Zotikas: Episode 1: Clash of Heirs (9 page)

Social hour had already begun. Normally something to
be endured, Velirith now eagerly glanced about as she rejoined her father.

“How are you doing Velirith?” her father asked her
again.

Is he suspicious or just overly concerned about me
having a good time? He knows I hate these masquerades.
She worded her short response carefully. “Being
good,” she said with a bored sigh.

Velator nodded, keeping his assessing gaze on her for
a few moments longer. “Good. Let’s mingle. I’m sure there is someone here that
even you want to see.”

Velirith returned her father’s look then shrugged.
“Perhaps one.” And Velator, satisfied with that response, offered his arm and
led her into the crowd.

Velator walked his daughter across the huge hall to
the table of an ancient looking couple. As they approached, Lorad and Dia
Firstholm roused from the patience of age and became warmly animated.

“Velirith, you look beautiful!” Lhea Firstholm
exclaimed. “Oh, and Verr Velator, handsome as usual.”

Velator grasped Lorad’s arm, exchanging warm knowing
smiles but no words. Then he kissed the man’s wife on the cheek. “And you look
in excellent health, Dia. I’m glad I got noticed as an afterthought anyway.”

“Oh Vel, you’ve always been handsome, even as a boy.
And now your daughter has decided to show the world of Zotikas a hint of her
true loveliness.”

Feeling a slight blush, Velirith smiled back at Lhea Firstholm.
The Firstholms had been and still were unfailing allies to house Vel since the
days of Velik. Their seafaring family had prospered under the good governance
and peaceful times of the fledgling Omeron. When House Vel lost the Executive,
they too lost influence.

Velirith knew how much her father admired them and
their loyalty. She also knew Velator’s affection was more personal. To
Velirith, they were like grandparents rarely seen because of distance and busy
lives. If there was but one couple she
did
want to see, it was the
Firstholms.

 “I miss your skynut cookies, Lhea Firstholm,”
Velirith mentioned, reminiscing.

“You remember those, yes? Well, I still make them for
Lorad, but you would be a welcome guest anytime—no,
soon
, should you
find the time in your social schedule,” Lhea Firstholm invited. “We do spend
most of our time at home by the sea now.” Their home city, also called
Firstholm, was far to the north, on the northwestern coast of Ardan.

Velirith laughed at the implication she
had
a
social schedule.

“What now? Are you saying you aren’t booked solid with
friends or even gentlemanly callers? I find that hard to accept.”

“Honestly, Lhea Firstholm, I don’t like most of my
peers. They seem only interested in their own status and estate.”

Lhea Firstholm gave her a frank, nonjudgmental stare.
“Well, doesn’t that put you in an enviable position, my dear? You have the
choice of joining in their pettiness or rousing them to reform, don’t you?”

Velirith, rarely caught short, had to think about that.
Her project tonight was definitely in the category of pettiness. Finally,
speaking slowly, she responded, “I’m afraid I hadn’t even considered that I
could make a
positive
difference.” She paused. “I’ll have to do
something about it, true?”

Lhea Firstholm smiled, her eyes penetrating, and
nodded.

Unafraid, Velirith felt a peace within her, an
assurance that she indeed would do something.
I wonder how that will play
out…

The conversation between her father and his old
friends continued. Velirith politely bowed out with a word from her father,
“Don’t throw anything off the balconies… or any
one
.” His look conveyed
both humor and a serious warning.

She wandered around the large, six-sided dance floor.
While just moments before she had been wondering whether making herself
beautiful might be attracting too many eyes, she now felt completely invisible.
With everyone’s attention engaged, she, like a little girl, walked the lines of
tile edges, foot over foot, as if sneaking back to her room after one of her midnight
explorations.

Velirith watched the guests and staff. No one was
looking at her, not even the boys. She saw the house staff organizing the
delivery of the New Year’s Notes. The employees broke up and spread out into
the chatty crowd like a stirring breeze.

