Maledictus Aether (4 page)

“
She never
knew,” Davis replies, and leans forward, hand outstretched. “Show
me Cephas’ pocket watch a moment.”

I pull it from the inner pocket
of my waistcoat, offering the golden watch to him. He holds it up
by its chain, and has it facing me.

“
You see this symbol?” h
e questions, and I lean forward to look at the face of the
watch. I have never really examined it before – did not really
think it meant much, honestly.

“
It i
s a sword,” I
state, and he nods. “There are wings unfurling from it.”

“
It’s an
ancient symbol, from an era very unlike ours,” he states, handing
the watch back. I take it, looking at the face of the golden watch
and running my thumb over the smooth metal. “They’re both symbols
of a Greek goddess; Nemesis, the goddess of revenge.”

“
Why did he
have this etched on the watch?” I ask, and he shrugs.

“
Not too sure
of it myself – my point with that is to tell you that, if you’d
ever show this to another pirate, they would do as you’d ask them,
without question. Your father became quite a notorious pirate in
his day, and quite a few are wondering what’ll happen with you. If
you’ll follow in his footsteps and discover the location of Tier.”
He steeples his fingers, watching me as I pocket the watch. “You
look like him, you know.”

I look up at him.

“
I do?” I
question,
and he nods. “I did not know – mother never showed me a
picture.”

“
You have his
eyes,” he tells me. “An umber hue, if I recall correctly –
twenty-two years is a long time, though. The hair, too: his hair
was as pale as yours, and he had a birthmark on his cheekbone,
nearly where yours is. Actually, I may have a photograph of the
slimy snake.”

He gets to his feet, walking
over to his desk and rummaging through the drawers there. A moment
later he comes out victorious, walking back to me and holding out a
slightly faded picture. I take it, and he sits back down.

The man that stares at me through the picture is young, in
his thirties I think, with pale blonde hair, umber eyes and
sun-kissed s
kin. There is a
birthmark on his left cheekbone, closer to his nose than mine is,
and he has a confidant smile on his face. The same aviator goggles
sitting on my head sit on his.

I hold the photo back for him,
and he waves his head.

“
Keep it – a little something to remember me by,” he smiles,
and
with thanks I slip it
into the inner pocket of my waistcoat. “Now, I’m sure you’ve
figured it out by now.”

“
You a
re Sky Pirates,”
I reply evenly, and he nods. “Why are you so invested in me,
though? I am not my father.”

“
Perhaps not, but you’re quite close to how the man was,” he
counters, and I cock my head slightly to the side. “You’re an ace
engineer and quite the flyer, if the rumo
urs ring true. The Fleet is afraid of you following in
his footsteps, and is keeping you on a tight leash. You don’t want
to be an engineer, do you?”

I laugh lightly, shaking my
head.

“
I want my own ship one day,” I admit, crossing my ankles as
I stretch out my legs. “Fly through the skies I want to
sc
our, and discover things no
one has seen in centuries.”

“
The Fleet
will never give you that,” he tells me, leaning forward, and I
pause mid-stretch. “They know that piracy runs through your veins,
the call of the skies and wealth ever so tempting. Am I
right?”

I do no
t answer –
instead, I keep my eyes riveted to the Sky Pirate.

“
What
were your plans
for yourself?” he inquires, and I drop his gaze.

“
Follow my
father’s footsteps,” I tell him, looking back up. “I want to fly
like he did, and see the world he saw.”

The pirate grins, leaning back
on the couch.

“
I’m not
saying you have to do it exactly the way he did,” he says,
shrugging. “Just bear in mind that the Fleet will never let you
fly. Oh, one more thing.”

He reaches for the square table
beside him, pulling a thick leather bound notebook from the wooden
surface.

“
As our time
is running out, I want you to have this,” he says, offering me the
tome. I take it, looking to the cover and flipping to the first
page. There, my – well, my father’s name – is written. “I managed
to save his journal from their clutches. I want you to have
it.”

I stand, offering my hand as an
afterthought.

“
Thank you,
Captain Davis,” I say, and he takes my offered gesture, shaking it,
“for telling me about my father.”

“
Honestly, at
first I thought you were his shade,” he admits, laughing. “Off with
you now, before your Captain decides to shoot my ship. I trust
this’ll be our little secret, lad.”

I nod.

“
It i
s Kennedy, sir,”
I say, slipping the tome between my undershirt and my waistcoat. He
grins at me, saluting, and I slip out onto the deck.

What a curious fellow.

Long after dusk, as the sound of snores and steam rise in
the quiet of the late evening, I sit at my desk with the lamp on,
leafing through my father’s journal. His watch sits beside the lamp
and I hold a pen idly in my hand, a
notebook open to a blank page I have been scrawling on for
the last two hours.

I glance over to my notes, my
head throbbing from the cipher – he wrote his whole journal in
code, and I’ve been trying to crack it ever since I was allowed to
sit in peace – and writing another possible solution.

The thing with ciphers is that
every letter stands for another – and, using a phrase that uses
each letter once, you compare and contrast until one fits.

It i
s an infuriating
process, but once a word has been found, the rest is generally
simple.

All I have to show for it,
though, is three vowels and two consonants.

I close both books, slipping
them into my dresser at the lowermost drawer, underneath my clothes
to keep them both from prying eyes. Then I shut the lamp and get in
bed, in hopes of catching a bit of sleep.

• III
  –
  Cracking the Code
  

The next few days
become a rather interesting routine.

