The Admiral’s Son
Admiral Archer Crane hated the smell of the city. Thousands of people navigating narrow streets and alleyways, stuffing themselves into immovable brick and stone boxes. Their odors intermingled and were held trapped by high towers and hills that kept the wind from cleansing it all away. Who could live like this, and why? There were hundreds of oceans on Lunos. “Seas upon seas,” as Skye had once told him while nestled snuggly in the crook of his arm.
Now she was out sailing those seas without him while he remained landlocked, biding his time, and surrounded by people so that he was never more than a stone’s throw from anyone. The stench of the city was always in his nostrils, instead of the salt and wind of the open sea.
Archer tugged at the high collar on his uniform as they made the journey up the hill from the quays to the Moon Temple. It was summer’s end but the heat was intense enough to seem as though the season were just beginning. He felt sorry for the four guards assigned to accompany him; they wore scaled plate armor over their linen uniforms and sweat beaded on their foreheads.
Selena Koren doesn’t know heat like this. If what Celestine says is true, she is never warm. Not in ten years.
“I can’t imagine it,” he muttered, “but Skye shouldn’t have sent her. It’s wrong.”
“Said something, sir?”
Archer looked around to Deke Targan, the head of his personal guard.
“Eh?”
“I wondered if you needed anything.”
Archer shook his head.
Talking to myself already? And just forty-three years old. Too young to go daft.
Thinking of Skye was the surest way to lose himself in his thoughts and he berated himself, vowing for the millionth time to let her go.
She’s already done the same to you.
Deke Targan cleared his throat. With his red hair and large, round eyes, Archer couldn’t help but compare the young man to a goldfish.
“What? Sorry, lad,” Archer said, forcing a laugh. “This heat is driving me mad. I need no escort from here, nor from here back to the Citadel…”
“We’ll be waiting here when you are finished, Admiral Crane,” Deke said, drawing himself up.
Archer rolled his eyes after he had taken his leave and entered the blessedly cool confines of the Temple.
He’s the best man I’ve got but not a lick of humor in him.
Archer found Celestine in her spacious offices on the third floor. The High Reverent stared out the grand, wing-shaped windows that overlooked the city and the bay beyond, her hands clasped tightly behind her back. After the adherent, Lanik, announced him and departed, Archer removed his red admiral’s coat that was heavy with excessive gold embroidery and tossed it unceremoniously onto the floor. The oversized gold sunburst pendant that marked his rank clanked when it hit bottom like an anchor. He slouched into the seat opposite Celestine’s immaculate desk and took up a chart that the High Reverent had apparently been consulting prior to his arrival.
“What’s today’s news?” Archer asked.
Celestine didn’t turn from the window. “I think you were right.”
“Of course I was. What was I right about?”
The High Reverent didn’t reply and there was a silence broken by the rustling of the chart in Archer’s hands.
“They are training peliteryxes today,” Celestine said eventually, her voice soft. “The sky is so clear, you can see them flying off the roof of the Guild all the way from Isle Parish. Come see.”
Archer regarded his friend for a moment. Celestine’s Aluren overtunic was impeccable as always, her knee-high black boots were polished to a bright sheen, her rich brown hair tied up smartly. The sun was high in the sky and Archer guessed that Celestine had arisen with the dawn, working on Temple affairs and Skye’s directives for more hours than Archer had been awake, and that she would continue long after the lamps had been lit.
Beyond her, through the window, Archer could see small dark shapes gliding across the sky, unfettered.
He looked back to Celestine. “You need to get off this island as much as I do. Care to take a sail with me? I’ve been meaning to go to Isle Dantis for inspections. That’s my excuse anyway. Damn good one, I think. No one will suspect a thing.”
“Impossible. Skye’s left us too much work to do.” Celestine sighed, ignoring or missing the lightness in his tone. She still did not turn. “How long would it take to sail from here to Isle Saliz? A month? Two?”
Archer tossed the chart down and sat up. “Not so long as that with clear weather. Why? You want to help Selena? Because I can have a quarto put together in three days.”
“No, it’s…impossible,” she said again. The High Reverent turned from the window and sat down at her desk. She smiled wanly at her friend. “The time to act in that vein was before I sent Selena Koren on the quest that will most likely kill her.”
“I’ll go myself,” Archer said. “I’ll leave now. This moment. Anything to get away from this damnable city.”
“The Western Watch can’t spare you,” Celestine said and sighed. “But it’s as I said; you were right. We should not have sent her. Or that we should not have sent her alone. Gods, Archer, I didn’t even give her an Alliance ship. I hired some stranger to take her.”
