A.R.Yngve
DARC AGES:
City Of Masks
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Chapter 3
After five days at sea, Awonso had recovered sufficiently to use his radio on a daily basis. His unit was safely packed inside a water-proof glass casing and powered by solar cells.
He sat for hours skimming the wavelengths on shortwave and longwave, hearing many voices - from his home region, from other cities in Espa, and the occasional static-obscured, faint voices from cities in Italica. The radio traffic was mostly without encryption: public broadcasts, calls for trade with other cities, prayers to sailors at sea and travelers by land, the occasional music, and communications between the many guilds, exchanging knowledge and information... and warnings.
Early in the morning on the sixth day at sea, Awonso received a broadcast from Italica’s eastern coast: a sea vessel had been attacked and plundered. A low-flying aircraft had spotted the attack and identified the pirate ship as coming from the east.
Awonso ran to alert the captain and Kensaburé, who were practicing fencing on the deck while Threo and Okono watched. All travelers were now dressed in rough, casual clothing and Awonso had borrowed a clean shirt from the ship’s crew. He ran barefoot across the dark deck, carrying the radio unit on his back.
"Sea brigands..." he shouted breathlessly, "...spotted off the eastern coast! Attacked a trade ship!"
The captain sheathed his rapier, rang the alarm bell and told the crew to watch out for foreign ships.
"They must be coming from Kisili, the great islet southwest of Italica," the captain said. "The Kisilians have a reputation for banditry." He looked uneasily at Okono. "You should hide the woman."
"Bring up your cannon," said Kensaburé, and scanned the deck for a gun turret. "Better we shoot first."
The captain made a nervous face. "The city lord had our long-range gun removed, sire. He needed it for a new ship."
Kensaburé’s face, ruddy from sunlight, turned a shade redder. He grabbed the captain’s shirtsleeves and lifted him off his feet.
"Did someone pay your master to sabotage this journey?" he snarled. "Speak, coward, or I’ll have your ears!"
The captain went very pale under his suntan, and his jaws worked to produce words; nothing came but a soft babble. Without letting the man down, the big knight said: "Awonso. Send a distress call to Damon City and inform Dohan that we have been betrayed! The lord of Kibralta is not to be trusted. This dog knows only what he was paid to know."
"What do you mean, sire?" asked Threo, and came over to him accompanied by Okono and the two manservants. "Are we not headed for Vanitia?"
"We are," Awonso assured them. "I can use my radio to measure our direction relative to other radiowave sources. We are definitely on course for Italica. But..."
"But what?" asked the knight.
"Other ships with radio can pinpoint our position simply by listening to the strength of my broadcast signal. You know that the previous lord Seguda of Kibralta lost face and a great deal of his army last year, when his coalition with Tharlos Pasko was defeated on Kap Verita... the current lord is his relative, and the Segudas always hated the Lepers. It could be they still hope to stop the vaccination campaign, or at least hamper it."
Kensaburé dropped the captain on the deck. "You shall sail us to Vanitia without delay. I’ll deal with you later."
The lookout shouted from the mast-top: "Ship ho! From the north, heading our way! Three-master! No flags! Two guns!"
The captain took a telescope out of his jacket, extended it and scanned the landless horizon. He quickly spotted the other ship.
"No signals... a small radio mast in the rear... could be brigands." He turned to the still furious-looking knight. "We cannot outsail it, not in this wind... I swear. I suggest you offer them a ransom. It’ll save our necks. They only kill you if you refuse to pay."
"And what about my vaccines?" asked Threo, now visibly upset; he put away his eyeglasses and bared his teeth. "Will they try to steal them, even though they know nothing about them?"
"They steal anything."
"Then we fight." Kensaburé put two fingers in his mouth and whistled for his manservant. "Jacob! Ready my suit! Charge up our weapons. Give my friends a rifle each."
"You’re mad," said the sallow, frightened captain. "We are outnumbered. They can sink us just like that."
"Do as I say." Kensaburé had no plan, except to fight; he was no strategist like his father. "Awonso, make that distress call. See if you can scare off the other ship, in case they are listening in. Try to hold them off until my suit is ready."
"Right away, sire."
"Lady Okono, can your bodyguard keep the captain from doing something behind our backs?"
She nodded and snapped her fingers at the large, bald, silent man in black. "Buchu! If the captain or the crew try and trick us again... kill them all one by one, until they behave."
The captain, his crew of ten and the other travelers stared in disbelief at the silent giant, who walked barefoot like the others. The floor-planks creaked under his weight. From hidden pockets in his wide black trousers, he whipped out two metal pipes with coiled-up metal wires at one end. From the other end of both wires hung a spiked metal ball, no larger than a fist.
One sailor lost his nerve and reached for the knife in his belt. Buchu’s arm pistoned back, then forward, and threw one spiked ball through the air with a metallic twang. It whizzed four meters across the deck, past the captain’s head, and hit the sailor’s skull. There was an ugly crack and the sailor flew backward onto the deck, stone dead. Buchu jerked back the spiked ball and whirled the elastic wire around the pipe, until the ball came to a rest above his head. He let out a snort and regarded the captain with cold, slit-like eyes.
