7. The Floating Carousel
The Floating Carousel
The world is swaying gently. There are hands on my shoulders. Someone is speaking to me. I smell sour breath, and realise the plummeting sensation in my body has stopped.
I open my eyes. Dezeeves is crouching in front of me.
“That’s it,” he says, reassuringly. “You’re quite safe.”
I look around. Cosmer and Drake are unconscious, their bodies on opposite sides of the ship. Their arms and legs are at odd angles, and there’s a bluish quality to their skin.
“They will be just fine,” Dezeeves states. “I just gave them a shot of Rhavnan sleeping draught.”
Of course.
I recognise the effects now. Old Mother often made it for herself back in Rhavna.
“I always take it before long flights, to settle my vertigo. Wisely, I opted for a milder dose on myself today, and prepared extra – as I do, when there is possible chance of altercation.” He gives me a bashful look.
“You’ll have to forgive me for not rousing faster.
This stuff... It really does knock me like a plague. ”
He steps over them, to the control table, and yanks up a large lever, which makes the ship waver. He grabs the wheel, which steadies it, and sits in Cosmer’s seat. We’re moving again, smoothly.
Outside, night has fallen. It’s so peaceful out there. So dark. Like a beautiful abyss.
Things Dezeeves has said to me over the course of the day stumble through my mind.
I voice my thoughts as they come to me. “You can speak a lot of languages. You know how to make a Rhavnan potion. You’re not–”
“Not very Hevallan?” Dezeeves guesses. “So I’m often told.” He says, softer, “But perhaps we can be whoever we want to be. Choose who we want to be. Regardless of our birth. Don’t you agree?”
His words sound so sagely.
It gives me an idea.
“Were you once a travelling holyman, Dezeeves?”
“Ara,” he says, with humour. “Let us trade bread, and not stories of yeast.”
I get the message. This conversation is over.
“You might want to get some rest yourself,” he suggests. “We still have over an hours’ flight time remaining. And I’m afraid, what with the rigorous schedules we must keep as soldiers, and the nature of life on a hive, there won’t be much opportunity for sleep once you are boarded.”
Just hearing the suggestion of sleep from his mouth makes me feel achingly tired. It’s as if the events and emotions of the day catch up with me all at once.
I wonder briefly whether Dezeeves isn’t a madman or a former holyman.
Maybe he’s a magician.
I’m being gently nudged.
“Ara. You might want to see this.”
The voice is familiar. The voice of a friend, I think. Should have calmed me – but it raises the hairs on the back of my neck instead.
Blinking lights fill my vision as I remember where I am. Where I’m headed. How my life has changed yet again, in ways that I could not have controlled, in such a short space of time.
I could start crying again.
But then I glimpse the world outside of the ship, and gasp.
In the distance, a golden ship – it really does look like a carousel – is suspended in the air.
Even from where we are it looks enormous.
I see rows and rows of portholes – I’ve only ever seen this much Lorallahan glass in one place at the Palace – and the whole domed top deck, which is topped with a mast, seems to be made of it.
Cannons protrude from under the portholes on one of the higher decks, and balls of light lining the ship wink like hundreds of stars.
“Amazing, isn’t it? Took my breath away when I first saw it too. Still does.”
I look to my left. Cosmer is beside me, in Drake’s place.
I jerk from him. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“A while. Sleeping potions never last long on me.”
I watch him stretch his long legs, rake a hand through his hair, and sit back comfortably – somehow all at the same time.
Of course a sleeping potion wouldn’t work well on him. He fizzes with nervous energy.
I quickly wipe my mouth, where I can feel dribble. “Were you watching me sleep?”
“Hey. There wasn’t much else to do.” He shoots a look at Dezeeves. “And he’s been no good for small talk. He’s mad at me.”
I feign surprise.
“Is he? Because that would make two of us.” I sit forwards. “Dezeeves. Did you know Cosmer’s awake?”
Dezeeves is wearing the headband again. Voices are leaking out from it.
