6. The Flight of the Hawker
The Flight of the Hawker
It’s not a trick of the light, or blood magic.
Cosmer is really here, standing in front of me.
I stare without blinking, as though part of me thinks the moment I do, he’ll vanish once more.
I can’t reconcile the red shirt and brown leather jacket of his soldier’s uniform with the ragged clothes he once wore.
The face that was once boyish and is now sharper, all angles.
His hair, which used to be tangled, and is now combed through.
It’s like looking at a stranger. A stranger who has taken my memories and is mocking me with them.
I can’t seem to speak.
But I do find myself letting go of Drake’s hand.
He faces me. “You know this person?”
And that’s the question, isn’t it? Do I know Cosmer?
The Cosmer I knew wouldn’t have let us all think he was dead.
He never visited, which was apparently possible, if you believed crew rustlers.
He never wrote.
Letters did come down from the sky from time to time, mostly brought in by supply ships. But we never got one from him. Why?
Everyone is looking at me. I’m suddenly very aware I must look like a bewildered little girl.
I force my features to compose themselves.
“No. I don’t.”
I turn away, not wanting to see Cosmer’s reaction to my words – and spot Vikemy, now standing outside Temple, across from us.
The family resemblance is definitely there. But where Vikemy looks like he might bite you if you got too close, I decide that for all of his quirks, Dezeeves looks like a mild, unassuming man. Like you could easily get close enough to bite him. Except doing so would probably leave you poisoned.
Dezeeves greets him with warmth. “Come to wave us off?”
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Vikemy scolds.
“Why not? Can’t we celebrate our wins?”
“Your wins, you mean.”
“Oh, Vikemy. Don’t pretend you won’t take the credit when the time comes. We all know The Assembly still think you wrote your bid.”
Vikemy sweeps a look over Drake and I. Turns up his hooked nose. “Not even going to shackle them?”
“No, no. Far too much trouble. Kept losing the keys.”
“Your complacency will get you killed one day, brother.”
Dezeeves just beams harder. “Should we call you a doctor, Vikemy? You’ve just shown more concern in sixty seconds than you have in sixty years.”
Vikemy scowls. Although that might just be his face.
Something is passing wordlessly between them. It looks like pain, or resentment. Or…
Dezeeves breaks first.
“Come, Cosmer,” Dezeeves says. “We’d better get going. I’m sure Vikemy doesn’t want to be party to this any more than he already has been.”
My gaze falls on Cosmer again, and see his was fixed on Drake, his mouth tight and his skin taut over those sharp cheeks. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. But I do decide the fact he grew to look like that is salt in the wound he’s opened in me. People without hearts don’t deserve to be attractive.
He looks away as he strolls past us. I watch him swing into the ship with that same easy athletic ability he’d had at sixteen – the boy who could climb walls and walk on his hands. He flips levers at the control table, adjusts dials, and looks busy. Comfortable.
The thought that he can, it seems, fly ships, but never thought to fly one to me, fills me with what can only be quiet rage.
Dezeeves points towards the ship. “Ara and Drake. Your chariot awaits.”
I consider, for a heartbeat, making a run for it. Because what if I could avoid my fate? Not have to get into this strange contraption, or become a prisoner, and eventually, loyal to Hevalla?
What if I didn’t have to leave my family?
I think it through as if it’s a real option.
I’ll run, right now. Make it to them. We could pack what we could carry – we don’t own much anyway. We could start walking.
But where would I lead them? What kind of life could I provide for them, in this hot, dry country, on the run?
And if bombs fall…
My head throbs. Blocks out everything else – which is bad, because I really need to be able to think right now.
“Thinking about running?”
It’s just Dezeeves and I left. Drake has boarded the ship, and Vikemy must have slithered off back to whichever dark hole he sprang from.
“Yes,” I reply, because I get the feeling Dezeeves is not a man you can get away with lying to.
His face is devoid of emotion. “You’re smarter than that.”
“Have my family been told I’m leaving?”
“I understand they’ve been told a variant of the truth.”
“That’s a no, then.”
Dezeeves rolls his pointy shoulders. “For the best. Don’t you think?”
“I would have liked to say goodbye.”
“For the best,” he repeats.
The walk to the ship seems to take far longer than it should. I’m unsteady as I bow my head to enter it and slip beside Drake on the narrow wooden bench behind Cosmer.
The ship is a lot like the wrecked ship, but of course, everything is intact and unbroken.
The clunky copper pipes in the walls. The complex timepiece and barometer.
The gauges, dials and levers set in the control table.