She watched the Executive Chair in his purple-gold
pomp as he moved away from the receiving line toward the booth set up for his
privacy. He seemed to be forcing his smile and walked like he was tired.

She saw a man from the wait staff angling toward
Ferdando with Velirith’s note on the top of his stack. Looking across the room,
she saw his frustrated lover, excited as she read the note she had just
received. Velirith distinctly remembered writing that one.
“I cannot bear
separation from you, my dearest Callia. I have decided that renouncing my house
and joining yours is no shame at all if I can spend my life in your arms.
F
”

Callia’s sharp features brightened in surprise and
happiness. Yet neither of the lovers had the courage to truly renounce their
family for their “true love”. Velirith could only imagine Callia’s reaction
when she found out Ferdando got a similar note from her.

Forcheso Parchiki’s voice blustered from her right.
Velirith turned and saw him waving his note high above his head in his clenched
fist. “The nerve! The gall! That woman—!“ He was referring to Feleanna, or
perhaps her second in command who had been raiding his cloth shipments. “She
writes like we of house Parchiki will do nothing to stop her
! ‘Nudity will
be in style this New Year unless another house takes up the slacks.’
I’ll—”
The rest of his words were choked off in his rage.

Very passionate. Theatrical, even.
Velirith approved. She hadn’t considered her notes
might be read aloud. Feleanna was not yet in the hall. Odd, but convenient
since Velirith wanted all parties involved to come together at the climax of
her little drama.
I wonder if Feleanna will get
her
note before the
dance…

The volume in the great hall was increasing, her notes
adding an angry and excited buzz to the general din.

She glanced back to her father, who was just now
receiving his note. His said simply,
“You know I love you Father. Vth”

It was the only completely honest note in the batch.

His shoulders relaxed and a small, happy smile played
on his lips. He looked up and around for her. When he saw her, alone on the
edge of the empty dance floor, he returned her sentiment with his glance. But
then, as if realizing something, or perhaps just noticing how animated the room
had become, he tilted his head and gave her a curious look. It was as if to
say,
What are you up to, Daughter?

 A long, piercing whistle shrieked through the
gathering night, followed by an enormous concussive boom that drew out into a
crackling rumble. The fireworks were beginning. Irresistibly, the crowd was
drawn to the balcony that completely surrounded the great hall. Velator had
looked away from her, and Velirith quickly slipped out the back of the great
hall and down a service stair. She descended several floors, past where Moshalli
and Fechua had their quarters, and found an isolated balcony that looked out
over Garrist Ring. She leaned on the stone balcony rail with its ornate
balusters. Velirith suddenly felt wistful.

The feeling of peace she had found in her conversation
with Lhea Firstholm still held her, like a seed in the center of her chest. But
around that was an indefinable yearning. Why did she always have this desire to
be alone? And why did she thirst for mischief? How could she hold two such
contradictory feelings simultaneously?

Garrist Ring had dimmed its lanterns below, and the
fireworks were in full blossom. But something was odd around the Charlaise
building across the gap. Handheld luzhril torches played around its base, as if
the perimeter were being patrolled. Its roof lay just above the low balcony on
which she stood.

A barrage of three blue and silver rockets exploded
into spheres in front of her: A Vel Salute. Traditionally, each house was
honored with at least one rocket displaying the colors of their house. The Vel
Salute was eclipsed almost immediately by an enormous yellow blast on the roof
of the Charlaise. That burst looked more like flame than a mag-
luz
discharge. It was so bright compared to any of the
other detonations that it temporarily blinded her. She had been looking right
at the building and saw—or thought she saw—a dark, bulbous silhouette against
the flash just before the shape dropped down against the darker background of
the building itself. Great gouts of fire bloomed into the air above the roof.
She felt a slight push from the concussion of the blast, even from this
distance.

By the time she got her vision back, she could see
nothing of the mysterious shape. Just moments later, the show continued with a
spectacular red and orange sunburst that lit the space between her and the
buildings of Garrist Ring. The show went on, just as it always did.

It was the first shot that got him.