My mornings are filled with trying to get my assistant
engineers to pick
up the
pace, of which they do not and I am at the point where I’m
seriously considering informing the Captain that they are next to
useless. From there, I do the usual maintenance check on the ship’s
engines, stuck in the metal maze for the better part of the day.
Stuck with only myself for company, I think about what Captain
Davis told me.

As well as the letter he
slipped into my father’s journal.

When you dock in Clockwork in a
month’s time, meet me at Hades’ Treasure if your mind
is set – it’s the bar your father found himself at when we met. You
can’t miss it; just show his watch at the door, and the doorman
will take care of the rest. I’ll be there for a week in May, from
the fifth to the fifteenth.

Sometimes I just sit on the
ground, leaning my head back on the metal framework of the engine
room, and try to think of nothing. Other times, of the cipher.

The evenings are packed with pouring over the journal,
gradually cracking the
code
with every passing day. We have a week before we dock in Clockwork
by the time I crack it, and my father’s last legacy reveals its
secrets to me.

For the days that come afterwards, I pour over my father’s
words, staying up for hours on end just to see what
his life was like, and if that is
the kind of life I want to lead. He talks about riches and boarding
ships, my mother and the time when he hears of his son’s imminent
arrival – as it stands, he was on his way to meet my mother for the
delivery before heading for Tier, but on January
11
^th
, 1852, the
entry stops abruptly when he is hours from docking in London, with
the Fleet’s assault on his ship.

Not a month later, I was born. My father often mentions
that my mother was going to name me Isaac, but upon hearing of his
death, she named me in his hono
ur.

As it turns out, a member of his crew,
his Quarter Master, is a man I have met before.
He is older, sure, but his name has not changed.

General Luther Stewart, the man
I swore my undying loyalty to.

The name leaves a vile taste in my mouth and I swallow back
the bile, my hands tighten
ing
their grip on his journal I have leafed through without pause for
the last four hours. My eyes fall to the watch sitting on the
mattress beside me, the sword and wings catching the light of the
lamp and shining back at me.

I want to scream, but I stop
myself from doing it. Instead, I close his journal and take a deep
breath, my hands shaking and my breathing erratic. My hands tighten
into fists, one in my hair and the other on the sheets, and I bite
my lower lip.

Father trusted the man, and he
was betrayed for it.

If the Fleet is afraid of me now, then
they will be terrified – I swear it on my
father’s honour, I will finish what he started, and he will pay for
his crimes.

All I need is a ship and a
crew.

A week later, we dock in
Clockwork.

I ha
d heard many
stories of the famous city in the sky, but I had never thought I
would actually walk in it. The buildings soar further into the
clouds, each holding a flag shining with Aether that helps keep the
floating island aloft and collects water for the buildings. The
streets are teeming with life and activity, especially at the
docks, and the skies are alive with fliers.

A young man, maybe sixteen, soars by a bit too close with
wings strapped to his back, the kind of thing I recall got me into
my passion for flight in the first place. The wind is chilly, but
nothing that
I am not used to
after over a month on board the
Charybdis
. Other
airships are either docking or preparing for flight, and the crew
is mixing with the locals, for a much-needed stay away from the
ship.

Although, for the record, I
already miss it.

I hoist my duffel higher onto
my shoulder, waving to the Quarter Master before peeling off
towards the city, to find this bar Captain Davis wants me to meet
him at. I weave through the locals, some of them trying to sell me
something – as if I get paid for what I do – but most glare at me
and openly point to my arm, its brass metal shining in the
sunlight.

From there, it i
s the
taunting and the catcalls, trying to goad me into a fight, but I
ignore it.

I could always whip out my steam bolt and blast them to
kingdom c
ome, but I doubt
that will win me any favours.

T
hat being said,
directions are not easy to come by for me so I stick to weaving
through the foot traffic and hope for the best. He told me it would
be generally hard to miss, but so far I have had zero luck with
that.

I end up accidentally stumbling
across it.

For a while I ha
d
been walking aimlessly, getting even more hopelessly lost in the
chaos of Clockwork and passing by the gallows briefly – I avoid
looking at them, and at the wall of names that have been its
victims over the years in particular – until I reach what I suspect
looks an awful lot like a red-light district.

The giveaway?

Everyone and their grandmothers
are avoiding it like the plague, but a handful of crewmen are
walking boldly through, laughing loudly.

I figure that bars equal
red-light district, and follow their example – without the
laughing.

I start getting somewhere, at
least – well, aside from the women trying to lure me to shady
alleyways with the promise of a good time (again, not like I could
pay) – when bars start popping up, as well as brothels and the
sort.

It i
s not new to me,
though. Ashe decided that my promotion deserved a
celebration.

I still have to thrash him for
it.

Finally, I come across a building with the name
Hades’ Treasure
written in bold along the metal and brickwork.
There is a heavy-set man standing by the door, probably the
security, but all he is doing is watching men and a scattering of
women walk in.

Regardless of that, I walk up to the slightly imposing man,
fishing out father’s watch while he gives me a
steely-eyed look, and show it to him.

“
I a
m here to see a
friend,” I state as his eyebrows skyrocket, his poker face
breaking. I pocket the watch once more, still looking at the
man.

“
Man, I thought he’d gone mad!” he states, and with that
said he composes himself. “This way.”

I follow him into the bar, the sound of a hundred voices
assaulting my ears all at once and the smell of imported tobacco
burning its way down my nose. Making a face, I follow him as he
skirts around to a door marked
No Entry
.