Ominous Odyssey (Overworld Chronicles Book 13) (11 page)

"You have no proof." Illaena stood. "You merely wish to involve the Mzodi in a conflict between kingdoms. We take no sides with the land dwellers."

"How are we supposed to get proof if you don't take us?" I asked.

She shook her head and headed for the door. "We have business to attend to tomorrow. After that, I will return you to Tarissa."

"Illaena, please." Elyssa clasped her hands together imploringly. "This weapon could threaten the entire realm."

Shelton piled on. "What would Cora do?"

"I am not Cora," Illaena said. "I knew it was a mistake to continue such an intimate association with land dwellers. I will ask the Muhala Kajeen to discontinue this relationship at once." She stormed away before anyone could say another word.

"She has a point," Adam said. "All we have is some video of Arturo acting cocky."

"My father agreed with our assessment," Elyssa shot back. "Do you really think he'd send us out to check if he thought there was nothing to it?"

"We need a contingency plan." I racked my brain for alternatives, but came up empty.

"The problem is the Mzodi are the only ones with sky ships." Shelton exchanged a look with Adam. "Maybe we could build our own."

"That might take months," Elyssa said. "And where would we get a seasoned crew?"

"I've been studying this ship inside out ever since we boarded it." Adam tapped his phone. "I've made schematics and studied the propulsion gems. We could probably recreate this ship, but training a crew is the show-stopper."

"We have two weeks to do something," I said. "That's how long it'll take Arturo and Kaelissa to get back to Cabala and leave for Voltis."

"Unless they have faster transportation," Elyssa said. "How do they plan to get to Voltis without a sky ship?"

"I'm sure Kaelissa has a way," I said. "She has the Brightling Empire behind her now."

"Well, ain't that peachy?" Shelton rolled a quinto between his fingers, a grimace on his face. "Maybe it's time to call the Muhala Kajeen direct. If anyone can get you a ship, she can."

"Thomas already asked her." I shook my head slowly. "Apparently, she hasn't acted on his request."

"Then we're up the creek without a paddle." Shelton tossed the uneaten quinto back on his plate. "From what you've said, it sounds like Kohval wants to start his own little kingdom, and Kaelissa wants to pick up where her insane daughter left off."

Adam slapped a hand on the table. "I'm about ready to just find a nice quiet place to settle down and let the idiots kill each other."

Shelton pointed a finger at him. "I'm with you."

"Tempting," I said. "Maybe we could join the Mzodi and get the hell out of Dodge."

"What about all our other people?" Elyssa said. "Lycans, felycans, Arcanes—"

"Vampires," Shelton finished with a scowl.

"Hey, they fought too," she said in a pointed tone. "We can't just abandon our ideals because some rotten apples want to spoil it."

"How, pray tell, are we supposed to reach Voltis and take a peek?" Shelton said. "How are we supposed to fight Kaelissa's big-ass army if Kohval doesn't want to?" His forehead creased. "Did it ever occur to you that Kohval might strike a deal with her so he can keep his little fiefdom?"

Elyssa quirked a disdainful eyebrow. "Yes, as a matter of fact, it has."

"Seems there's only one way to solve our current problem," Adam said in a quiet voice.

Shelton shifted toward him. "We swim?"

Adam shook his head. "Mutiny."

The word summoned images of sword fights and wooden decks covered in blood. I'd seen plenty of pirate movies. I knew what mutiny meant, but the thought of actually committing it made me feel dirty and evil. On the other hand, how else were we to reach Voltis? We needed a ship and crew.

Shelton laughed uneasily. Elyssa frowned and looked at me.

I shook my head. "We couldn't pull it off."

"Sure we could," Adam said. "All it requires is a bit of trickery and deception."

"Hang on a minute." Shelton bolted upright in his chair. "You're serious about this."

Adam waggled a hand in a so-so motion. "Partially. If Thomas Borathen thinks Arturo might get his hands on a super weapon, then we should find a way to check it out. Seems like we can't do it without a sky ship."

"Mutiny is too much," Elyssa said. "There must be an alternative."

The ship lurched upward as it began to get underway. "I gotta go up top for a minute," Shelton said. "The takeoffs get me airsick if I don't get some air."