“You did what you thought was best. What was necessary.”
“Did I?” Celestine rested her elbows on the desk and rubbed her temples.
“You did what Skye decreed.”
“Aye. Skye also decreed we bolster the armada. We can’t spare an Alliance ship for Paladin Koren’s quest. No one would fault me for that. Would they?”
She looked so young for a moment, so desperate for someone else to tell her what was right and wrong. Sometimes, Archer well knew, the burden of making the final decision seemed as heavy as an anchor around one’s neck.
“It’s a Temple matter, Cel. You would know better than I.”
Celestine sighed and nodded absently. Her gaze fell on the chart. Archer could see she was looking at Isle Saliz. The jungle island shaped like a jagged hunk of broken bones, or a nest of sharp teeth.
“My thoughts are so clouded lately. I can’t seem to make any decisions without second and then triple-guessing them. But I confess, Archer, I was so ready to rid the Temple of Selena’s presence. Her wound is a stain, not only on her but on the Aluren as well. So long as the ‘Tainted One’ is among our ranks, we struggle to fill them.”
“Is that true?” Archer knew of the Temple’s dwindling numbers. Everyone did. But he’d never heard the blame laid for it at Koren’s feet alone.
Celestine raised her dark eyes to meet his. “Yes. And no. The Zak’reth killed us, Archer,” she said. “We lost so many Paladins to their fiery blades. But Selena’s wound is frightening. It’s a constant reminder of the Two-Faced God’s power. Of its wrath. I suspect not many wish to join us for fear of suffering a similar fate. Sending Selena away…it was like ridding the Temple of a shadow that dimmed every room with its presence.” She closed her eyes. “I shame myself even saying the words. I should have protected her. Defended her. But Archer…” She opened her eyes and they were shining. “I feel so relieved now that she’s gone.”
Archer felt an uncomfortable twist in his gut. “Do you think Skye is right? Will killing the Bazira heal Selena’s wound?”
“Of course it will,” the High Reverent snapped, blinking rapidly. “Skye has the god’s ear better than any.” She took a steadying breath and smoothed her already smooth overtunic. “No, sending her was the best thing. For Selena and for the Temple. I pray that she will succeed and return to us whole and hearty. I pray for this every day.”
Archer held up his hands. “Is that enough to quell your conscience?”
Celestine narrowed her eyes at him. “You, Admiral, of all people should know that doing what’s easy, and doing what’s best for the greater good, are not always the same thing.”
“Of course I know that,” Archer said. “We don’t have the luxury of letting personal matters interfere with our decisions.” He found he was twisting his wedding ring around and around, and abruptly closed his hands into fists. “But I wouldn’t have sent the woman to her death.”
Celestine’s face paled. “You think that’s what I’ve done?”
“Did you?”
“No,” Celestine said. She drew herself up and became the High Reverent before Archer’s eyes. “It is dangerous, yes. But she is powerful and resourceful and driven to succeed. I have faith that she will.”
“There you go.” Archer sat back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. “Feel better?”
Celestine arched a brow at him. “Have I just had a lesson in diplomacy from the great Admiral Crane?”
“Tanner Gaines, a truly great admiral, once told me that the only way to lead is to pick one thing out of the swirling chaos, put it to rest, and then pick up the next.”
“Sound advice,” Celestine said, and sat down across from him. She still sat ramrod straight but Archer was pleased to see some of the tenseness leave her face and shoulders. “And now the next item in the ‘swirling chaos’ is the Bazira. They grow stronger every day.”
“I thought the Two-Faced God revered balance above all things,” Archer said. “The Bazira cannot grow too strong, can they?”
“They can,” Celestine replied. “The gods revere balance, not that of equivalent scales, but the constancy of a pendulum swinging back and forth. That is what High Reverent Coronus, in his great wisdom, taught us. The Aluren enjoyed an era of might and power before the Zak’reth war. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way, to the Bazira. Now,” she said with a shudder, “it is their time.”
“Then let’s go to war,” Archer said and pounded his fist on the table. “Force that damn pendulum back. And I’m only half-kidding.”
This coaxed a small smile out of Celestine but it faded quickly.
“I know you are weary of this island, Archer, but be careful what you wish for. My dream, and that of the entire Aluren faith, is everlasting peace. My one consolation is that Skye has contacted us at last with plans to achieve it. I trust the Guild is doing its part?”
