Ransom

I’m prepared to meet a faye guard at any moment, but there aren’t any here. The place feels empty, echo-ey. Like it was made for many thousands of people, none of whom are here anymore.

I leave the cargo hold. Still no soldiers. Still no guards. Nothing besides empty space, rust, and a general air of decay. Metal grates clatter beneath my feet. Nothing fits right, and things that do fit right are falling apart and crumbling. One of the plates I was just standing on falls into a void of indeterminate depth. I hear it clanging all the way down. Clang, bonk, bing.

Who would have thought a tangential reality would be so depressing. As far as I am concerned, I am on the ricketiest, most bullshit ship that hasn't imploded on launch in the universe.

I go through another set of doors, these propped open with a piece of metal pipe, almost as if they’re broken and there’s nobody to fix them.

Finally, I find someone. Not a guard. Not a soldier. Not even a Savork. There are dozens of people here. Not people. Faye. Dozens of them. Skinny. Small. Young. Female. Hundreds of them huddled against the vents for warmth. They’re all wearing rags, ripped and worn.

“Hello,” I say, not sure what else to say.

They don’t say hello back. I don’t know if that’s because they don’t understand me, or if it’s because they are afraid to speak to me. The common folk usually are.

“HOW!?”

I can hear Savork coming. There’s no time for further introductions. I don’t want to be caught right now. I want to see what is going on here. For one of the very few times in my life I feel a certain kind of empathy. They look miserable and empty.

“WHERE IS SHE!?”

I hide among them, sticking myself amid their bony forms. They could give me up if they wanted to, but they don’t. I pull their wretched, reeking cloths over my head and body until I disappear.

Savork strides into the chamber, not even bothering to look around, as far as I can tell. He doesn’t acknowledge the occupants, numerous as they are, at all. Instead he is whining to someone with the great misfortune to be in a position to assist him.

“Where is she? She can’t have disappeared.”

“She could have slipped back through the time wound,” Savork’s companion says. “She is of royal blood. She may have talents we are not aware of.”

“You can only make a time wound with a royal blade. She doesn’t have one.”

“Isn’t any blade she carries a royal blade?”

The sound of someone being slapped echoes around the room. I peer out to see that he has struck his underling across the face.

“She is here,” Savork chatters, his voice box working far more roughly here. There is a rot in the air that seems to get into absolutely everything. “I can feel her.”

The underling has nothing to say now. Savork, I am realizing, is two of the worst things anybody can be at the same time. He is cruel, and he is stupid. I’m genuinely surprised he has managed to live as long as he has with those two conditions being met. Usually cruel, stupid people get a knife in the throat a lot sooner than I put one in his.

He charges past the apparently meaningless faye in search of wherever he thinks I’ve gone. I can’t imagine that the rest of the ship is any more alluring than this part.

“What is happening?” I whisper the question to a faye woman next to me. “Why are you all here, like this?”

“We’ve been gathered,” she says. “Savork told us that we had been called to start a glorious new colony.”

“Ah. Not very glorious here, is it?”

She shakes her head.

I get up and follow in the wake of Savork. I’ve learned something useful. To get back to Blackmane, I just need one of the shiny time knives so I can open a time wound and make my escape.

I can hear Savork haranguing his officers.

I put my finger to my lips. I am taking a risk right now, or a gamble, more like it. I am gambling that the officers in this room would rather see Savork dead than not.

Pulling the sword from the scabbard, I swing it in a swift arc. My philosophy holds steady. One strike is all anybody should ever need where a blade is concerned. Multiple wounds are the work of an amateur — though strictly, this is the third time I have cut him. It is also very much the last. I catch a brief glance of surprise from Savork as his head leaves his shoulders and tumbles around the floor before falling through one of the shitty unsafe grates that nobody has bothered to secure.

“I’m Astaria,” I tell the others, blade at my side. “Does anybody else here have any major investment in keeping me locked up like a bitch in a puppy mill?”