Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (2 page)

“You look troubled, Councilor,” said Nilan. “Is everything all right?”

“My dear,” Councilor Thalius said to Shazahd, “just what have you heard about Owein Maeriod?”

“They say he’s never lost a soul he was charged with protecting.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“What it is, Councilor?” Shazahd asked.

“Well,” he began, “I suppose it’s…. Did you happen to hear how he left the military?”

“Mistress Ranaloc!” It was Pawl. He was a nervous wreck, brusquely and ungracefully elbowing his way through the guests.

Shazahd sighed. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen.” They bowed politely as she left to meet her assistant.

“Shazahd!” he said breathlessly.

“What is it, Pawl?”

“There is a slight… problem.” He kept his voice low.

“Problem?” Shazahd did not cloak her voice at all. “What is it?” A few heads turned.

“Well, um,” Pawl wiped the glistening sweat from his furrowed forehead. “Two guards have gone missing, Mistress,” he whispered.

“How long?”

“We’ve only just found out. They were patrolling the main deck, but they failed to report in and now no one can find them.” He waited for Shazahd to react, but she was icy cool. “I tried to summon your father, but he won’t come out of his chamber. I would’ve gotten here sooner, but it took me forever to find the ballroom, and –”

“Bring me to Maeriod,” she said.

One of the pairs of dark-suited men – the one with the satchel and the one with the mustache – walked with a quickened gait down a narrow wooden corridor. The commotion of the ballroom behind them was a ghostly echo, and the warm hum of a roaring engine grew louder as they went.

“Where the
mlec
is this thing?” the one with the satchel cursed. “We’ve just walked in a circle, I swear it!”

“We’re going the right way. Listen.”

“To what? All I can hear is –”

“There.”

Rounding a corner, the pair encountered a double door guarded by two uniformed men, members of Owein Maeriod’s security team. As they neared it, they saw the door was marked “Engine Room, Crew Only.”

“Sorry, sirs,” said the guard on the right. “This is a private area. You should turn back. There will be no further tours tonight.”

Without reply the two men in dark suits pulled knives from their jackets and rushed the guards. Their left hands muffled the guards’ mouths and slammed their heads into the wall, as their right hands drove the daggers under their sternums and into soft hearts. Their movements were synchronized – rehearsed – and the unprepared victims were dead in seconds. Their bodies were promptly looted for weapons.

The dead guards had been armed with break-action pistols. The killers slung them around their shoulders and filled their pockets with shells before trespassing into the engine room.

Inside they encountered a multistoried mechanical room the dimensions of a small theatre. The walls and ceilings were coils of copper and silver pipes, and the floors were steel grates. Gangways encircled and crisscrossed the room to provide access to various stopcocks and control levers. Huge, twin turbines occupied the floor, around which a handful of engineers were working.

One crewman, a wiper, was cleaning a greasy pipe near the ceiling when the dark suited men arrived. He was surprised to see them enter, and stepped down from his ladder to approach them.

“I’m sorry, chaps,” he said, wiping his soiled hands with a filthy rag. “But this area is off limits to guests. You’ll have to –”

The man with the satchel punched the wiper across the face so hard he fell backward off the catwalk. Screaming, he fell three stories before smacking fatally on a pipe below, crunching the tube and breaking his back.

This caught everyone’s attention on the floor. The man with the mustache leapt down the stairs a flight at a time, cocking back the hammer of his stolen pistol along the way.

“Hey! You! What do you think you’re doing?!” cried the Third Engineer, who had been left in charge of the engine room.

The other mechanics pooled behind him near the turbines as the man with the mustache jumped to the ground, skipping the last flight of stairs. He stood up slowly, and faced them in ominous silence.

“Just who in the –!”

And he shot the Third Engineer in the chest.

A burst of fire and smoke exploded from the pistol. The sound was excruciating inside the reflective engine room. The thumb-sized bullet tore through the engineer’s torso and continued past into the machinist behind him, killing them both.

There was a scream, and then sheer panic.

An oiler, a big man, ran at the mustachioed killer in desperation, but was quickly cut down by a few expert slashes with the knife. The Fourth Engineer went for the speaking tubes, but was stopped short by a second shot, fired from the stairs by the man with the satchel.

A junior engineer sprinted for the nearest door, and the man with the mustache took off after him. He jumped on him from behind and sliced his throat, spilling dark blood everywhere.

As the man with the satchel made his way down the stairs he reloaded, and blasted a cadet running for cover. When the bullet tore through the boy’s shoulder it nearly took his whole arm off.

In a matter of seconds, every crewman in the engine room was dead or dying.

The man with the satchel brought it to the turbines and set it on the floor. Casually he began to unlatch it and unload its contents.

“Take us down seven
entilum
,” ordered Captain Adan Breld. “We’ll want to avoid those clouds.” Stern-jawed and wind-weathered, Breld sat upright and rigid in the captain’s chair. He was a career sailor, a bluejack – practically born in the air – and wore his crisp uniform like a second skin.

“Down seven
entilum
,” responded Hurn at the helm. “Aye aye.”

Gilderam’s
bridge was not large. Helmsmen Hurn and Cort were at the controls in the front, facing a wall-sized window. Behind them was the elevated captain’s chair, flanked on both sides by steps leading up to a raised back portion. Directly behind the captain was the massive steering wheel manned by Ethlezus, the Pilot, and the binnacle. On either side of that, against the walls, were two table offices for Intha, the Navigator, and Mec, the Communications Officer. A single door in the back led to the hall outside.