Archer nodded. “Aye. They’ve been doing their part for ten years, since the Zak’reth blew us to bits. But the Order of Shipwrights complains they haven’t enough drafters. And now Skye wants to double production.” He pursed his lips. “It would have been good of her to at least tell us why. And I don’t see why Skye’s making these demands in the first place. Armadas are built for war, not ‘everlasting peace.’”
“I trust that Skye knows what she is doing,” Celestine said. “I believe she can Hear the god like no other. We must remember that as we strive to fulfill her directives. And I will try to remember that when I think of what Paladin Koren faces.”
Archer nodded absently. His ring spun around and around until he caught himself but it was too late. Celestine’s eyes were soft on his.
He groaned. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I know it is hard for you, my friend,” Celestine said. “But what she is doing is for the good of all Lunos. She corresponded after four years of silence. That is a hopeful sign.”
“Aye. She’s not dead anyway. There’s that,” Archer said bitterly. But it was what her message was lacking that stung him to the core. He shook his head, not sure if he were more disgusted with Skye for her silence or for himself for holding on.
“If we’ve exhausted all topics of discussion, save my unmanly flailing for my absent wife, I’ll take my leave.”
“There is no shame in missing your wife,” Celestine said. “Were I in your shoes…” She cleared her throat. “She will return and you will know happiness again.”
Archer didn’t say anything. He knew Celestine envied his marriage. Or the idea of it, as that’s all he felt he had left. Sometimes the High Reverent let her officious mask slip to reveal the lonely young woman beneath. And more often than not, he was the only one there to see it.
“Tell me something good,” Archer said, offering a jovial smile. The kind she complained she so rarely saw anymore. “Tell me something good about Connor.”
He watched his friend turn her head and straighten a paper that was already straight.
Archer slumped. “Ah, gods, now what?”
“Don’t be like that,” Celestine said. “Your son is exceedingly intelligent. The sharpest student we’ve ever had…”
“That’s what you say every time. He’s the sharpest student who can’t heal a bruise. Who can’t muster a flicker of light.”
“He is trying…”
“Why can’t the god Hear him?”
“And that is what you ask me every time, and the answer is always the same.” Celestine folded her hands on the desk. “I don’t know.”
“But you should,” he snapped. She flinched and Archer cursed himself. “I’m sorry. I don’t care, really, except that he wants it so badly. But I guess the god doesn’t want him.”
Celestine sighed. “Connor is exceptional. His swordcraft is ingenious. I don’t know why the god is deaf to his prayers.”
Archer snorted. “I do.”
Celestine reached over and clasped the Admiral’s hand. “I’ve told you, his illness shouldn’t preclude him from becoming a Paladin. The god doesn’t demand perfection.”
“No, it demands more than that. Connor and Selena Koren are living proof.”
He could see his words offended and that a rebuke was on Celestine’s lips.
“I’m sorry. Again.” Archer tugged his collar. “This heat…”
Celestine put on a smile. “Connor tells me his training with the Alliance corps is going very well.”
“Aye. Master Wharton reports his weapons training is exceptional, and he has tremendous proficiency in archery, tactics, and all the rest.” He waved his hand.
“There is your good news! He will make a fine sailor. An officer, doubtless. Taking after his father—”
“Aye, except for the small fact he doesn’t want to be an officer in the Alliance, he wants to be a Paladin. He wants to sail around Lunos, healing the sick and defending the weak, or so he tells me. Told me. He doesn’t speak of it much anymore because he’s too embarrassed by his failures.”
“He’s not a failure,” Celestine insisted, “but he has not yet been called into service by the Two-Faced God and so it’s probable he won’t be. That is the truth of it. And don’t think I’m pleased about it. We need as many able-bodied people in our ranks as are willing. The fact that Connor has the passion for it but not the ability galls me terribly. We need him. I need him. For your sake, he is more than welcome to stay among us, but I don’t believe it will do any good. His destiny lies elsewhere.”
“Try telling him that,” Archer muttered.
“Stubborn, is he?” Celestine raised a brow. “Wherever does he get it from, I wonder?”
Archer Crane laughed despite himself and then rubbed his eyes again. “Oh, Cel, all I want is a reason to sail. Nothing too elaborate. Perhaps an uprising. An uprising would be nice. A small one but far enough away to keep me from Lillomet for a season or two. Or three.”
Celestine smiled and rose from her seat. “Come. Watch the peliteryxes with me. Doing so brings me peace. Perhaps it will for you.”
The Admiral rose and stood beside the High Reverent at the window because he knew it would please her. Isle Parish’s northernmost tip nearly brushed Isle Lillomet; only a narrow channel separated them. The Guild’s tall, square-shaped towers sat at the edge of Parish and were visible from the Moon Temple on Lillomet. From the Guild’s squat rooftop, peliteryxes were in training.
