The Gospel According to Verdu (a Steampunk Novel) (The Brofman Series) (16 page)

With the skin gone, the red flesh of the targa shone in the afternoon sun. Rainor handed Chenda a long, thin knife and walked her to the bleeding mound on the netting.

“
For you, Pramuc, the honor of the first taste at our feast tonight.” He gestured to the flesh and made a shallow slicing motion. “Just there, take a thin slice.”

Unsure, but not wanting to be rude, she did as he instructed, cutting with one hand and catching the medallion of meat with the other. It was warm on her fingers, warmer than she thought the water would have allowed. She looked at Rainor, waiting for the next step in this recipe.

“
Take a bite,” he whispered encouragingly, as if she were a child who had forgotten her manners at the table.

“
Shouldn’t I cook it first?” she asked hopefully.

Rainor laughed and said, “Oh, no, Pramuc. Fresh targa is a delicacy. Besides, it’s tradition.”

She swallowed hard, hoping not to be sick, and took a bite. The texture was initially like fresh cheese, requiring more squishing with the tongue than chewing with the teeth. The warmth of it seemed at odds with the texture, but, all in all, it was not unacceptable. The flavor was strange and exotic. The flesh tasted exactly like the sea smelled: sharp and salty and swirled through with shifting tones both pleasant and harsh. She was eating the spirit of the sea, the life force of the great armored targa. She felt honored.

“
This is a fantastic treat, Rainor. Thank you.” As she spoke, the others gathered around the fish and sat cross-legged on the net, cutting the flesh into long strips and threading them onto stout string, which was hoisted into the rigging to dry. As they worked, they nibbled on cuts of fresh targa meat and happily chatted with one another. Chenda joined them, working and talking with Rainor. She learned a lot as they cut deeper and deeper into the fish: the history of the Mae-Lyn, their customs and traditions, and their philosophy of life as nomads on the sea.

She was surprised to find out that the fish they had caught, if properly dried and stored, could feed the family aboard the
Tao-Tallis
for close to a month, but was worth more if they could trade it fresh to islanders nearby or in a Tugrulian port. The iridescent scales could earn thousands at a dockside auction in Kite’s Republic. Rainor said the targa was a Mae-Lyn savings bank, and he often kept several sackfuls of scales hidden in the hull of his ship in case of financial emergency. For Rainor and his crew, the risk of hunting the great targa was worth the reward. Many of his family had died in the struggle over the years, some had broken their backs or had drowned in the deep, but the call of the sea was something the Mae-Lyn could not give up.

As Chenda fell asleep that night, her belly full of the spirit of the sea, her clothes caked with blood, and her hands stinking of fish, she understood. Her Mae-Lyn heritage pulled at her internal tide. Like the Mae-Lyn, she knew that no matter what happened, she would always follow the call of her heart, even when the path was fraught with danger. She would never give up until she caught up to Fenimore. Even if it killed her.

chapter 12

Ghosting

Fenimore waited the rest of the evening and into the night. His plan had been so simple: here was where he had found the resistance before, so here was where he would wait and find them again. He and his had done their part to help the Tugrulian resistance, and they owed him. They were duty bound to aid his cause, and he was going to wait here until he could cash that favor in.

Unless this place had been abandoned by the resistance. He planned to cool his heels here only for the next six hours. After that, when the sun was in the sky again, he was going to take matters into his own hands. Plan B was what he was working on when he heard the first pebbles roll down the path from the craggy stone opening above him. He pulled himself back into the deep shadows between two large rocks at the back of the rough cave.

At first, he felt a rush of adrenaline as he saw the thick sandals of a Tugrulian soldier coming down the path, and above that the acid-orange leggings, red tunic, hard leather breastplate, and head wrapped in a heavy turban, the tails of which were pulled around to cover the face. Two more of the soldiers, dressed similarly to the first but with the red cloaks of infantrymen, followed their leader down the path.