He had been staring down the barrel of that maggun,
waiting for the inevitable crack of discharge, and desperately trying to turn
enough to use his engine as a shield. But the magnetic field of the engine only
slightly deflected the bolt up and through the inflated airfoil.

It ripped through the hydrogen envelope from one side
straight through and out the other. For one intense blink, Kieler reflexively
braced for an explosion above him. But maggun bolts were not particularly hot,
and the only critical damage was the leaking hydrogen. He was now venting
flammable gas in the midst of a fireworks show. Kieler looked back to the
rooftop.

The other men, after a moment of orientation to the
phenomenon of a flying ship, raised their weapons as well. More shots followed.

There was more commotion. A shout of warning. The men
weren’t looking at him, but at the door to the roof. A scrawny outline,
doubled-over for air and stumbling out of the door. It had to be a Bintle man.
In a mere fraction of a second there was a sound of metal scraping on metal and
then a series of pops. The three canisters immediately launched out in erratic
paths of flame. One fateful missile arced in a tight loop and slammed into the
rooftop right behind the man who had fired that first shot.

An enormous fireball erupted. The gunman was blown off
the rooftop, engulfed in flame. From here he would not just fall the fifty-some
stories to Garrist level, but many, many more—if he were lucky enough to miss
all the various skyways and bridges on the way down. Not that it would matter
much to his longevity.

The others, including the bank man, were now obscured
by flame.

Kieler looked away in alarm. Of course he knew this
could happen. But he wasn’t a hardened killer. It shook him.

It shook his craft as well. Though the fireball did
not reach him, the shock wave did, propelling him into the gap and toward the
palace. The venting gas was misshaping the airfoil, and he was in a rapid,
uncommanded descent. Kieler could not reach the damage, nor could he fix the
holes if he were able to. He was descending between the Charlaise building and
the spire of the Executive Chair’s palace.

I may as well go for it
. He had one tank of hydrogen on board for emergencies
and it was already hooked into the airfoil envelope. Kieler opened the valve
full and gas hissed into the airship. The best it could do was to slow the
descent. He pointed his ship at the spire and picked a balcony to crash on—if
he made it that far before transfiguring into a rock.

Despite the backup hydrogen, the airship barely
maintained altitude. He was losing gas as fast as it was going in.

Kieler’s mind was full throttle and he revved the
engine to match. He knew that keeping the airspeed as high as possible would
also contribute to his lift and he might be able to get across the gap—if he
didn’t run out of hydrogen first—or burn out his engine—or ignite in a firework
blast—or get shot.

Engine burnout was the reason he hadn’t just flown in
at high speed from farther away. A longer flight would have avoided all the
unpleasantness of dealing with Feleanna’s ground thugs. But his technology
wasn’t perfect and the compact motor tended to overheat. No need for fireworks
if he could blow himself up just as well.

His plan had been a short flight
above
the
fireworks allowing the highly reflective skin of his airship to look like just
more lights in the sky. Now he was right in the path of the ascending rockets
launched from the edge of Garrist Ring and he was
under
the exploding
spheres of color.

On top of that he was leaking hydrogen.

This was just foolish. But what choice did he have?

In his head, Kieler had already worked out a new
design that would allow the engine to remain cool, but he had not had time to
build that new engine before tonight.

A rocket trail blasted upward in front of him. He
throttled back and banked right to give it wide berth, but felt the drop in
altitude from his loss of airspeed. The rocket passed and he throttled up,
aiming back toward the Executive Chair’s palace. The shell exploded in a ball
of red-orange lightning above. The globe of released energy fell toward him,
but must have extinguished just feet above the venting hydrogen. Three more
rocket trails spurted up to his right. Safe from their climb, he banked left to
avoid the sparks from the explosion.

The next barrage came up on both sides. Again safe
from their ascent, he found himself right in the middle of intersecting
lightning spheres.
That he hadn’t exploded already was unimaginable.
Could I possibly make this?

