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

But despite all the assurances, Key felt his stomach twist. This wasn’t how he wanted it. In his mind’s eye he could imagine the ship getting wrecked, destroyed by a Sky Child gunship. Then the survivors, if any, would be tortured and sucked dry. Though, looking at Lanona and how beautiful she was, he imagined a Sky Child doing his worst to her.

Yet, almost immediately after he thought that, the image of the two dead in the bell tower with their mouths sealed closed flashed into his mind.

Key looked to Soin whom he knew the ocean waves would obey. By sea really was the safest route for the three of them. He nodded. “Ok.”

Both Luis and Soin smiled, though Lanona tilted her head as if reading what he was thinking.

She walked over to him and set both of her hands on his face. Meeting his eyes, she said, “Don’t worry. Everything will work out. It’s your plan. And as crazy as they are, they always seem to work.”

So close. She was so close to him. And despite all his efforts to contain the feelings that swelled up inside him, Key did what he had normally thought was inexcusable. He leaned in and kissed her.

He couldn’t hear anything except the pounding in his ears. And the hotness he felt in his cheeks, he hoped was not her trying to burn his head off for touching her.

But when he pulled back, she just stared at him, her eyes wide in surprise. Everyone stared, actually. Though Luis soon averted his eyes, covering his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

Key immediately stepped back, his face entirely flushed.

“I…I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. Um…” He staggered back further and averted his eyes, searching for something else to talk about, anything to change the mood in the room that had unexpectedly become thick and stifling. “Let’s…let’s…let’s just, um…you were going to make more tunnels, and uh, we were going to scout out the…no, um we need to go back to the other inn and coordinate the raid. I…look Lanona, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…Soin, can you just…?”

He exhaled with a turn and climbed back into the hole in escape. No one was going to save him, and he didn’t want to keep feeling like a fool.

Loid and Telerd jumped in after him, calling out. But Key started into a run, wishing he hadn’t kissed her.

Feeling his way back through the darkness to the inn, Key struggled with the tightness that had formed in his chest. He hurried though the tunnels, feeling like the biggest idiot of all for thinking that a woman that beautiful, that powerful, had actually liked him. It probably had been pity that he had been seeing in her eyes. Heaps of pity.

*

“This storm is terrible. Do the canals usually rise this high in a rainstorm?” Gailert asked the merchant he had been talking with in the lounge. Both of them had been staring out at the increasingly dark sky as it dumped sheets and sheets of rain into the streets. The downpour ran off the roofs like waterfalls. The rain gutters overflowed in some areas. And the spouts dumped into the canals more than enough water to fill the ocean.

“The canal waters usually rise and fall with the tides.  Though, the tide was already high when the storm started.” The merchant frowned, cupping his tea in his hands. “It’s not monsoon season, but then it does rain hard in the fall sometimes. Ah, I hate it when the seasons change.”

Nodding, Gailert leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes go across the room. Several people had taken shelter inside the inn, including a pair of human merchants from the Wede Mountains, a handful of boatmen from the bay, and four soldiers. The Wede men watched the rain as if it were a sport. They hid smiles at the downpour, though it was obvious they thought the rain was a boon rather than a problem. Perhaps it was because it did clear the odor in air a mite.

But the rain dumped harder when evening came, and it showed no sign of letting up.

Gailert had returned to his room to nap before supper. His boy also rested nearby on the floor, as there was little for him to do in the downpour. When the evening meal was to be served, Gailert rose and returned to the lounge. But this time it was mostly empty. The merchants were gone, and so were the boatmen. The soldiers had also gone, though another one had paused in the doorway.

“Hmm.” Gailert walked to the window and peered out. The rain had lightened only a little, but now a fog rolled over the ground like a thick bubbling soup. Crossing to the doors, the general pushed one open and peered beyond the canopy into the street. His automobile had been doused, the metal shining in the lamplight. The street lamps swayed in the wind.

But there was something about the air that bothered Gailert. Not the heaviness, but something else. He had felt it before during another storm—a wizard conjured storm. Only this time, the odors on the air seemed accentuated, richer, almost tangible, as if the salt had been scattered into it.

Without thinking, Gailert reached to the coat hooks and grabbed the lone overcoat there. It wasn’t his, but neither was the umbrella he had also taken. Pulling on the coat, he stepped outside and opened the umbrella. He started down the road as the rain dumped. The wet asphalt shone in the dark as he walked. He noticed there were people about, rushing to get indoors; some soldiers calling, though the rain overwhelmed their voices.

