The Star Plume (4 page)

Wrangler sighed. “But we have no time for
such tales right now. We gotta get through the Breach.”

“Seems like we're more exposed than ever out
here. Was this a good idea?” she asked.

“This was our best option, Princess. Them
traders from Igneous will be looking for us. All their friends will
be looking for us. For that Night Spectrum, worth a whole load of
coinage. And we’re not exactly inconspicuous, so this place was our
best bet,” Wrangler Zav said. “Only a damn fool will look in the
Breach.”

“No one is looking here YET,” Princess
Cressida corrected and crossed her arms. “But what about later,
when they don’t find us anywhere else. I’m sure some enterprising
trader will take a chance out here - none of those men seemed the
fearful type. What do we do when they come this way? Not much out
here, I’m guessing, only a few places to look. And here we are,
stuck on this rock like a sore thumb. No Blaise, no Hyko to help us
escape this time.”

Wrangler waggled his head in frustration.
Women
, he thought.

“We’re not stuck anywhere, with that silver
bauble you got in your carpet bag.”

“The Night Prism? How can that possibly help
us?”

“It’ll help us get off this rock, as you
say.”

“And go where?”

“To see the Dark Spectrum.”

“You cannot be serious. Honestly, your ideas
seem to go from bad to worse. We can’t just waltz into the Lair of
the Dark Spectrum and expect to have an audience with him.”

“I agree. We’re not gonna waltz. We’re gonna
sneak
.” Wrangler scrunched up his nose, clearly looking
forward to the prospect of a good sneaking.

“Sneak in…How?”

“Through the Night Prism.”

“That sounds crazy. And not just a little
crazy but full-blown crazy.”

“If you'd prefer to wait for the Igneous
traders and their friends, when they come a callin’ - and you’re
right, they will - be my guest. By now, there's sure to be a mighty
bounty on our heads.”

Princess Cressida rummaged around in her bag
as if looking for her house keys. She came up empty. She shrugged,
defeated. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

Wrangler Zav smiled and swatted his knee.
“All righty then. Take out that there Night Prism and let’s see
what we’ve got to work with.”

Princess Cressida reached again into her bag,
this time to the very bottom, underneath all the other colors she’d
collected. She knew the Night Prism now by feel, it was like rough
raw silk, heavy and unfinished. She liked the feel of it in her
hand. She pulled it forth.

The silver cloud billowed in the light wind,
as the material wafted out of the bag. It seemed larger than the
Princess remembered. It pulled away. She had to hang on tight to
not lose hold of it.

Wrangler Zav admired the waving silvery
material. “Don’t let go now. We lose that, we really are sunk.” He
nodded, looking it over. “Mmmhmm. That is a fine example of
engineering. A bit fancier than the one I’d seen all those years
back.”

Princess Cressida held the material up by two
ends, to look at it more fully. “It’s just a piece of silvery
cloth. I don’t understand all the fuss.”

“Not quite, little lady. Now, watch how I do
this and then do exactly what I do. And don’t let go of the Prism.
No matter what happens. Even after.”

“After what?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Princess Cressida winced. “Will it hurt?” she
asked.

“No, ma’am. But it sure will feel different.
It’s easier if you don’t fight it.”

With that Wrangler Zav grabbed the Night
Prism’s edge with his hands, placed the cloud on the ground and sat
down square in its center. Seated, he reached out for each corner
and gathered them all over his head.

From inside this life-size dumpling he said,
“Grab this here and hang on,” waggling the collected corners.

Princess Cressida stepped forward and took
hold of the gathered corners, holding the edges of the Night Prism
together with her small hands. The Night Prism seemed to have a
mind of its own and it waved and flapped in every direction, pulled
by the call of other places and other names.

In a moment, the cloud’s edges had seamed
together. Princess Cressida could no longer see Wrangler Zav
inside. The cloud changed color, first a dark red, then black as
night. It billowed from the inside as if wracked by an internal
storm.

Princess Cressida held fast to the collected
corners. She heard a surprised “Ahhhhaa” from Wrangler Zav and then
nothing. The silver cloud expanded as if inhaling. The Princess
could barely hold fast to its edges as it stretched farther and
farther outward. Then it collapsed with a rapid exhale. The
material lay limp in Cressida’s hands. She shook it. It was empty.
Wrangler Zav was gone.