He looked down and saw his luck had changed for the
worse. He saw nothing but an approaching dot in a halo of fiery sparks. It was
coming right at him. His mind racing, there was no course of action that would
make a difference in the one second he had to react.

He braced for impact and heat.

Twenty feet below him, the missile looked as if it hit
something solid, deflected horizontally and blasted sideways. It detonated at a
relatively low altitude over the Garrist Promenade. Echoes of the explosion
bounced off the buildings and the small, illuminated figures on the promenade
ducked and scuttled away from the falling red and green bolts.

A miracle
.
The rocket must have lost a fin to deviate that drastically. It shouldn’t have
happened…

He had no time to consider it. He banked left as a
flurry of hot exhaust streams climbed to his right. The resultant blasts rained
down near him and Kieler watched one of the ragged holes where he was losing
hydrogen—as if he would even be able to flinch if one of the plasma spheres
ignited it. But none did.

Time after time, the missiles missed him by an arm’s
length ascending and by less descending. Surviving another dozen such barrages,
he began to feel as if he were encased in an impenetrable bubble.

After dodging all those shells, he pressed through a
smoke trail and saw the Executive Chair’s tower right in front of him. He
banked hard left to avoiding hitting it.

He’d made it across! But his hope died as he realized
he was below every balcony. The nearest and lowest was still ten ship-lengths
above him.

It was at that moment, in a gap between echoing
blasts, that the hiss of gas from his emergency tank ceased. He began dropping.
He was out of hydrogen.

Without a moment of hesitation Kieler reached up and
yanked a ripcord. The weight of the empty tank fell away and he felt the
immediate sensation of upward acceleration. Still full throttle, he pulled up
as steeply as he could toward the belly of the nearest balcony. He glanced at
his motor and was suddenly aware of a red, glowing ring around the magal core.
In a flash, he realized the highest threat to his survival was now his own
engine—either it would melt down and quit, or ignite the hydrogen left in the
envelope.

The airship now climbed straight up. He was
approaching the balcony, then passing it just as fast. He had no time to jump and
too much upward momentum. He wasn’t prepared.

He was even less prepared to see the startled oval
face of a beautiful young lady leaning on the rail as he passed almost within
arm’s reach of her. She pulled back, but amazingly did not cry out or run.

Then she was gone—falling behind as he zipped straight
up past the best, and perhaps the only, landing spot he could hope for. There
was nothing above him but the structure of the overhanging palace. And if he
hit that, he had nothing to grab onto and would simply fall back into the abyss
below.

But he was not going to hit it. As quickly as he had
accelerated when he dumped the weight of the spare tank, the ship now lost
momentum and began falling. He had no forward airspeed for lift. He was
dropping straight back down the tower.

Kieler looked down, perhaps to gauge how long he would
live on the fall to the Plate so far below. To his amazement, he saw he was
about to hit a tree.

He did hit a tree. It stuck out from the balcony on
which the young lady was standing. She had pushed over a large potted tree so
that it leaned over the railing.

Kieler pushed himself from his seat and embraced it
with open arms. His momentum nearly carried him through the thin upper branches
and one of them scratched a painful cut across his cheek, but they caught him.
His wounded shoulder screamed. The airship snagged for a moment, the envelope
slowly ripping under the weight of the engine. Kieler, in a moment of panic,
grabbed for it. He wanted his airship.

His fingers almost closed on a fold in the fabric, but
he began to slip down toward the smaller branches. He didn’t need to be
reminded there was no visible ground below him. He let the ship go.

It slid off the upper boughs of the toppled tree and
slowly fell. Relieved of Kieler’s weight but still having lost too much gas, it
moved as if in slow motion, sinking as if in water and spiraling awkwardly as
the envelope collapsed. Kieler clung with both hands to thin branches, but his
eyes followed his short-lived, beautiful machine as it tumbled. It wasn’t that
far down when, during one of its limping swings, he saw the engine, still full
throttle, dripping molten metal.

An instant later the remaining hydrogen ignited.

His fear of falling evaporated in the heat of the
rising fireball directly beneath him.