Tales of Alterra Chapter 4!

 

Chapter 4

“So what about that power you showed us?” August knelt down beside Penny.

Penny shook her head. “I can’t say. I promised that I wouldn’t until … Until I was told it was okay.”

Elyse tugged at August’s sleeve. “Come here.”

August turned to look at Elyse. “I was talking to Penny.”

“Doesn’t matter. You won’t get anything out of her anyways. Come here!”

August sighed and stood up. Elyse led August to the forecastle, where the ship’s captain was standing, watching the horizon with his hands behind his back. His cloak flowed to his knees and rippled with the wind. His hair was white with old age and he had a short, well-trimmed beard.

“That was the third village.” The captain tapped his can against the deck. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something is happening.”

“Were the other two empty? No bodies?” Elyse played with her coat.

“Yes.” The captain turned to look at August and Elyse. “Your names. I did not get them.”

“That’s August,” Elyse pointed at him, “And I’m Elyse. The girl sitting over there is, um, Penny.”

Penny coughed.

The captain rubbed his beard. “Well then. My name is Captain Jacob Yuseph. We’re on the Firebird. Fastest ship in the disk.” He squinted. “Hey, lass. I may have seen you before. Is that just me?”

Elyse tilted her head. “I believe you may be mistaken.”

He’s not. Elyse spoke in August’s head. I’ll tell you everything after we figure out what’s going on with Penny.

Sure thing.

Elyse pushed up her sunglasses. “You’re taking us to the Capital, right?”

“Indeed I am.” Captain Yuseph put his hands behind his back and stood up straight. “We need to report what we’ve seen to the guild council.”

Elyse grimaced. “You do that. In the meantime, do you mind just dropping us off at the dock?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Thank you. I’ll figure out some way to repay you.”

Captain Yuseph shook his head. “No need.” He looked at one of the sailors working on the rigging. “Hey, you lout! You’re going to burn out the supercables like that!” He turned to Elyse. “Sorry. I have things to take care of.” He walked to the lower deck. “Get going! We don’t have all day!”

Elyse looked at August and shrugged. “I guess we should figure out what’s going on with Penny.”

They walked over to where Penny was sitting against the railing. August sat down next to her. “Tell me. What was that power you used in the village?”

Penny looked away. “I was told not to say anything. So I won’t.”

August shook his head. “We won’t pry. All I want to know is what you intend to do from here.”

Elyse tilted her head. “I sense an enormous amount of magicules coming from her. She’s no ordinary teenager.”

Penny grimaced. “What do you know?”

“I know that those were twelve-seventy reflux muskets.”

Penny raised an eyebrow, appearing to take interest. “Really? You know your guns?”

Elyse chuckled. “It seems like you do as well.”

“Penny? Guns?” August frowned in confusion.

Elyse patted Penny on the head. “Good girl. Can you show me a Patterson nine-nine?”

Penny held out her palm. A small yellow portal opened in front of her hand. First came a gun barrel, after which an entire gun flowed smoothly out of the spatial distortion.

“Ah, wow.” Elyse picked up the gun and examined it. Ten seconds later the gun shimmered, twinkled, and disappeared into a wormhole. Elyse had a pensive look on her face. “Interesting. A manifestation of psionic formulation.”

Penny looked far into the distance. “I wonder where my mother is.”

“We’ll find her, for sure.” Elyse scooted over to sit next to Penny. “In any case, I want to know how you know so much about guns.”

“My father was a gunsmith.”

“Ooh, was he famous?”

“Do you know Arling Soother?”

Elyse’s eyes lit up. “Of course I know him! Everyone in the gun world knows him!”

“Well, he’s my uncle.”

“Not your dad?”

Penny shook her head. “My uncle. He was also a gunsmith.”

“So your whole family was involved in that.”

Penny’s eyes appeared sad. “After my father died my mother didn’t want anything to do with guns.” She stood up, brushing off her skirt. “But anyways, I think I have something to do in the Capitol.”

“Tell me.” Elyse remained sitting against the ship’s railing.

Penny kept her hands folded behind her back. “I don’t know. I just know that someone is calling me there.”

August thought for a moment. “We’ll go with you.”

Penny turned around. “Really?”

August nodded. “Yes. Really.”

Elyse frowned. “But first we need to figure out what’s going on between me and him.” She waved her hand at August.

Penny tilted her head. “I’ll go with you. I want to meet whoever it is who knows a lot about this stuff. Maybe he can help me.”

Elyse reached out her hand. “It’s a deal then.”

Penny shook her hand, and then she looked at August. “Thank you, Uncle August.”

August stood up. “No problem. We’ll get you where you need to go.”

The three of them watched the horizon as the Firebird continued on its journey.

“I think you’re probably wondering who I am.” Elyse stared off into the distance.

“Not really.” August didn’t meet her gaze. “All I care about is that we’re on our way to figure out what happened.”

“You really don’t want to know?”