Cressida stood alone on the plateau. What
light there had been was gone. She stood in the darkness. She took
one deep breath and then another, building up courage.

Wrangler had said to do exactly the same. The
Princess stood in his footsteps, outlined in silver stardust, and
sat down on the Night Prism, wrapping herself in the wispy cloud.
She waited.

*******

Princess Cressida had been on a ship once, as
a child. It had been a long sea journey and she remembered most of
all the rolling movement of the sea, as massive waves passed under
the ship’s hull, shifting everything slowly to and fro. Each night,
the undulation had rocked her to sleep, the ebb and flow of the
ocean’s song.

As she had sat wrapped in the Night Prism, at
first nothing had happened. She pulled the material closer. She
felt it faintly at first, a foreign pulsing in her body that grew
stronger with every passing second. Her heartbeat, that familiar
corporeal sound, faded in volume as this other beat grew
stronger.

Princess Cressida tried to find the source of
the pulsing but realized it was everywhere she was. It was her skin
that was pulsing, as if it were the skin of a beating drum, not the
skin on her body. The sound grew louder still.

Then, it was not only her skin that was
pulsing. It was her cells, sounding out a rhythmic beat. The cells
in her bones and muscles, her blood and lymph, every cell in her
body, polarized somehow by the Night Prism, the electrons shifting
back and forth, back and forth, a rhythmic music.

Princess Cressida stopped fighting the
pulsating rhythm and gave her body over to the Night Prism.

All of her that was living lifted through the
Night Prism, her muscles and bones broken down into the resonance
of ionic bonds, ever moving, electrons singing as they whirred in
an endless circle. She was transported to the realm of the Dark
Spectrum. No longer a Princess, but a song.

Chapter 6

It moved in slow easy waves, like the sea,
rolling to the edges of the Confine. When it hit an edge of the
infinite wall, it would turn, without hesitation, in the other
direction, like a caged lion.

“8675309-eee-ine…”

“Why why, tell ‘em that it’s human nature,
why, why?”

“Ninety-nine dreams I have had and everyone a
red balloon. It’s all over and I’m standing pretty…”

A guard interrupted. “Your Excellency. Please
pardon my intrusion. You said to come as soon as there was news.
There has been a sighting of the Night Prism.”

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as
night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt,” came the Dark
Spectrum’s reply.

“Sir, the Star Wrangler brought a woman, a
Princess, to the Igneous bar. She revealed the Night Prism in her
satchel.”

“There is no terror in a bang, only in the
anticipation of it,” said the Dark Spectrum.

“No, your Excellency. No one acquired it from
her. Wrangler and the Princess escaped with the help of a Hybrid
star.”

There was a long silence, during which the
guard waited. He was anxious. He had heard that guards had been
destroyed when they reported bad news to the Dark Spectrum. He
pressed against the wall.

Finally, the Dark Spectrum replied: “Mother,
did you have to build it SO high?”

The guard nodded and continued. “We don’t
know sir, where they have gone. We do know that Star Wrangler has
successfully used a Night Prism in the past.”

The guard waited for instructions. Then he
heard:

“The night is calling, I have to go. The wolf
is hungry, he runs the show. He's licking his lips, he's ready to
win. On the hunt tonight for love at first sting…Here I am…Rock you
like a hurricane…Here I am…Rock you like a
hurricane…111000010001010001010001010000101111000…”

The guard turned and hurried away, relieved
not to be punished for the bad news he had delivered. He needed to
find the others and warn them. He had never heard the Dark Spectrum
so angry.

*******

Chapter 7

Igneous was nearly empty. The traders had
drunk their fill and returned to the Star Plume to ply their trade.
Dim blue light shone from gas lamps lining the slate walls. Usually
starlight lit the bar, but no more.

Flo collected glasses and cups from the bar,
wiping the bar top with a dirty rag as she moved from one end to
the other. She skirted around an overturned chair and headed to the
back, her hands and arms full of dirty glassware.

Per stuck his foot out from his table as she
walked by, nearly tripping her. She stopped in time, but one shot
glass flew from her grip, smashing to the floor with a crash. Per
spoke, his voice low with anger and want.

“Wrangler didn’t even know that girl had the
Night Prism, did he? But he knew one was liberated. That’s why he
was here, wasn’t it. Who was it told Wrangler about the Night
Prism?”