The trembling captain screamed at the crew to obey the passengers’ every whim and prepare for battle with the incoming ship. Kensaburé’s servant armed the travelers with laser rifles, and then joined his master below deck.
Okono took aim at the captain’s head; Threo held his rifle awkwardly.
"This goes against my physician’s oath," he said. "I was sworn to heal, not to kill."
Okono shot him a fierce sideways glance. "My father, Ue Yota, returned from Kap Verita a broken man. It was your father who decimated Yota’s finest men with monsters he had bred and raised. If you say that you did not help your father do that, I will not believe you."
Shame burned Threo’s neck, and he knew it was true.
"We defended our home from invaders."
"I respect that," she said, keeping her aim steady. The sun was high in the sky, and she had started to sweat; her long black hair fluttered in the growing breeze. "But your side killed my dearest brother, Kamo."
"I am not a killer!" Threo said, aggravated. "It is you, the 'nobility' with your arrogance and persecution, who branded us 'witchdoctors' for our knowledge - you are killers by profession. If I was -"
A heavy clanking noise from behind caught their attention. Threo turned slightly and glimpsed the sun’s reflection in polished armor. The sight brought back terrible memories from the battle for his home island. How he had envied those armored knights then - and hated them...
The armor-clad figure laid down sheets of pig-iron on the deck, took cover under a sheet of canvas, and told them not to pay attention to him.
Awonso sent a distress call which he hoped the pirates would pick up, and told a lie that the ship’s "explosive cargo" might detonate if the ship was fired at. Then he prepared to guard the radio with his life...
Half an hour later, the incoming three-master slid right beside the Blackwhale. It had a crew of thirty men, armed to the teeth with grappling hooks, pikes, rifles, crossbows and swords, and two laser turrets aimed at the Blackwhale’s sails.
The captain of the nameless vessel waved to the Blackwhale’s captain - who was standing by the ship’s wheel and steering with both hands as if they were navigating a storm. The sky was clear with only a few clouds. The pirates who stood lined up along the gunwale were bearded, tanned men dressed like any other sailors; many of them had several teeth left to grin with. Some sported gold teeth, others wore earrings.
"Hello!" cried the pirate captain in a Kisilian dialect, grinning so that all his four gold teeth glittered in the sunlight. "Be a good man now, and surrender without trouble! If you thought I was going to fall for that story about the explosive cargo, then you’re even dumber than I thought. Can your passengers pay ransom?"
The Blackwhale captain nodded.
"Good!" The pirate crew laughed and cheered, and made to throw their grappling-hooks. "Steady now..."
There was a high-pitched whining noise, echoing across the ocean - and something glittered in the sun as it shot up from the aft deck of the Blackwhale. The canvas which had concealed now burned up in a burst of flames.
It was Kensaburé in his flying armor, carried on a single jet thruster, sweeping across above the short space that separated the two ships. Soaring to the rear mast of the pirate ship, he spun around with great ease. The blue-hot thruster flame instantly set the sail on fire.
Panic broke out among the pirates, and they fired wildly at the flying knight: snapping laser pulses, crossbow arrows – all of them missed. Suddenly, the jet thrust shut down, and the armored figure dropped like a stone.
Awonso, Okono and Threo stared in horror, believing that the knight’s jet engine had died - if he sank into the water, he would not stand a chance.
Kensaburé held up his metal-clad arms, fell alongside the burning sail... and crashed straight through the midship floor, which gave way like paper to a fist. There was a second crash, as he fell through the lower deck - then an explosive noise from below. He shot up through the hole with the thruster jet at full power and dropped something in his wake, into the hole he had made.
As he flew back toward the Blackwhale, a tremendous explosion inside the pirate ship caused it to tilt backward - then a cascade of water spouted up from the hole in the deck, and the three-master began to sink very fast. Screaming and crying for help, the pirates abandoned ship.
Meanwhile, Kensaburé hovered down toward the Blackwhale’s afterdeck, and landed on the pig-iron sheets he had laid out before. He landed softly and shut off the jet. The ship’s crew rushed forward to cool off the hot sheets with buckets of water, before the deck might catch fire.
Okono peeked up from the gunwale and looked at the pirate ship; it sank so quickly, one would think it was made of lead. The horrified pirates swam after the Blackwhale, but were left behind in the lapping blue waves. The battle was over before it had begun. Threo looked also, sickened by the sight of the doomed sailors down in the water.
"It was us or them," said Okono. "Come, doctor." They joined Kensaburé and helped his servant remove the flying armor piece by piece. The knight was sweaty and flushed, but beamed with pride at his victory. The captain’s crew and Jacob cheered for Kensaburé, and he returned the compliment by waving his hand.