Archer thought Celestine’s eyesight must be extraordinary, as the birds were mere flecks of dark against the blue of the sky to him. Watching them did not bring him peace. They served to remind him how fettered he was to the ground, to his duty, when in truth he wanted nothing more than to sail after Skye, even if it meant leaving the Western Watch forever.
I am the best protector of the realm, and also its betrayer, if given half the chance.
The peliteryxes all dove at once, beaks down, wings folded, like sea hawks diving for prey. Archer guessed their handler had called them back when the cloudless blue sky darkened with uncanny speed. Celestine gripped his arm with a gasp as a curtain of clouds drew across it, fat and roiling, obscuring the Guild and Isle Parish, obscuring everything in a thick blanket of gray and black. Moments later, thunder boomed and lightning flashed. Rain lashed against Celestine’s window, and they both stepped back at the storm that had formed and railed within mere seconds.
“Did you see…?”
“How…?”
An urgent rapping came at the door.
“Enter,” Celestine said, her voice shaky.
The adherent was out of breath. “High Reverent. Admiral.”
“What is it, Lanik?”
“It’s Connor, your Reverence. He’s having an episode. A bad one.”
Fear gripped the admiral’s heart. The storm was forgotten. He rushed to the door, Celestine following behind him.
“Where?” Archer asked, praying it wasn’t at the Citadel. His greatest fear was that Connor would have one of his fits while training at swordplay or archery and hurt himself. He was relieved when the acolyte told him his son was in the Temple, just leaving a meditation cell. Other adherents were with him.
“Did they put the stick in his mouth?” he demanded of Lanik as the three of them raced down to the meditation floor. The corridors were dimmed by dark clouds and streaked with rain. “He carries it in his coat pocket. Do they know to cushion his head so he doesn’t bang it on the floor?”
“Yes… and no, sir.”
“Speak plain, godsdammit!”
“Archer,” Celestine said.
“They can’t touch him, sir,” Lanik said, his voice slightly cool.
Archer’s heart rolled. His mind’s eye held an image of his seventeen-year old son convulsing with such violence that the healers could not even go near him. Gods, no…
“We’ll help him,” Celestine said as they rounded a curving passage that led down to the meditation cells. “Keep faith, Archer.”
Lanik led them to the first of a row of meditation cells. Outside the door a small group of adherents had gathered. Rage boiled up in Archer as he thought they were spectators gathered to gawk and stare while his son suffered another of his fits, the sort Connor had been plagued with ever since he was a child. But as they neared, he saw they tried to help, murmuring prayers to the Two-Faced God, and attempting to enter the room. Something was driving them back.
The air felt charged. All the hair stood up on Archer’s arms and he watched as a determined adherent attempted to enter the little cell. There was an earsplitting sound, like tearing parchment, and flash of blue-white light. The young man stumbled back out, clutching his arm. The smell of sulfur and burnt flesh filled the air.
“Stand back!” Archer ordered and pushed his way to the door of the cell. A ragged cry tore from his throat.
His son lay prone on the floor, writhing and flailing as he always did during one of his episodes. Saliva burbled over his lips and his dark eyes were rolled up in his skull, showing the whites. The violence of the seizure was no more or less than usual except that small spider webs of lightning coursed along Connor’s skin, crackled between his fingertips, and even danced in his open mouth, in his ears, in his nostrils.
“Gods be good,” Archer breathed. He took a step inside and reached a hand to his son’s booted foot but Celestine snatched his hand away before he could touch it.
“Don’t!” she cried. “You’ll be burned. Let it pass. See? It is passing.”
The convulsions eased, the writhing stopped, and the lightning burnt itself out with a few pops and a whiff of sulfur. Connor lay still.
Archer rushed to him to make sure he was breathing; sometimes he stopped for a moment or two and it was his father’s greatest fear that some time he would have a fit and stop breathing altogether. But Connor’s chest rose and fell and the admiral cradled his son’s head in his lap.
“What in the name of the god just happened?”
Celestine shook her head. The other adherents—half a dozen or so—looked as perplexed. She rose and conferred with her people and Archer heard them mutter about the sudden storm.
To the Deeps with the storm.
Connor looked peaceful, as though he were sleeping deeply. Archer stroked his hair that was dark like his, but his son’s beauty came from his mother, fifteen years gone. The admiral wiped the spittle from Connor’s mouth and checked to see if he’d cracked any teeth.
It was the same as any other seizure. I must have imagined the lightning. I must have.