Flo gave him a sour look. She was tired of
Per and his brusque ways. But not many places would hire a woman
like her. She adjusted the load in her arms. Amber liquid dribbled
out of one half-empty glass, down her forearm. She nodded her head
toward the bar, directing Per’s attention to a lone trader sitting
in the shadows at the far end of the empty bar, slumped over, his
head on the stone, snoring softly. Several empty glasses lined up
along his head.

Per scowled. “Breen? What would he know about
the Night Prism? He’s useless. Look at him, he’s addicted to Carbon
Tablets.”

“I only know what I know,” Flo said, stepping
over Per’s legs and continuing to the back.

Per lifted his significant weight from the
metal chair, which creaked as he stood, and lumbered to the bar. He
was a wide man, with a strong taste for sugar freight. A wide
forehead and large dark eyes gave him an air of foreboding, which
helped to keep the peace among the drunken Traders.

Reaching the bar, Per grabbed Breen by his
not-insignificant shoulder and shook him awake.

“Wake up, you addict. What do you know about
the Night Prism? How did that lady get a hold of it?”

Breen stopped snoring and he snuffled his
discontent at the unexpected disturbance. His eyes squeezed more
tightly shut. He’d been dreaming of naked flying Princesses and did
not want to leave them unattended for even a moment. He tried to
pull his cowl over his head but Per grabbed his hand and shook him
again.

“Fool, wake up or this is the last time you
drink in my bar.”

His face still flat against the bar, Breen
opened his eyes to stare sideways at Per. Seeing Per’s glowering
face above him, never a good sign on waking, Breen lifted his head.
His eyes were bloodshot, his pupils wide from the Carbon Tablets
he’d washed down with the several punches he had consumed. He
cradled his head in his hands, his long dirty locks entwined in his
thick fingers.

Breen mumbled something and Per, increasingly
irritated, barked, “Speak up!”

Breen repeated, more clearly this time. “I
had it, I had in my hands. Slippery little suckers, those…”

Per stepped backed. “YOU had the Night Prism?
I don’t believe you.”

Breen blinked a few times, wiped his bleary
eyes, and reached slowly into his inside coat pocket. He felt
around for a moment and pulled out a small metal snuff box, which
he opened and held out.

Per peered at the contents. Inside, pinned to
the bottom of the box, was frayed piece of silvery fabric, the
length of a man’s pinkie finger. The fabric twisted and turned
against the pin.

Per looked up at Breen, his scowl gone, a
small but respectful grin in its place.

“You realize what someone would have paid for
that? Where’d you find it?”

“Down the Liquid Mines.”

“Hmmm.” Doubt had crept onto Per’s face
again, his eyebrows high, as if he might ask a question. But
instead he stepped forward and studied the tin again. The proof was
right there, the captured fabric scintillating, even in low light.
He looked up at Breen.

“That’s not your regular route, is it? That’s
Grainer’s territory. You better hope he doesn’t find out. What were
you doing way over there?”

“I was doing a job.”

“What job would that be? Poaching another
trader’s pieces?”

Breen shook his head defensively. “Someone
asked me to stand guard. Watch and listen, they told me. Paid me
upfront in Coin. Wasn’t doing nothing wrong.” The last sentence
trailed off in mumbling. Breen was accustomed to being accused of
wrong-doing.

“Watching and listening for what?” Per
squinted, his eyes honing in on Breen’s mouth, which puckered and
unpuckered grotesquely even when Breen was not speaking. Per winced
as Breen licked his lips.

“Anyone or anything. Wasn’t no one supposed
to be there. It was closed off, like, at the top. I had to climb
down on this long metal ladder hammered into the stone. At the
bottom, it was real quiet, just a lot of brush and even a few
trees. I was alone down there. Hadn’t really thought about it, how
dull it would be just to sit around. Nothing happening. So boring,
watching and waiting. It was torture, after a while, all that
sitting. I got to hoping something would happen. Make me feel like
I earned that money. Anyway, in the end, no one came and no one
went. But they’d told me, wait until someone comes to let you go.
Like I said, they paid me upfront and I’m a man of my word, unlike
a lot of traders out there. They knew my name, too, so I couldn’t
walk off the job. I’m responsible you know.”