Adam chuckled. "You need air for airsickness."

"Shut it, Nosti." Shelton got up and the rest of us followed him up to the top deck.

Illaena stood near the bow giving orders in a conversational tone while her first mate shouted them to the rest of the crew. The
Falcheen
rose higher and higher until it reached cruising altitude of a few thousand feet. Even at that height, it was still far below the peaks of the barrier mountains to the south.

The ship rotated east and sailed toward the ocean and presumably the rendezvous with the
Xanda
. Illaena left her post and approached us, eyes hard as stones. "The Muhala Kajeen agrees with me that it is time to end our association with you and your people. We will continue to trade, but we will not take sides in your conflict."

Anxiety knotted my intestines tight as a trampoline and anger hopped up and down on it. "What if we just ask for rides?"

"We assisted you against Cephus because he posed a risk to the realm," Illaena replied. "War is never good, but it will not disrupt trade."

"What do you even trade for?" Shelton blurted. "Nobody uses money here."

"Goods, services, food," she said. "Not that it is any of your concern."

"Can you at least put us on a ship headed to Azoris?" I asked.

"So you can spy on their army?" Illaena's eyes flared. "Granting you passage would be assistance."

"Technically, we're not citizens of Pjurna," Elyssa said. "We're a third party."

"No matter your allegiance, you are not Mzodi." Illaena crossed her arms. "There will be no more rides after I return you to Tarissa." She snapped her fingers and a group of soldiers marched up behind us. "Confine them to quarters."

My knuckles cracked and my inner demon rammed against my consciousness.
Fight! Destroy!
He was a jackass, but in this instance, I felt the same way. Unfortunately, my magical side still felt puny and a direct confrontation might get us killed. There were only four of us versus ten soldiers and the rest of the crew. I also didn't want to hurt any of them, because then we could forget ever getting their help again.

Elyssa's hand tightened on my arm. "Let's do as she says."

The soldiers marched us down to the lowest deck and put us in a large room with several bunk beds. Using the gem outside the room, they phased the wall back into place, leaving us trapped inside.

Shelton used his wand to charge the gem on a bed, and a cloud mattress billowed into place. He pushed down on it with his hand. "Well, at least we get to sleep in style."

"I'm not tired," I said.

Shelton vanished into a small room in the back and hollered, "Thank god the bathroom works!"

Adam groaned. "Is that really at the top of your priorities right now?"

Shelton stuck his head out the door. "Hey, all this conflict upsets my stomach." He patted his belly. "Plus, I ain't gonna lie, these magical angel bathrooms make my man bits tingle."

Elyssa gagged. "Christ, Shelton, why don't you just lock yourself inside the bathroom and shut up then?"

Adam burst into laughter but quickly clamped his mouth shut when he saw the rest of us weren't as amused.

I glared at the wall, anger boiling my insides like rock lobsters and maybe even potatoes. I turned to Adam. "You said we needed trickery and deception to get what we want. What did you have in mind?"

He looked up at me, confusion arching his eyebrows. "Huh—oh, you mean for my earlier idea?"

"Yeah," I said in a gravelly voice. "It's time to plan a mutiny."

Chapter 10

Shelton groaned. "There are thirty-one Mzodi on this ship. How in the hell are we gonna convince them to help us steer the thing?"

I leaned against the wall and turned to our resident genius. "Adam, do you know how to control the ship?"

He waggled his hand. "More or less. This ship has control stations for six navigators—those are the crew who control the levitation foils." Adam put his phone on one of the beds and projected a diagram of the
Falcheen
, displaying a skeletal outline of all the cabins, the huge levitation gems on the hull, and stations from stem to stern.

"Wow, how did you get it so detailed?" Elyssa asked.

"Shelton and I came up with an advanced scan spell." Adam traced a finger along the holographic hull. "All we had to do was walk back and forth on all the decks a few times until it filled in all the blanks."

"It ain't as easy as it sounds when you got nosy soldiers asking what you're doing," Shelton said.