The table is lit up with yellow lights – but they’re not from flames.
I can’t stop staring at them blinking like fireflies.
“Lartosi laser light,” Dezeeves explains, as he squeezes in beside Cosmer. “Incredible invention. Light and heat without flame – invaluable on our flammable ships, I’m sure you’ll agree. And can be used to propel even the largest of ships.”
Wonder rises in me, light as air.
But so does rage, heavy as lead.
My life in Hevalla is primitive compared to the technology in front of my eyes. Even the Palace had nothing like this.
Why is this technology from Lartos being used for the sole purpose of war?
A whirring sound starts up from somewhere beneath me and I notice Cosmer’s hands are now in leather gloves. They’re tight around a large wooden wheel not dissimilar to a sea ship’s helm.
The sight makes me realise something I probably should have realised sooner.
“You’re piloting?”
“I am.” He glances over his shoulder at me and flashes me a quick, sly smile. “Unless you’d like to take the wheel?”
“But I thought Dezeeves—”
“Ah,” Dezeeves says, white eyebrows wriggling. “I’m afraid not. I was never a very good pilot. Gave me the worst vertigo.”
“But you’re a captain!” I blurt out.
“A very different skillset is required for that job, I assure you. I have over a hundred pilots in my crew. Just think about all those egos!” He chortles. “And these things! I’ve seen even a passing seagull send a hawker like this one into a frenzy.”
He raps his knuckles on the wall of the ship.
It clinks. Like a cup.
My last moments alive are going to be spent in a glorified tin can.
Drake must notice the confidence draining out of me at the speed of urine from a full bladder, because he tells me, “He’s joking. Hawkers and termites can be shaky, because of their speed and size. But they’re perfectly safe.”
There isn’t much opportunity left for conversation, because the ship is rocking and clanking. The whirring that had begun a moment ago is now drowning out everything else. It’s like being out on a choppy sea, the churn of waves around me.
The ship jolts violently, and instantly, I cry out. My eyes clenched shut, I grip the edge of the bench like it’s the only thing that might save me.
We continue to vibrate, and just when I think the ship might break apart, I have the sensation that we’re lifting off from the ground.
It’s in my stomach, which is doing flips like a suffocating fish.
It’s in my ears, which are popping like smoking wood.
It’s in my head, where all of my blood seems to be rushing at once.
Even the hairs on the back of my neck rise, knowing something unnatural is happening. Something that goes so far beyond anything humans thought would one day be possible.
And then I’m aware of Drake’s hand over mine, gently tugging my fingers away from the bench. I let him, and squeeze his hand tight.
“This is always the worst part,” he says, in my ear, over the noise. He must be right by me. “We will be all right.”
Gradually, the ship steadies and the noise dulls.
I open my eyes – and my breath escapes me.
Through the window beyond Cosmer, the sky is a bruise of purples and oranges.
I’ve never seen so much of it. It looks so deep, like you could just fall into it.
Cosmer calls out, “If you look down right about now, you’ll get a perfect view of Vikemy Village.”
My curiosity overpowers my fear, and I risk taking a glance.
I can see spindly trees, and the length of our beach split by jagged cliffs, and moving dots that must be people.
They’re reassembling the fishing boats that the wave had scattered.
In the distance is the tall grey shape of Temple, and we fly over coils of smaller, darker, haphazard-looking huts and houses.
Hevalla loves circles because they represent equality, which is what it claims to stand for.
We’re moving too fast. I had a glimpse, and now it’s gone.
I never knew my village was surrounded by so many stretches of brown and yellow earth. It’s all so barren.
“It looks so small.”
“Everything’s small from up here,” Cosmer states, at an almost normal level now the ship is quieter. “Apart from the world. It’s huge. You wouldn’t believe it.”
I realise my sweaty fingers are still clasping Drake’s. I unlatch them.
“You’ve got an iron grip on you,” he says quietly, shaking out his wrist. But he doesn’t look annoyed. More – entertained.
I flush. “Sisters. Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
He flexes his fingers. “Look. These are all you.” He indicates the little red grooves where my nails must have dug in.
“Oh. I didn’t mean—”
He leans into my ear.
“I like them,” he whispers, his cheek centimetres from mine.
I tilt my head to face him.
“Wh—”
Cosmer’s voice cuts through mine. “What are you two talking about back there?”
Drake doesn’t miss a beat.
“I was just saying how strange it is that Dezeeves has already fallen asleep. Is your captain a narcolept?”
Sure enough, Dezeeves has sunk into his seat, head lolling. I hadn’t noticed.