The soldiers silently looked around the cave. Seeing no one there, they coughed to clear their throats and knelt at the shallow basin that collected the dripping water from the rocks. There was no way for Fenimore to pull back any farther into the shadows to hide, which was worrisome, as the soldiers showed no intention of leaving anytime soon. They were between Fenimore and the exit to the cave, so he could not run up the path and get away. He could overtake one, as the element of surprise was on his side, but the other two would be on him too quickly to make the odds favorable.

He cursed his luck. If Tugrulian soldiers were stopping here for water, that meant the resistance had been flushed out of here, and there was no way he was going to find them in this place, no matter how long he waited.

The only way out is through
, he thought to himself. He clenched his knife and was about to spring, Plan B–style, on the jugular of the nearest soldier when he saw the soldier farthest from him pull off his turban. Long black hair rolled down his back, which Fenimore realized was not
his
back at all, but
hers
. It was a woman’s hair. The other two were taking off their head coverings as well, revealing two more feminine heads. Women in Tugrulian uniforms? These were no soldiers; these three were resistance fighters in disguise.

He rose from the shadows with a broad smile on his face. Finally, he had found them. A small giggle slipped from his lips, and in a heartbeat, the soldier women were leaping toward him with knives drawn.

“Wait—wait! I’m here for your help!” he shouted as he was tackled to the cave floor. The women, one to each side of his body and the third straddling his chest, held their knives to his throat. Their eyes spoke for them, saying that if he moved a muscle or even flinched, he would find himself a head shorter.

The smaller woman sitting on his chest was the leader, and the other two glanced at her for direction. Her gaze, however, never left Fenimore’s face. She had exceedingly dark and very large eyes, the current set of which was one of mistrust and fury. She snarled at him and pressed the knife tighter against his throat. Without looking away, she issued commands to the other two, who backed up and rose to their feet. Fenimore gave his full attention to the leader.

“I’m here to talk with Pranav Erato,” he said plainly, hoping she spoke a little Republic. She raised one eyebrow.

“Pranav,” she grunted, then she spoke to him in Tugrulian, words he had no hope of understanding. Fenimore wondered if she was giving instructions to him or asking him questions. When she stopped speaking, he held still, unsure what he should do.

She raised both eyebrows in the universal expression of,
So? Are you going to answer me or what?

“Miss, I just don’t understand you,” he said slowly and clearly. “I want . . . Pranav. . . Erato.” He could hear the two others whispering back and forth to each other. Their tone was unsure. Fenimore tried again. “I am looking for Pranav Erato. Can you find me the pranav? Or perhaps his assistant, Ahy-Me?”

That got the women’s attention. “Ahy-Me?” the leader asked in surprise. She glanced to the other two, who were feverishly arguing in whispers. She silenced them with a hiss through her clenched teeth. The two immediately returned their attention to her and to readying their knives.

“Eh,” the woman on his chest began, looking as if she was straining to remember the words. “Voo . . . har . . . you?” she said.

“Who am I?” Fenimore said with a half grin, feeling like progress was being made. “I am Fenimore Dulal, of the airship
Brofman
.”

The three women looked at one another, surprised faces all around. The leader turned back to Fenimore. With her free hand, she pulled a small nut from a little case on her belt and held it just above his face.

“
Tugrul aquaba
,” she said, and then she gulped in a deep breath as she crushed the shell over his nose and mouth. Fenimore tasted the fine bitter powder as it fell onto his tongue and into his nostrils. A moment later, everything went black.

Captain Maxwell Endicott was not a gambling man—not with his airship, that is. He actually won the
Brofman
in a card game years ago, and he felt that his luck had been complete the day he took her. When it came to his ship, he never wanted his luck to turn against him. It was his home, his livelihood, and his freedom. He might have dealt in dicey deliveries and questionable cargo—but that was business. He was cautious about his crew, diligent about the
Brofman
’s maintenance, and observant of a long list of conservative protocols. There was no part of his airship that was second-rate. He never cut corners on the photovoltaic algae that powered the ship—nothing but the best chemistry and chow for those little darlings. He believed in the old adage,
Take care of your ship and it will take care of you
.