Adam displayed one of the navigator control stations. A stool with a strap held the navigator in place while a crystal rod that resembled a flight stick extended from a hole in the deck. "The navigator channels aether through the rod and into the corresponding levitation foil on the bottom of the hull." He zoomed out to display the six large levitation gems. "There's one navigator for every foil, and each one is controlled independently."

Adam overlaid an image that looked like water flowing beneath the hull. "Once the ship reaches an aether current—think of it as a river of aether in the air—it's much easier to maintain power and propel the ship forward."

"Aether streams are the magical equivalent of airstreams," Shelton said. "Without those, it would be hard to power one of these ships with just six crew."

"I didn't realize that," Elyssa said. "I thought the gems kept the ships afloat."

"Yeah, well it took a lot of detective work to find that out," Shelton said. "You ever hear of a scramjet?"

I nodded. "I remember NASA testing one. Once they hit a certain speed, the air itself fuels and propels the aircraft."

Adam traced a finger along the flowing lines. "That sums up how these ships operate. They need assistance to reach the nearest aether stream, but once they get there, all the crew has to do is steer."

"There's still a lot we don't know about the aether streams," Shelton said. "The Mzodi have charts with all the streams on them, but they nearly took off my head when I asked to see one."

"Top secret," Adam said. "Even though concentrations of aether are high enough to reach the visible spectrum in the vortexes, most of the aether streams are invisible."

"This just got a lot more complicated," Elyssa said. "We don't know how to pilot the ship, and we don't know how to find the aether streams."

"Not true." I tapped my temple. "Remember my incubus vision can see invisible aether. I can keep us on the road."

"Hell yeah!" Shelton clapped his hands. "Since the ship is already in an aether stream we don't need six navigators to power the ship into position. We just gotta figure out how to steer it."

"Sounds like we might be able to handle that." Elyssa pursed her lips and nodded with satisfaction. "Aside from taking the ship from thirty angry Mzodi, I'd say we've got this covered."

Shelton snorted. "Totally."

"Why don't they centralize the steering?" I said. "Seems like it'd be much easier to consolidate six navigators into one big steering wheel."

"I don't disagree," Adam said, "but it's likely the Mzodi have their reasons."

"Doubtful," Shelton said. "If you look at the layout, I'd be willing to bet this entire design came from water-borne ships." He pointed to the control rods. "Those look like the ends of oars. I'll bet the Mzodi started with water ships with oars and adopted the same design once they figured out how to fly their ships."

Adam pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger and looked at the diagram. "You have a point. It may simply be the Mzodi adopted the design from regular ships and never changed the way they do things."

"Four of us steering with six stations is a problem," Elyssa said, "but first we should worry about the thirty Mzodi we have to get past."

Adam flashed a grin. "That's where deception comes in." He flicked his hand across the diagram of the ship and red blips appeared on the screen, thirteen on the top deck, ten more scattered around the ship, and the remaining eight concentrated in a room on the lower deck. Adam pointed at the last group. "These are the gem sorters. Since we just pulled in a big haul, they're busy evaluating the catch."

Shelton pointed his wand at the top deck. "That's the captain, the first mate, six navigators, lookouts, and soldiers."

"The ones on the lower decks are soldiers," Adam said. "I don't think they usually patrol the ship, but since we came onboard, they followed us around and guarded the captain's quarters."

Shelton blew out a breath. "Yeah, after we asked about the aether stream charts, they got real suspicious."

"These aren't current personnel positions, just approximations?" Elyssa asked.

"The gem sorters are definitely in the hold except when they eat." Adam pointed to the top deck. "The deck crew is always in position in case of bad weather or dragon attacks."

"Should we attack when they're asleep?" I asked.

Adam shook his head. "No, because they almost always land the ship at night unless it's during an ocean voyage. Then they sleep in shifts while the ship floats in the aether stream."

"These ships are fast." Shelton zipped his hand through the air as if to illustrate. "They ain't as fast as a jet airplane, but it doesn't take them more than a few days to cross from here all the way to Ijolica, according to the crew I asked."

Elyssa held up a hand. "How, exactly, are we deceiving them?"

"The soldiers always eat together," Adam said. "They have a toast with wine at every meal."

"Even breakfast?" I asked.

"Every meal," Shelton reiterated. "Some kind of custom that brings good luck."