Celestine reappeared at the door. “Let’s get him to the infirmary,” she said, her voice low and her eyes dark.
“What is it?” Admiral asked as he lifted his son in his arms. “What’s wrong?” he asked Celestine.
“The storm is over,” she said, and Archer heard it for himself when he stepped into the corridor. The walls were lined with windows, alternating in plain panes of glass, or beautiful stained designs in multitudinous colors. Through the plain glass, Archer saw the clouds dissipating with the speed in which they’d come. The rain had stopped. The sky was quiet.
“It stopped,” Celestine said as they walked down the long gallery, “when Connor did.”
Archer said nothing. Adherents were always looking at everything through the prism of their religion.
Sometimes, he thought, things just happen. Like storms. He looked down at his son. There was no lightning, he thought, as they came to the infirmary at the end of the gallery. It’s impossible. And if there had been, Connor would be dead by now, burnt to a crisp.
By the time he laid his son in one of the twenty beds—all empty—in the stark, clean infirmary, he had nearly convinced himself that he had not seen lightning crackle over Connor. Instead, he thought, perhaps the Two-Faced God had Heard Connor after all, and the light that burnt the adherent’s arm was his son’s own creation. When Connor opened his eyes and smiled at him, he was certain of it.
“How do you feel, captain?” Archer asked.
Connor smiled faintly. “I’ve been better.” He looked at Celestine and the handful of adherents who had joined them in the infirmary. He frowned. “Was it a bad one?”
Archer shot a look at the High Reverent and her people who were looking far too serious and pensive. “It was nothing out of the ordinary,” he said pointedly.
Celestine met his eye but he did not blink. She dismissed the others and moved to stand beside Connor on the other side of the bed. She felt his forehead, laid a hand on his chest, and felt the pulse in his wrist.
“How do you feel?” she asked as if his first answer wasn’t sufficient.
“My head aches,” the young man replied, “but that’s usual.”
Archer nodded. “He’s fine.” He beamed. “He wove light.”
Connor’s eyes widened and a smile broke his handsome face. “Did I? Did I really?”
Archer felt Celestine’s glare like knives in his back. “That is not certain,” she said. She started to say more when Lanik appeared again.
“Now what?” Archer demanded.
“My pardons, sir,” Lanik said, “but he refuses to wait outside. Paladin Jarrin tried to stop him but he insisted…”
“Who insisted? Who refuses…?” Celestine asked and Archer saw her hand land on the hilt of her sapphire-pommeled sword. He followed suit, standing in front of his son.
Paladin Jarrin entered the room. The man’s hair was more gray than brown and crow’s feet folded the corners of his eyes. The veteran Paladin garbed blue and silver—the uniform his son desperately yearned to don—appeared almost flummoxed.
“High Reverent,” he said, bowing his head. “We had thought it was Paladin Koren’s companion, the one who is by her side always, and so let him enter. But too late, we realized our mistake.”
“Let who enter?” Celestine demanded.
“A dragonman.” Jarrin turned to Archer. “He insists on seeing you, Admiral Crane. He professes he bears no malice but…”
“And that was enough to convince you to let him into the Moon Temple?” Archer tightened his grip on his sword.
“The Vai’Ensai were valuable allies during the war,” Celestine said. “They are always welcome here.”
Archer knew that was true. He also knew Celestine was appalled by the lack of security in her own domain; her ears were red and her voice tight. Archer silently vowed to send a complement of guards from the Citadel that very day.
His thoughts faded as a shadow filled the door in the infirmary. A Vai’Ensai ducked his horned head under the arch and maneuvered his wings through the door. He wore a studded leather vest, trousers, and the heaviest, broadest sword Crane had ever seen was strapped between his claw-tipped wings. Rainwater dripped off those enormous wings, off the dragonman’s lizard-like snout that was pierced with a heavy iron ring, and glistened on the row of horns that began on his forehead and marched over the crown of his head and to the base of his neck in a straight line. He stood easily seven spans tall and was packed with muscles that rippled and bulged under his green-tinged skin.
“I am here for the man whose name is like the bird,” intoned the Vai’Ensai.
His voice was heavily accented, deep, and grating. He touched the iron pendant that hung from a chain around his neck.
“Crane. I’m here for Crane.”
“That’s me,” the Admiral said, exchanging glances with Celestine. “I’m Archer Crane.”
The dragonman sniffed the air and then took a step closer to the bed. He sniffed again.
“No.” He shook his immense horned head. “Not you. Him.” He pointed at Connor. “I am here for him.”