34. THIRTY-FOUR #3
Mitek tilted his head. “Ah… that’s on the abstract.”
“Let’s just watch him, shall we?”
Calver had swum twice the ship’s length away, looking back continually as though gauging his distance. Finally, he set the lamp on the lid and turned to see that she was watching.
“Go!” she cried.
Calver pressed the lamp’s activator and dove beneath the surface like a bird seeking a fish. He disappeared entirely from view. Fankalo leaned against the rail, clenching with white knuckles. It could have been a ruse. A way for him to try to escape again.
The lamp lit up, like lamps did—or sure as hell had better, for a thousand silver notes—but grew steadily brighter. Within seconds, it became painful to keep her eyes on it. She looked away. A heart’s beat later, a sound like the cracking of thunder roared across the water.
“Fuck me!” Mitek shouted, cringing to the deck, clutching his hat.
She turned to see a crimson cloud billowing over the waves.
Spray from the patch of ocean where the lamp had been launched six stories into the air, like the blowholes in the rocky craigs along Thaligan.
A warm gust rippled across the water, tossing her hat from her head.
It smelled of burning aether. Mitek burst out laughing.
Fankalo’s heart hammered. Her eyes ran over the water, searching for Calver as the bodies of dozens of fish rose to the surface. She didn’t realize how tense she was until Calver’s head popped above the surface, a full ship-length from the explosion.
“One hell of a swimmer,” Mitek said. “Why am I not surprised? Bit of a showoff.”
Fankalo elbowed him in the ribs before leaning over the rail. “Are you hurt?” she called.
Calver shook his head, water flinging away from his hair in every direction. He swam back, a silhouette against the rising sun. They lowered rigging and hauled him back onto the deck.
Mitek muttered something about studying the ledgers and strode away. Fankalo joined Calver at a crouch.
“That was… incredible. How did you do it?”
He shook his waterlogged hair again. Something in his eyes brightened. That exhilarated her more than the explosion itself.
“Could you make the lamp do something besides explode?”
A laugh bubbled from her throat, excitement getting the better of her. “Anything else. Could you make it levitate? Could you make it repel?”
He shrugged like he’d never thought of it.
Why was it that all men were hopeless pyromaniacs? “Could you make a new one from scrap? Or do you have to have an Aetech product to begin with?”
Fanklao held a hand to her head. “Chaos, Calver. This will change everything! If we can make distortion products, we can topple Aethertech Mechanics’s monopoly. We could fund an entire shratten army, if we want.” The laugh became a cackle. “We can buy the Rollard Isles.”
He shrugged. Like she’d told him what she planned to eat for dinner.
“No, no. This isn’t going to work unless we do this as a team.
Our blood is stronger when we’re together.
” She wanted to tell him, then. To explain that they were a hair away from royalty.
That they were half-way to deities—which was far more significant when all of the deities were dead. Maybe she should.
Calver didn’t say anything.
“What do you want?” she asked him.
She read in his expression that he’d never thought about what he wanted.
There his eyes went again, glazing over. He clenched them shut, gripping at his hair.
She hadn’t thought that simple reflection might send him back into madness. How could she tell him? How much worse would he be if he realized the way the Tera’thians had weaponized him?
Fankalo put a hand on his shoulder. He tugged away, but his eyes fixed back on hers.
“So pick a new goal.” She just had to keep him focused on something else.
She dug for anything she could. “What was it you were saying, just before you asked for the lamp? You said you could take out Tera’thian command.
” Perhaps revenge would serve him better than reflection.
Calver pulled in the salty air around them like it was the last breath he’d ever take. His hands lowered.
She gave it to him.
‘Tera’thu will hold a coronation in the Tera’thian throne room in nine years when the prince ascends.
Everyone of importance will be present. There is a dumbwaiter.
Buried in the palace’s sewer system. I can make it operational.
It raises onto the throneroom dais. We place the lamp, send it up. No more Tera’thian command.’