Only gamblers and fools flew all night over open water. Flying in the dark meant that one was traveling under battery power alone. No sun—no way to replenish the energy. Long ago, Kite’s Republic had given up on coal-fired boilers and steam power, as that technology was far too heavy for an airship. The advantages of sun power were key to air travel, but also its biggest limitation. Sunset usually meant docking or hovering for the
Brofman
. But Captain Endicott broke with protocol this time. He was in a hurry.

Two hours before dawn, he checked the gauges in the wheelhouse every few seconds. He hated what they were telling him. He pulled out his pocket watch and looked at the time. His clock matched the
Brofman
’s exactly, and he harrumphed to himself once again. He did the math a second time, and it confirmed what he already knew: the power would run out before the sun rose.

His apprentice navigator and deckhand, Lincoln, stood silently beside him. The young man waited to jump for any need the captain had, but he dared not make a sound or a suggestion lest the captain bark at him. And, oh, how the captain could bark. Lincoln could see the captain snarling to himself, and hoped that the older man would leave him out of the fight.

Captain Endicott cursed the clouds over Atoll Belles. It had clouded up a bit as they briefly stopped there the day before. He cursed the atoll as well for being a dry hole as far as information had been concerned. According to Jason Belles, the owner of the airship dock, and a man with his fingers in every business and dealing on that small bump of land sticking out of a very wide sea, there was no news of Chenda passing, and no sign of a Kite’s Republic transport ship headed east either. It was an expensive stop for nothing.

“Take the bell to the crow’s nest,” the captain said resignedly, not even glancing at his deckhand. “Looks like we’re going to have to stop at Crider Island after all.”

Silently, Lincoln stepped out of the wheelhouse to do as the captain ordered. Alone and checking the gauges once more, Captain Endicott said, “At least I
think
we will make it.” He spit on the floor and made a gesture to ward off any bad luck as he whispered words of encouragement to his ship and promises to the gods.

The mouth of the cave was a little too moist for Ahy-Me’s liking, which was more than a little annoying, especially for the amount of time she had been sitting there. The wetness got into everything: her clothes, her skin, the small bundle of food she had with her, and the stacks of little books. Her joints were stiffening in the cool dampness, and she shifted her weight from one hip to the other, trying to get the blood flowing again to her various pieces and parts. Whereas she usually preferred to be underground, she thought she would make an exception very soon to go see the sun for a while and warm her backside.

Pranav Erato had been in the cave for days,
meditating
as he called it.
Screwing around with the impossible
was what she thought.

At first, he listened to her snide thoughts as he sat within, his bony legs folded over each other and his head held in his spindly fingers. He heard her protests to his ideas, his inspirations as they came, but after a day or so, he began to block his thoughts from her. He only prodded her to work on the copies of Verdu’s little book.
More
, he would order.
Make good use of this time—spreading the words
.

She had made well over a hundred copies in three languages already. Sitting with the faint sound of dripping as her only companion, she finished the 101st copy and warmed her hands over the small lamp next to her. She had raced through this last copy, one in the language of Kite’s Republic. The one before that had been in a Mae-Lyn dialect. She was getting ready to faithfully copy from the original, Verdu’s manuscript. She savored the Tugrulian copies. Verdu’s choice of words was perfection itself in that language. It seemed that each time she wrote his words, she felt less lonely.

Her solitude was not filled by faith when she wrote, as faith in the gods was gone for her. She
knew
instead of
believed
, and that was a different state of truth entirely. She had been there, and there was no doubt: the gods had spoken. The Tugrulian version of the account satisfied her fully because it was exactly Verdu.

She had always thought him handsome—powerful, too, both physically and spiritually—and his writing, so pure and honest and lovely, was like poetry, really. The glory of it made the chill of the damp cave around her disappear.