for a moment to watch his partner. Within the happiness he saw in Higgins' eyes, a seed of sadness would always remain. Her family, all Floatilla citizens, had perished in the fall. She was adapting well to having a single arm. Mute adored her and helped her whenever he saw a chance.

Whorl open again, he stared for a long time at a Retrograph of Rantama. His jaw began to ache from clenching. This creature had professed to be his friend, then turned around and almost destroyed his species. How could Skyhammer not have noticed anything unusual that last visit? Higgins kept telling him to get over it - no one else knew either. Why should he?

"Hanamun did," he had pointed out.

Higgins had nodded. "She knew the Byndari were trouble but she handled it badly. Her paranoia ruined her integrity."

"Who knows what the Byndari threatened her with though?" The guilt he felt at destroying Rantama had waned since the Fall of Floatilla, as he had learned about the Byndari's careless disregard for all the species on Pingala. The Byndari would have to repair their ship before it could leave the planet. Skyhammer wanted to find it before the aliens left. Perhaps people were still imprisoned in their ship. But what payment could possibly be enough for all those deaths?

On the other hand, he had a hard time blaming only the Byndari. They had provided the Nasuchu and Katipo queens with the weapon and convinced them of the benefit of technology but the queens made the final decision to change Pingala to technology and cause Floatilla to fall.

The King had ordered Skyhammer not to tell anyone about the Katipo and Nasuchu queens' actions in the Hall of Worlds. He did not want the other races to take revenge on the innocent citizens of those countries. Skyhammer wasn't sure they were innocent, but he obeyed the King and kept his mouth shut.

The Nasuchu seemed to have disappeared anyway. They no longer attacked travellers on the traders' road through the Deadlands. Rumour had it that they were dying, now that their magic power was gone, because they'd lost the taste for raw flesh. Skyhammer suspected that it wasn't that simple. The Flyers too had retreated from contact with the other races. Their race would soon die out without magic to facilitate the tree/Flyer reproduction system.

As for the Katipo, a couple of weeks after the ceremony, two humans had emerged from the Fungal Forest, bewildered but healthy. The Katipo had held them in a kind of zoo with members of other races as well as a range of animals. In the same manner as they controlled the spiders, the Katipo were able to control human minds. They had kept this aspect of their magic power a secret from other races, but had kidnapped and used members of the other races for many years. The Katipo usually affected the humans' minds so that they had no desire to escape but that wore off a week after magic was gone. The humans, a young woman and an older man, told stories of the animals in the swamp that had turned on their Katipo masters - the cruel ones, at least.

Skyhammer stared out at the wash behind the ship; silver fish flew through the creamy water. He inhaled a large breath of strong salty air. They had heard nothing from the Aridizans since magic disappeared, which bred suspicion in Skyhammer. Had they know what was going to happen? If so, how?

In Four Hills, a welcome change in attitude towards Skyhammer had taken place. Partly because the King had released an official story of how Skyhammer had vanquished the Retrograph Sorcerer. Humans would take a while to get used to their lack of magic powers. He figured the fact that humans still had Retrographs helped. He had always just wanted to be like everyone else, to be able to do magic. He chuckled. It wasn't really funny. Since the Fall he was respected by humans because of his survival skills. Much of his time had been spent teaching people how to live without magic. He had assumed that many humans from the farming and forestry villages would have survived. Unfortunately, most of those people had also made the trip to the Kingmaker Tower for the ceremony and died there. So yes, Skyhammer was a respected and accepted member of the human race. Only now, the human race consisted of a few hundred people, not a few million. He finally had something he wanted in life, just not in the manner he would have chosen. Skyhammer knew he would happily go back to his non-magic status if it meant Floatilla had never been destroyed.

"Hey, sailor!" Higgins blew him a kiss.

Perhaps things had changed for the better after all. Skyhammer smiled. After all, he had gotten something else he wanted too. He stood up and held out the black disc. "What do you think this is?"

She peered at the Relic and shook her head. It was made of a non-metallic material that was common to Relics. Unfamiliar symbols were written in silver on the front between two dark blue oblong pads.

"Remember? We found it a couple of years ago and I didn't want to sell it because of the symbols," he reminded her. "We left it outside in the sun and dunked it in some snow to see if anything would happen."

"No clue." She shrugged.

Mute bounded up the stairs to look.

"I left it out on the deck yesterday and accidentally stepped on it this morning. Watch this!" He threw the disc on the deck, then placed both feet on the pads. The disc lifted him into the air.

Higgins clapped a hand over her mouth. Mute grinned.

"A flying disc!" Skyhammer called from the air above them. He put more pressure into his heels and zoomed out over the water, then came back and travelled along at the same speed as the ship. "The Relics are controllable now!" He landed on the deck. "Do you know what this means?" He passed the disc to Mute.

"The Moksha may have died out because of a change to magic," Higgins surmised. "From technology. But how come the Towers and the Retrograph Machine still worked when magic did?"

Skyhammer shrugged. "Maybe as more Relics get used we can figure out what really happened to the Moksha."

Mute stamped his foot on the deck and pointed to an island off the port side.

Skyhammer squinted. On the island's beach, figures were jumping up and down.

Higgins whipped out her mini telescope. "Byndari. Why aren't they repairing their ship with the others?"

Skyhammer and Higgins stared at each other for a long minute.

"We have questions." Her face was sober.

"They might have answers," Skyhammer said. "Do we want to know?" He paused. He could choose to leave it alone. To accept what had happened and move on with his life. He laughed, inside. He needed to know more. Skyhammer nodded to Higgins, who spun the wheel and sailed their ship toward the island.

THE END

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SKYHAMMER BOOK 2

Interested in reading more adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer? Send me an email at [email protected] and I'll let you know as soon as the next Skyhammer adventure is available.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not exist without the endless love and support of Ben Hesketh - thank you, my love!

For her fabulous work on the cover art, thanks go to Paola van Turennout. If you want Paola's services for your own book, contact her through
her website
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Thanks also to my editor, Aynsley Friesen, for her patience with my atrocious punctuation and grammar.

My writing group peeps, Louisa, Bridget, Renee and Laura, provided valuable feedback, friendship and motivation - you guys rock!