"Goddess! If my brother could see me now, he’d be speechless! I have learned a thing or two since the last Spring Joust." He climbed out of the suit’s legs, their metal still hot to the touch, and was dressed in the white water-cooled inner suit only; thin tubes hung from his sides. "What do you say? Was that a great surprise attack or what?"
Okono bowed her head and said: "Reckless, but brilliant. Your skills have greatly improved."
"Are you going to leave those men to die?" asked Threo, and gestured toward the receding debris in the water. "Shouldn’t you turn around and at least pick them up? We can drop them off near the coast."
"And run into them again on our return trip?" Kensaburé turned somber. "I trust your skills, doctor... please trust mine. The mission is what matters."
Threo took a deep breath and restrained himself from losing his temper. He wished he could think of a joke, but he only felt nauseous and went below deck.
"Will there be other pirates?" asked Awonso. He was shaken and trembling, yet impressed. It was almost like seeing the old Dohan clan in action again.
"Not if you send a new message. Tell our people back home... and make sure anyone else can overhear... that Kensaburé Orbes single-handedly destroyed an attacking Kisilian pirate vessel and spared nobody. That ought to scare off other brigands."
"As you wish."
Okono left her bodyguard behind on deck, and went downstairs to Threo’s quarters. When he would not answer her knock on the narrow door, she peeked inside and saw him kneel over the metal chest he had brought along.
The chest was open and he was rummaging through the items inside; glass clinked and rattled, and he held up a copper tube that was supposed to be attached to something.
He turned around and saw her face, then closed the lid and locked the chest.
"My equipment is not damaged," he said, and hunched down as he went over to the open window where fresh air blew into the cramped, low chamber. Threo slumped down on a bench and regarded the sea, and the distant speck of debris that marked the survivors of the sunken pirate ship.
Okono slowly made her way to the window and sat down by his side.
"You do not approve of war?" she asked.
"Does anyone?"
"It is what it is."
"It brings out the worst in man. Or woman. The nobility and their hunger for glory, their twisted sense of pride. Where I come from, glory lies in saving one’s people from sickness and hunger. My father cured a Leper girl and gave her a healthy new body. That is honorable. That is worth bragging about."
Okono waited a minute, and said: "Accept what cannot be changed."
"You speak of fate. Fate is the excuse for doing nothing. If I believed in fate, would I be here, on this rotten ship? Should I accept the Plague as our 'fate'? Your kind, and his kind... your time is over. This is the age of miracles. I have seen it. Your era is coming to an end."
"I know. Within a generation, Lord Damon and his sage from another time, Darc, will have changed everything. But I shall hold on to what I was taught, until the end."
"You’re..." Threo paused, and faced her. She was really quite beautiful, like no other woman he knew from home... and so utterly different in manners. The women he grew up around were loud, brash and concerned with practical realities. "You’re a remarkable woman."
"Thank you." For a moment her almond-shaped, black eyes widened and her open gaze enchanted him. Then she seemed to correct herself and returned to her downcast, half-shut gaze.
Threo changed subject before he might become too intimate. "Your robot, what exactly does it do? And why does it have large eyes? Are they just for show?"
The woman smiled shyly. "It listens, and translates any language to any other language, written or spoken. I wanted it to look like a child."
"You have children?" Immediately, Threo regretted his words. "I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked."
"I was going to marry. But the choice of man proved to be foolish, and now no man wants to marry me."
"I don’t understand."
Okono frowned with anguish, and took out a small device from her robe. She pushed a switch and spoke into the device. There was a noise, and she continued to speak commands. The door opened, the robot Kiti-Mo walked in on erect legs - and bumped its head into the doorframe. She flew up and caught the robot’s arms before it could repeat its mistake, and told it to duck down.
Threo was amazed: he knew that the nobility owned talking machines - as pets, as talismans of power, as bodyguards - but he had never heard of a robot being raised by its owners, as if Okono was the - the mother of the machine.
Smiling, Okono led the childlike, clicking robot across the floor and to the window. "Poor Kiti-Mo does not walk so well on this rolling floor. She does better on dry land."
"You are teaching it?"
"I have taught myself about robots from the guilds who build and maintain them. They helped me construct this one for me."
"Yes, I can see whose idea the eyes were."
The robot turned its large painted eye-globes toward Threo and spoke in its inhuman monotone: "Will you be my friend?"
Threo flinched involuntarily. "Can it think? Or is it just pretense?"
"I should leave that question to the philosophers."
Suddenly he recalled something. "Did your clan build the spider robots which attacked our island under Tharlos Pasko’s command?"
"No," she said with emphasis. "I had nothing to do with that. Tharlos Pasko bought those war robots from someone named Pan Krator, in the far north. That is all I know."
Threo had never heard of a "Pan Krator," and his deep suspicions of robots resurged with the memories of the recent war. He got up and excused himself, then left Okono with her pet robot.
Okono patted the robot’s oversized, smooth head and its eyelids fluttered shut.
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DARC AGES (c)A.R.Yngve 1995, 2000, 2004, 2006. All rights reserved. May not be copied without permission.
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