Hurn pulled a large lever on the center console all the way down, then readjusted it to the new altitude. A flat buzz rang from overhead. A moment later, a second fainter buzz echoed in reply. Then, steadily, the ship began to descend. The vast, fluffy mass of silver clouds ahead, brightly illuminated by both the moon and Aelmuligo, started to rise out of their way.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” said Captain Breld to the bridge crew. He was staring at the neighbor planet. “The gods are keeping a close eye on us tonight. This is a good omen. How long till arrival in Potholos, Intha?” 

“At present speed we should be there just after sunrise, Captain.”

“Good. Maintain this altitude. Mec, you have the helm. I’ll be right back.”

“Aye aye.”

Captain Breld came to the door and unlocked it. “Remember,” he said to Mec, “don’t open this door unless you hear this knock.” He knocked four times.

“Aye aye,” said Mec, rising to lock the door behind the captain. He resumed his seat at the communications table as a muffled, tinny voice chirped from one of the speaking tubes in front of him.

“
Gondola to bridge, gondola to bridge
,” it said.

Mec pulled the tube out of the wall by its mouthpiece, conveyed by a leather hose.

“This is the bridge. Go ahead.”

“
The Vulc Muri, current bearing, eighty-two degrees
.”

“Thank you, Ensign,” he said, and returned the tube to the wall. “Did you catch that?”

“Vulc Muri
,
eighty-two degrees,” said Intha. Then he began scribbling on the maps before him. Eighty-two degrees, according to his reckoned trajectory, meant that they would need to adjust six degrees port to stay on course. But first he’d have to compensate for crosswind so that their heading would remain –

Knock, knock
.

Intha looked up from his calculations. Mec turned around with a raised eyebrow.

“What, is he back already?” said Intha.

“And did he forget what he just said?” Mec wondered aloud as he rose to unlock the door. Two men in dark suits – one tall, the other short – were waiting on the other side, knives ready in their hands.

“What in the name –!” and Mec was mightily stabbed in the stomach by the taller one. He groaned as he was pushed aside, collapsing onto his communications table. Blood splattered all over his papers.

Next was Ethlezus, who tried to grab the tall man’s knife hand, but was overpowered by the superior strength of his attacker. He cried out as the blade plunged hilt-deep into his side, piercing vital organs.

Intha was barely able to rise out of his chair before he was kicked in the gut by the short man. The blow sent him flying down the stairs, and his head smacked hard on the edge of the console below, knocking him unconscious.

The two helmsmen, terrified, were on their feet as the dark-suited men stalked toward them. The shorter man lunged down the stairs with his knife, but Cort was ready for it. He took him by the arm and swung him around, smashing him backward into the ship’s controls. He then tried to wrench the knife out of his hand, using his body to pin the killer against the console. As he struggled, the short man calmly lifted his knee to his chest and, with his other hand, freed a tiny dagger from an ankle sheath. Cort screamed as the little blade rammed again and again into his back, mincing his kidneys.

“
Threithumé!
” hissed Hurn before he ran boldly at the tall man, and tackled him into the stairs. The hijacker let out a pained cry as he hit the sharp edges of the steps, and his knife fell out of reach. Hurn sat up and delivered a sturdy punch across his face. He reeled back for another but the tall man managed to put his foot to Hurn’s chest and kicked him off.

The shorter man was there to catch Hurn and, holding him by the hair, slashed his throat open with an easy swipe.

He did likewise to Intha’s body, just to be sure, while his accomplice secured the door.

Pawl led Shazahd outside onto the foredeck. The wooden balcony was fairly well lit between the hanging gas lamps, the moon, and Aelmuligo
.
Shazahd’s bust was illuminated by the soft, green light of her necklace.

A deckgun stood in the center, poised like a great bird about to launch itself into flight – gleaming and menacing. It was a sleek, double-barreled cannon atop a rotating base. There was a seat between the barrels for the gunner, and behind hung a closet-sized case for ammunition. Beside the deckgun huddled the security team.

“Master Maeriod,” Shazahd said on approach. “Just what’s going on here?”

The group parted to reveal a tall, muscly, louche man. His hair was brown and wispy, and a few days’ stubble darkened his face. He looked serious, unfriendly, and stressfully occupied.

“Lady Ranaloc,” he said unenthusiastically.

“I’m not a lady.”

“Mistress, then. Whatever.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Just what’s going on here?”

“We’re handling it.”

“Handling what, exactly?”

“Two of my men are unaccounted for. That’s all we know so far. Just to be safe, it’d be a good idea to gather all your guests together in the ballroom and keep them there for the time being. Gor’m, Fulo,” he said to two of his men, “go with
Mistress
Ranaloc and look after them.”

“You got it,” said Fulo, a thin man with keen eyes and long hair.

“My pleasure,” said Gor’m, a massive beast of a person, with a voice so low Shazahd felt it more than she heard it.

“The rest of us,” Owein said to his men, “will be conducting a thorough search of the ship. We’ll start at the center and work our way outward. Lock up everything as you go. Leave no exits.”

Shazahd remained deathly still, staring at Owein.

“You’d better get this under control,” she warned, “and
fast
.” She turned to leave. Pawl and Gor’m followed, but Owein snagged Fulo.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Make sure our kind hostess doesn’t wander off, would you?”

Fulo winked, and followed the others into the ship.

“All right,” Owein said. “Aroda, Shaesh, go to the bridge and have Captain Breld notify our escort. Ulrath, Dez, head to the engine room and lock it up tight. Maiath, Thebulin: seal all outside hatches, starting with the main deck. The rest of you, come with me.”

Owein and his men marched into the ship. Maiath produced a large ring of keys and locked the door behind them.