Then, as the rain and fog seemed to get thicker so that he could hardly see past his extended arm, he heard an indescribable boom followed by a tremor. Suddenly, the canal alongside the inn sloshed, heaving a towering wave of murky water over the banks. In panic, Gailert dropped the umbrella and grabbed the nearest railing. He hung on.

The wave hit, crushing down first. The flood tried to toss him back. Then it pulled as if to take him into the canal. Just as suddenly, it dropped him. He found himself panting, still clinging to the railing, now covered in foul-smelling water. The street was thick with it. Another wave came the moment he found his feet, but this time it was not so high. It doused him but was not able to drown him.

As he panted on the street the second time, waiting for another wave, he noticed the two Wede merchants dash by, sliding on the slimy puddles then skidding into the doorway of the inn. One of them cast Gailert a look then blinked hard at him as if he knew his face. They had not made eye contact before that moment, though. The other grabbed his partner’s arm and pulled him inside the building. Both had been carrying heavy satchels in their arms, loaded with something they obviously valued. Right behind them, several of the boatmen ran that way, first looking as if they were chasing the Wede men. But then the boatmen split off into three groups, as if they were also running from the same place with pieces of the same valuable booty. Some of them jumped down to the side canal paths before the inn, sloshing through the flooded walkways to their boats with their own bags in their arms. The others ran past Gailert and the inn, skidding around the corner of the inn as the rain dumped over them.

One slipped. His companions stopped and pulled him up, continuing their run. Hopping to his feet, Gailert followed after them, not running as fast they could—considering his age—but fast enough. It was now clear he had witnessed thieves on the run. But there was something about the face of one of the men that had helped his companion up. It was familiar. And it plunged down his gut with a sick feeling. Gailert rounded the corner where they had gone. It had dropped into the canal that ended at the road. But when he looked down, he saw that already there were fewer of them. Where the others had gone was unclear, though there were still three left. They ran along the other side of the canal, their arms strangely empty.

“Stop!” Gailert shouted. He jogged down the stone steps towards the flooded walkway.

One of them jerked and slipped. The other two grabbed that one before that one fell into the canal. As they did, the seaman’s hat fell off. His partner automatically grabbing it and jammed it back onto his head. But Gailert saw that one thief’s face and that all too recognizable head of hair.

“Boy! Stop!” He rushed down after them.

One of the seamen pulled out a pistol from inside his vest. He pointed it right at Gailert and opened fire. The bullet struck the rock near Gailert’s head, sending shards of rock outward. The general immediately ducked down. It gave the seamen just the amount of time to slosh through the flooded walkway around a house and dive through the arched tunnel under the higher walkway.

Getting back on his feet, Gailert pulled out his own pistol. He went after them.

He struggled through the water, crossing over to the other canal side. Hurrying as fast as his old feet could carry him, he rushed to the alley where they had disappeared. Going in, he sloshed to the canal on the other side.

Not a soul was there.

Desperately looking around, he peered up at the building for some kind of door or window. But the downpour obscured his vision, as did the fog. If they were hiding, they were hid well. Their washed-out Stiltson clothing could have blended them in with the walls, if they did not move. And as much as he hated to admit it, it was pointless to continue the search.

Gailert turned around and sloshed his way back though to the other canal where he climbed up again to the side where the inn was. By that time, he was sopping wet, feeling slimy, and growing a little feverish. Slogging all the way back into the inn with heavy feet—also heavy with stress—he swayed first in the foyer then staggered in search of one of the housemaids.

“You.” He pointed to one of the young women who had just stepped from the laundry room. She had immediately stared at him. “Which room are those Wede Mountain men in?”

Trembling, the woman took a step back and just pointed down the hall. She scurried back into the laundry with her stack of sheets before he could demand the exact room.

Chest heaving and angry, Gailert shed the overcoat, dropping it on the floor. He was soaked through anyway. The general stomped down the hall, throwing open every door.

The first room he came to had a couple in the middle of a romantic tryst. The second and third rooms were empty. He interrupted a small dinner party in the fourth one where a Sky Child family was celebrating an anniversary with feast. The fifth and last room was empty. After glaring at the bare chairs and table, Gailert stomped back off the carpet and back out into the hall towards the kitchen.

“Where did the men from the Wede Mountains go?” he shouted.

The head chef who had been cleaning up the counters inside the kitchen looked back at his help then bowed apologetically. “I’m sorry sir. They were just here. I think they climbed out a back window.”

“In this rain?” Gailert’s voice reached the pitch that ought to have warned them not to mess with him.

Bowing low, the chef replied, “They were wet when they came in.”

Growling low, Gailert pounded his fist on the cutting table. “I demand to see the innkeeper!”

Ducking even lower, the