Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

Shrugging weakly, Telerd glanced about at the plain yet serviceable room. “Not much, I’m afraid. The Sea Fisher considers him a disreputable man. But he did not think Pattron was a traitor—at least not to our cause. I get the feeling that the man did betray a few of the former city rulers to the blue-eyes to maintain his position in business, but more like a pirate than an enemy to our kind.”

Loid chuckled. “That’s funny considering this house and that servant.”

Nodding, Key looked around at the room. “Yes. This isn’t an ordinary merchant’s home either, so it must mean that the Sky Children do hold some regard for him. That can be either good or bad.”

“Are you saying we’ve walked into a trap?” Telerd asked.

Key only shrugged.

*

Gailert entered Stiltson City, gazing over its high gabled roofs, tile, and fire flues. The horizon of sea, though the gray haze of evening fog, made the sun look bloody. His boy had dragged his bags onto the curb, pausing with a look up at the general in preparation for a command though he was also prepared to duck in case general boxed his ears.

“The city on the water,” Gailert murmured, wrinkling his nose. “You’d think it would be a fresh smelling place.”

The boy had made a similar face, but was trying to hide it until he heard his master express his own sentiments aloud.

The general strode along the stone walkway towards the inn. Just three feet to his right, the rock ended, leaving nothing but a two yard drop into the green and-murky canal that rippled between the homes. The place smelled of salt, human refuse, and fish. All three were in abundance in the water between the homes that stood on pillars of stone and stilts of wood, strung together above with some electrical wiring. If the water had not eroded away at the stone, it had brought in barnacles that caked over each pillar until they looked like scaled demons.

Some of the human homes beyond floated on the water like rafts. Their walkways were thick layers of bound up reeds, the rope fraying over years of wear and decay. The humans that walked on them also had a washed out look to them. Their breezy clothing was merely touched up on the edges with minor embroidery in reds, oranges and golds, giving the only color to the generally dreary landscape.

Upon entering the inn Gailert looked around to see if any important traders or military officers were staying there. Filmy blue embroidered curtains swayed on the salt breeze from the windows that opened into the canals, the only real color he had seen upon arrival. The lounge was mostly bare, though. There was a pair of soldiers in a heated discussion in one corner underneath a hanging embroidery of sea lilies. And a human merchant hunched at a table over a tankard of beer, his face flushed and his eyes glazed. The drunk looked past Gailert at the far wall as if dreaming of something better than the life before him.

Sighing, Gailert gestured for his boy to carry his things up to his room. He remained on the main floor, turning towards the waitress who lingered in the lounge doorway looking displeased that she suddenly had to work. She gave the general a pained smile and led out her hand to a free table, though any one of them would have done well enough. Then she bowed to be polite. She was obviously human and read him to be just as human, an absurd thought to be sure. But then her skin was of the darker shade of the south, bordering on the black nation of Maldos, and he was no longer wearing his military uniform. She could have taken him for a mixed Maldos and northern human breed easily.

“I would like a cup of jasmine tea, please,” Gailert said with a tired nod. “And when my boy returns from my room, have the innkeeper put him to work in the kitchen.”

She made an incredulous face.

“You do have tea?” Gailert turned his head to give her the full effect of his commanding stare.

But the woman wasn’t phased by it. She just shrugged and nodded. “Well, of course. But most men come in here and order beer. Only blue-eyes seemed to be interested in tea. They can’t drink alcohol, you know.”

She said it as if it were a failing, turning from the two soldiers so they would not hear her. Their debate was so heated that it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Even Gailert could hear their words over the lapping of the water in the canals. What had them so hot and bothered were the new taxes the new Sky Lord had issued for the price of petrol. Gailert had been irritated by it also. He considered it an infringement on progress as well as freedom of movement—but there was no point in getting involved in their little spat. Both of them were too absorbed, and their points were too superficial. They were more bothered by how it affected their budgets.

Leaning forward, Gailert rested his hands on the table and laced his fingers together. “Do you know who I am?”

“Should I?” The woman seemed to snicker.

Calmly taking out his wallet, Gailert flipped it open and pulled out his identity card with the official stamp on it along with his likeness. This one actually had a photograph, one of the first. The black and white image seemed to accentuate his growing collection of wrinkles, also making the gray in his hair stand out more—but it was still a good likeness. He held it out to her.

“Don’t touch. Just read it,” he said.

The debate behind him rose. And the man with the beer downed another swig. By that time his boy had dragged his feet off the last step entered the inn lounge, pausing in doorway to look for him.

“Like I can read,” the woman was snickering now, regarding him with a snort. “I’m not a magician. And I am certainly not from a noble family.”

“No,” Gailert took back the card, “You certainly aren’t.”