August felt a sudden blast of information transferred between himself and Elyse. “I get it.” He turned to look at her. “But I don’t care about your past. I don’t care about anyone’s past. All that matters to me is how you conduct yourself now.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s a matter of principle.”

Elyse twirled around. “Let me show you something.” She grabbed August and Penny by the arm, dragging them over to where the skysteel engine poked out of the deck. “Look at that. That’s a dispensiary condenser.”

“You invented that?” August touched the machine’s surface.

“I did.” Elyse tapped it with her palm. “And it works like a charm.”

“So, why is it that you don’t want to return to the Capitol?”

Elyse sighed, her eyes showing a bit of sadness. “Look, it wasn’t my fault.”

“No one is saying anything.”

Penny tapped her foot. “Yeah. I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“It has nothing to do if I’m a bad person or not. It was an accident.”

“And?” August tilted his head.

“And I ended up killing someone.”

August whistled through his teeth. “Manslaughter, then?”

“No. I was never charged in court. But I was exiled from the scientists’ guild.”

“Ah.” August frowned. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Penny nodded in agreement.

“Well, it started when I was doing a demonstration concerning a breakthrough I had made regarding the explication of mana potions … Well, it was a complicated subject that I won’t get into. But Drek, he and his cronies sabotaged the experiment, only they weren’t fully aware of everything my theory was about. So when they sabotage it, they unwittingly, well, they set their fate. When I did the demonstration he kind of disappeared into a wormhole that led to the maze realm. We still don’t know if he’s alive in there or not, but it was enough of a big deal that they exiled me.” Elyse gritted her teeth. “It wasn’t my fault. I proved that over and over again.”

“It sounds like they weren’t being fair.”

“Drek had a lot of connections among the higher-ups in the guild. They did not like me being part of his disappearance.”

Penny crossed her arms. “So it wasn’t fair.”

“Um, no, I guess not.” Elyse turned away. “I guess not.”

“But going back there is painful.” August touched Elyse on the shoulder. “In any case, it wasn’t your faut. And he may even still be alive in the maze realm.”

“Not likely. It’s been two years.” Elyse put her hand on August’s, and then released. She stepped away. Her mood brightened. “I think I may have enough courage to go back. Maybe if I ask nicely they’ll forgive me.”

“First we have to meet that guy you were talking about.”

“Oh, yeah, him.” Elyse’s mood soured again. “Him.”

“You don’t like this guy?”

“Not that I don’t like him, it’s just that, well, he’s strange. That’s all.” Elyse shrugged.

“But you’re still taking us to him.”

“Yeah.”

Penny cupped her hand to her ear. “I hear something.”

Elyse raised an eyebrow. “What do you hear?”

“Pain. Suffering. Someone is yelling.”

Elyse reached into her cloak and brought out a small wand. She waved it in a complicated pattern and a row of glowing signals appeared in front of her, and then slid the wand back into her cloak. Her arms crossed, she examined the read out. “Nothing that I can detect.”

“I can hear it.” Penny gripped her ears. “They’re screaming. In pain. As if their souls are being ripped from their bodies.”

Elyse bit her lip in concentration. “I still don’t know what kind of power you possess. If we figure out more about that, then we can figure out what you’re hearing.”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone?”

Penny shook her head. “I can’t hear them anymore.”

Elyse looked up at the setting sun. “Tell me when the voices return. In any case, it’s going to be a while before we reach the Capitol.”

August, Elyse, and Penny spent the next two days on the Firebird, traveling to the Capitol. When the first signs of it could be seen on the horizon, it appeared as a tall, large dome with spires on every side relative to the cardinal directions. The dome grew taller and taller until it towered over the sky like a mountain. Docks dotted the shell and hundreds of skyships could be seen coming and going. The Firebird got into a lane and headed towards one of the upper docks.

When the ship docked, the trio said their farewells to Captain Yuseph and entered the city proper.

The city was contained entirely underneath the dome. A single tower at the center of the city contained an artificial sun that cast its light onto the ceiling of the dome, tracing a line across it. At the moment of their entry, the “sun” was at about three in the afternoon, even though it had been early morning outside when they arrived.

The streets were filled with mechanical beasts that pulled carriages and cargo. Hundreds of people of all different magical races mingled on the causeway. The buildings on either side of the roads towered over them and cast long shadows. The smell was of harsh smoke and metal.

“This way.” Elyse led August and Penny through the streets, taking them down a little-traveled alleyway. They stopped at the door to a dilapidated building that was embedded into a drooping wall. Elyse knocked on the door.

The door’s viewport opened and a face looked through. “Oh, it’s you.” The viewport closed and August heard the distinct sound of several chains unlocking. Then the door swung open. “Come in.”

“Dex. I need your help.” Elyse stepped into the building.

“Fine, fine.” Dex waved his hand. “Come on. Everyone in.” He was a portly man, wearing an off-white apron. He took a seat behind a desk that was nestled amongst variety of strange, dusty artifacts. Folding his hands, he tilted his hand. “What is it that you need of me?”