“He probably can’t hear you. He doesn’t have great hearing at the best of times. Let alone when he’s got a radio band on.”
Just beyond my feet, Drake is still sleeping soundly. What was wrong with my stars, that the one male I actually wanted to speak to would still be knocked out, and I would be stuck with the other? The one I would have been quite content to never see again in my life?
Cosmer kills the silence. “You’re not really mad. Are you?”
I almost laugh. “I’m furious! You could have killed us—”
“All right,” Cosmer interrupts. “I shouldn’t have gone for your new friend like that. But you could see he was trying to get a rise out of me. Took an instant dislike to me.”
“What? And you didn’t take an instant dislike to him?”
Cosmer huffs. “That’s different. He’s a prisoner of war. He’s—”
“Rhavnan scum,” I guess.
“Exactly. He’s—”
He stops. His eyes grow wide.
“Ara.” He curses under his breath. “Cosmos. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. You’re not—”
“Sure I am. I’m half-Rhavnan. I look far more Rhavnan than Hevallan. I lived there most of my life. That would make me scum, too, wouldn’t it?”
“Ara—”
“In fact,” I continue, undeterred, “I’m probably the biggest Rhavnan scum there is, since I lived in the actual palace.
I spent my days sitting on jewels and counting gold coins and keeping the glorious, otherworldly magic I supposedly have in my blood to myself, for my own means.
I didn’t even wipe my own behind, did I?
I must have had people to do that for me. ”
“Ara,” he says again. “Stop it.”
“In fact, I didn’t even need the people, did I?
I just clicked my jewelled, magical fingers, and my silk rags wiped me.
I needed civilisation. I needed my country to be declared war on, so that it could eventually be bombed to bits, our wealth taken from us and the magic bled right out of us.
So that all of Hevalla – nay, all of the world – would be better off—”
“Ara!”
I look down. He’s grasped my hand, which I’ve been unknowingly flailing about.
His face is so close.
I can see every freckle on his pale skin. The gilded flecks in his brown irises.
His eyes are flickering over mine. It feels hotter in here than it’s been this whole time. There’s an ache low in me I can’t define. Clenching up, I slowly slip my hand out of his, and wish he would just disappear again.
To distract myself from his existence, I spend a long minute just looking at the world outside.
Other ships are also approaching the huge carousel.
Its proper name comes to me – a hive ship.
We do all look like bees entering a hive, and it’s clear from the movements of those in front of us that there’s a silent dance happening between us as we prepare to board.
“Ara,” Cosmer says softly. “I really am sorry.”
I feel my heart beat, beat, beat, hard enough to hurt me.
Eventually, I say, calmer, “I’ve lived in Hevalla for five years. I’ve heard it all before. And the worst part is, you know I have. You were my friend. You fought off the Brodie boys for me when they attacked me that time. How you could now call someone Rhavnan scum in front of me—”
“I know,” he mutters. “I can’t believe it either.”
I try to breathe. Ease the pain in my chest.
It’s just making it worse.
My voice, when I speak again, sounds choked.
“We all thought you were dead. You know that, don’t you?”
He flinches. Like I’ve just slapped him. “What? Why would you think that?”
Is he being serious?
“Why wouldn’t we?” I counter, hotly. “You never wrote. You never visited—”
“Never visited! I wasn’t abroad for leisure, Ara. I’ve been at war! You…” He’s breathless. “You don’t know what it’s like up here. The war is everything. Every living moment is about keeping the people around you alive—”
My rage feels raw. Like a bloody wound dressing has been ripped off.
“You still could have picked up a pen! Letters came down sometimes. Sisters, you could have chucked a message in a bottle and even that might have reached us somehow—”
He looks livid.
“I volunteered to pilot as soon as I heard your name on my ship’s radio today.
I even tried to visit my mother, but she wasn’t there.
This was my first time in three years I could come down, and I did.
Do you not realise that? I heard you were being taken prisoner for something.