His boy remained near the doorway to the lounge, retreating a step.

This time the debate between the two soldiers had stopped and one stared at the general. That one then rose from his seat and marched right over to his table, reaching out. “General Winstrong! Fancy meeting you here!”

The woman looked to the Sky Child whose blue eyes stood out from his dark face well enough to make her withdraw with terror. She then stared at Gailert who smiled in satisfaction, ignoring her.

“Captain Jemmes Lugan, you are far from home.”

The woman turned and rushed out of the room, hopefully to get his tea, though he doubted he would ever see her again. She didn’t seem smart enough to do as she was told. 

Shaking his head, Captain Lugan sat down at the table and beckoned his conversation partner over to join them. The other man was a lieutenant but obviously a Stiltson soldier. His uniform had that same bleached quality to it as if standing in the Stiltson sun had stripped the life out of him.

“I am not far,” Captain Lugan said. “I’m now head of Wendora City. It’s along the rail route. We had just completely cleared out their human hierarchy and are now modernizing the city. I’m here to visit with Captain Tousen.”

“So am I,” Gailert said, glancing to the Stiltson soldier who looked harried from that news alone. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Are you here to discuss the taxes on petrol with him, or is there some other business you are after?”

Cringing, Captain Lugan shook his head. “The tax aside, I am actually here to talk with Tousen about the appearance of insurgents and the possible escape routes they are using.”

Gailert blinked, straightening up. “So am I. I’m after the human criminal, Key. I expect him to be heading towards Stiltson. Who are you after?”

A tired sigh from the captain, and the man shook his head again. He shrugged. “That’s just it. I don’t know. An attempt was made on my life a few months ago.”

Captain Lugan leaned forward and gestured to the newly appeared waitress, a different woman. She was incredibly nervous as she carried over a tea tray, staring wide-eyed at General Winstrong.

“The men came in, cut me, shot me, and I can only say that I barely survived.” Captain Lugan said.

“Shot you?” Gailert peered over at the captain’s body, looking for bandages.

“Not to worry.” The captain smirked, rubbing his shoulder. “The shot was not as bad as the cut, and the sword was clean. The thing is, the sword was a style I recognized. You remember that Bekir Peninsula smithy. Well, his swords showed up in the hands of my would-be assassins. Had I not been trying on that Kitai chain mail I had found in the former patriarch’s home, I would been killed for sure. It was mere chance that I am alive. The sword cut through the chain mail, but the links slowed it down so that it did not reach any vital organs.

“The point is,” Captain Lugan tapped the table hard. “I want to find out who they are, where they got those swords, and where they went. My men chased them both east and west. One went towards Stiltson, a skilled swordsman. The other two went in the direction of Harmas. That’s all I know.”

“Can you pass on your memory to an artist?” Gailert tilted his head in thought.

The captain only shrugged. “I really don’t think those posters work. You never did recover your escaped slave.”

Gailert noticed his boy shift in the doorway, ducking towards the stairwell.

“I believe the boy to be dead,” Gailert replied.

Still, Captain Lugan did not seem convinced. “Those other men—that Key whose face you have from an eye witness…you never found him.”

Adjusting himself in his seat, Gailert frowned slightly. “Key, I believe, is not a common man. For all I know, he could be your swordsman.”

Captain Lugan shook his head. “No. He couldn’t. I was attacked during the same weekend as the raid on the Calcumum prison. Unless Key is a wizard or some unusually powerful magician that can fly faster than an airplane, I truly doubt it was him.”

Frowning deeper, Gailert nodded. “So then the operation isn’t just a local movement after all. I was right. Have you approached the Sky Lord about this?”

He looked to Captain Lugan, but already he could see the captain’s apprehensive cringe.

“What? Has something happened?”

Drawing in a longer breath, the captain merely shook his head. “No. But the transition from a seasoned and wise Sky Lord to a younger more impetuous Sky Lord always tends to be painful. As always, we hope that the heir would learn from the memories passed on to him. But it seems, like always, that they assume that they can do it better than their predecessors, and they discard the ancient wisdom. To put it plainly, I already know he considers the humans below his regard. He does not even understand that humans are as dangerous as they are. Only an attempt on his life by a human would make him take them seriously—and I don’t think the humans are foolish enough to try that.”

Gailert nodded slowly. It was true. It would take a disaster of a personal nature to make the new Sky Lord wake up to the reality that humans were not mere ignorant underlings. He had to know they were dangerous on his own. Unfortunately there was no occasion for it, not unless he staged a situation where the Sky Lord could get attacked, just to open his eyes. The idea bordered on treason, but Gailert was starting to feel desperate.

*

The dinner party did not start until the city bell had chimed for the seventh hour. By then the guests