Fankalo’s fingers rubbed together, and she forced herself not to ask the first question that popped into her mind: why did he have a grip on the palace sewer system?
“Supposing we can even get you into position to do such a thing.” She stopped.
Bit her lip. Started again. “Wouldn’t the entire dais, the entire floor collapse and… ”
Calver’s hands cut into the air between them, before scrawling: ‘It’s not a venture I’d expect to come back from. But it would certainly work.’
It felt as though she’d taken a blow to the gut. Absolutely not. How could he even… “Scrap that idea. We’ll think of a different one. One that doesn’t require human sacrifice.”
‘Do you really think that you can go to war without sacrifice? If you want to do this, you have to be prepared to lose everyone. If we can make it happen, we should. We should level them. It’s worth anything.’
Fankalo saw the change in his eyes. He was starting to believe in this campaign as much as she did. But now, she didn’t want him to. Not if it meant losing him.
“I don’t think this will work. What are the chances one of those lamps could be used against us? Or that it could malfunction and cause collateral damage to innocent parties?”
‘Slim. User error is more likely than malfunction, even with meticulous training.’
Fankalo’s mouth twisted as she looked at the lamp. It made her Luck roil. Positive outcomes. Wealth. Power… and a whisper of danger. Something about it suddenly sat like a stone in her gut.
Left with no better argument, she quoted Katlas Dreiden. “Any asset whose value does not outweigh its risk should be removed from the equation.”
‘Considering the gambles you plan which outweigh this by sums, I think we’re fine.’
So calm. Like it wasn’t a big deal, simply offering to blow himself to bits. Like it was the first thing he’d looked forward to in a while.
‘You are right. There isn’t a greater purpose we can serve, you and I. The Nelfinden won’t do it. And the Tera’thians won’t expect it.’
Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. She’d started them down this course and, like it or not, Calver had committed to it. Now she had to find a way to change his mind. She should say it now: “No.”
The breeze billowed. The sails snapped. Why couldn’t she say no?
“We have nine years to plan. That’s longer than I’ve been aboard this ship.” And surely it would be long enough for them to come up with another way to collapse Tera’thu’s power structure without martyrdom. “How long does it really take to topple an empire?”
She hadn’t expected Calver to laugh, but she had hoped for something in the way of relief. Calver’s jaw worked in circles as he stared into the wood of the deck. ‘You just have to make sure that, when it’s done, the Tume’amic are freed.’
The sudden understanding nearly split her. Just when she’d thought her brother’s humanity had been removed from him, it turned out his driving factor was magnanimity.
Her lips curled in over her teeth. This had suddenly become far more complicated. He thought she wanted revenge. He didn’t realize her motivation came from the standpoint of ending Cul’Mon’s experiments before they progressed.
“The fact that they harbor your genetic material does not make them your children.”
‘Yes it does. I am responsible for their existence.’
“How can you say that?” Calver’s description of what had been done to him had been clinical. A mechanical extraction—which was almost more horrifying than the alternative. There had been no physical contact, no free will, no biological desire, no element of human-led procreation.
‘I chose to Survive. I didn’t have to.’
She shook her head. “Calver, they will never know you. They used you for stock.”
Calver’s face fixed back into its signature stone wall. ‘Just promise me. No matter what I do. No matter how far away I seem.’
The Luck of the world tilted. Fankalo bit her cheek and closed her eyes, tumbling into the endless fathoms. But they spilled out differently than ever before.
It was as though she’d come to a precipice.
A valley of futures to one side, another to the next.
Wherever she descended from here, there would be no return.
“I promise.”
As an entire ecosystem of Luck slid rapidly away, the solid spark of her brother flickered. Fankalo opened her eyes. Calver had succumbed to his ailment, cringing on the deck. “You’re going to go away again, aren’t you?”
Twitching, gasping, Calver managed to scratch upon the paper pad. ‘I never make it very long.’