I knew you’d be shit scared – and devastated to have to leave Eric.
I thought you’d appreciate a friendly face, in your situation...
” An exasperated noise leaves his mouth. “I thought you’d be happy to see me!”
He stares at me accusingly. Like I’m the bad person here.
Like he’s realised that actually, he hates me.
I’m aware we’ve somehow gravitated closer again. I can see his chest moving with his breaths. His mouth is twisted down in the corners. I keep glancing at it. I don’t know why.
The sound of Dezeeves’ voice breaks us apart.
“Cosmer. Would you mind telling your friend to stop doing acrobatics? It’s very distracting.”
I follow Dezeeves’ line of sight to where a long, sleek ship is swaying side to side and up and down.
“Oh,” Cosmer says, with an awkward smile. “She thinks I’m piloting. She’s challenging me.”
“And do you and Rissa often waste osimidite performing dangerous manoeuvres to ‘challenge’ each other?”
“Uh…”
Dezeeves lifts off the headband and hands it to Cosmer, who thrusts it on.
“Riss. Firstly – that was mediocre at best. I give it a five. Secondly, Dezeeves is actually piloting Bumble right now.” There’s a muffled reply from a female voice.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s hating every minute. But there was an issue.
” Another reply. “No, that does not mean you win by default. No… No. Absolutely not.” Cosmer catches sight of Dezeeves’ face.
“As much as I’d love to continue this, I need to go. ”
The sleek ship glides out of view, at the same time that Dezeeves levels us with an open hatch.
We enter it slowly. He turns several dials and pulls a lever, and the machine clanks and lowers itself.
We land with a judder in the centre of the windowless silver space, and the silence is loud when the whirring stops.
Dezeeves takes off the headband with a long sigh as the hatch clunks shuts behind us.
Cosmer grins at him. “You’ve still got it, Dezeeves.”
“As do you, it seems,” Dezeeves mumbles – although I get the feeling he didn’t intend for us to hear that.
I look down at Drake.
I sort of wish he’d been awake for this. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to have that conversation with Cosmer. It’s left a prickling feeling under my skin.
“Here,” Dezeeves says to me, holding out his hand. “Wave these under his nose.” He uncurls his gloved fist to reveal an assortment of colourful rock salts. Even from here, I can tell they have a potent smell.
I scoop them up, and do as he says.
Drake’s eyes instantly open, and he smacks my hand away, gagging.
From behind me, Cosmer mutters, “Glad you could join us.”
I help Drake sit up, then reach back to return the salts to Dezeeves.
I’m more conscious than ever of how close we all are for comfort. Especially now I have Cosmer and Drake on either side of me.
When can we get out of this metal box?
There’s a noise from outside. Ahead of us, another door opens. Two bulky, hairy monsters with brassy faces, goggles over their eyes, nozzles over their mouths, and cylinders on their backs, are trudging towards us. It’s such a frightening sight it makes me jump back in my seat.
“Just engineers,” Cosmer explains quickly, only half-looking at me, like looking at me properly is the last thing he’d choose to do right now. “It can get cold in these docking pods, hence the furs. The oxygen masks are just a precaution in case there’s ever a problem with the hatch doors.”
So, not monsters. Just people.
“Oxygen. We need that to breathe, don’t we?” I vaguely remember that science lesson with my tutor.
Dezeeves beams. “Excellent. She knows more than the average recruit we get already.”
I notice the engineers are rolling in large white balloons on wheels.
“What’s in them?” I ask.
“Osimidite,” Drake and Cosmer say at the same time, then both glare at each other.
I hear hissing. The engineers have connected the balloons to the ship.
Then there’s a flash of bright light. It’s coming from a large gauge in the wall.
“Oxygen’s stable,” Cosmer says to me, grasping for the door.
He uses both hands to slide it up, then he leaps out of the ship, contorting a little in the air like an acrobat. He lands lightly, and takes a deep bow.
No one claps.