Skyland One Read online

  He tried to make conversation.

  "What are you doing here old man?"

  "I don't know. I...I d–don't know."

  "You blow up one of their ships? No, don't tell me, someone's probably listening. But it's okay if you did. Believe me, my family's a bunch of–"

  "I didn't! I didn't know anything about hhuuu–" The old man sat up. The quilt fell from his shoulders, slid off the bed and onto the floor. His eyes were round. Air rattled around in ragged gasps. "I didn't know anything... anything. I–I didn't...."

  "I know, I know, ok gramps. Ok. Ok."

  Harper put a hand on the old man's shoulders. Then he sat on the bed beside him.

  "It's okay." He picked the quilt up off the floor and put it back around the grandpa's shoulders. He cast about for a neutral topic. "It's not so cold with the door open. Why is it always open anyway? Or do they just open it when I come around?" He laughed, trying to lighten the mood. Not funny.

  The old man groaned and shook his head. "I don't know.... I don't know... It's not for me, it's not for me..."

  "'It's not for you?' What do you mean?"

  "It's–it's not for me... that's wh-what he said. The door is open, but... but he said it's not for me."

  He. Of course. "Who?"

  "The bearded man."

  "One of the Union soldiers?"

  "Yes. Do you... do you know them?"

  "Some of them. But not that one. Who is he?"

  "I d-don't know... I don't know..."

  So they are watching. Always watching.

  Harper glared at the walls, looked around into the corners which suddenly seemed to have invisible eyes. His skin crawled, his muscles twitched, and his legs tensed reflexively for a run to the door. His hands curled into fists, fists braced against the bed ready to leap up and flee. Or fight.

  But he was still sitting there.

  Still sitting there, still breathing, still talking to the old man. Somebody may be watching, but somebody hadn't come to arrest him or to slam the cell door closed behind him. Somebody was letting him talk to the old man.

  For how long? He glared around at the watching room once more, then looked back at the old man. "Come with me."

  The wide grey eyes turned to him. "Wh-why?"

  "Because you need to get out of here. We'll find a way to get around the guards and get out. Look, I've found back doors, and for some reason they're letting me wander freely here. I'll find a way to get us both out."

  "But I h-have nowhere to go... my shop... is destroyed, and my wife.... m-my wife..."

  "You can come out to the country and we'll find someone to take you in. I'll have to come back, I made a deal with them and I won't see my wife again if I don't honor it."

  "Your wife?"

  "She was on the first ship. She's probably on Den now. They said they'd look after her, and I can go join her when the Union's done here."

  "Your wife..."

  "Yes. I need to see her again. But I will help you to–"

  "No!"

  "What? Yes, I can–"

  "No, don't. I-I'm fine, and I have nothing... nothing on the outside..."

  "No reason you should be locked in a cell."

  "But you don't even know who I am," the old man whispered. "You don't know why I'm in here."

  "Doesn't matter." Harper shook his head hard. "It doesn't. You're in here, when you should be out there... doing... what do you do, old man?"

  "I make chairs."

  "Then you should be out there making chairs, but you're in here locked up. And I should be out there flying to Den to make a new start with my wife, but I'm in here locked up... well not locked in a cell, but I'm not free here. Not really. We both need to get out."

  "No... no."

  Footsteps sounded from somewhere outside the cell.

  Harper froze. The chair maker moved away from him. He curled up, lay back on the bed. Harper stood. He moved to the corner beside the door and pressed himself flat against the wall. The footsteps got louder and he cringed away from them. The rank puddle under his feet stank in every breath.

  The footsteps continued past the open door of the cell without even slowing.

  "Go... go. Please... go." The chair maker was sitting up again, sitting straight up, the blanket on the floor again. His eyes were huge in his trembling face. He was moaning the words. "Go... go..."

  Harper held up his hands, tried to soothe the terrified man. "It's okay, they weren't here for us."

  "But they will be... they will be! Please! Go!" He was picking the quilt up off the floor and stuffing it into the empty space in the wall behind the bed. "Go... go..."

  "Okay. Okay." He will only be worse off if I'm found here.

  Harper moved out of the corner and backed out of the cell, his shoes slipping slightly as he tracked the wetness of the puddle with him. Then he was in the hallway, and he turned, leaving the old man and the open cell behind him.

  Again.

  Again!

  It was the third time.

  It was the third time he'd left the shivering old man. The third time he'd left the piss-soaked cell. The third time he'd snuck back from the silent hall of sealed rooms.

  And nobody had stopped him.

  Not once.

  Three days had passed since Wills had brought Harper to the massive ship that was the Union base. Three days. No one had come to interrogate him. No one had come to ask about his father or the Sky Reverends or the explosives. No one had come with instructions. No one had come at all. No one but Wills and the chair maker had spoken a single word to Harper in three days. The other soldiers and civilians on the ship went about their business as though he weren't there.

  Since the first day, Wills had taken to sleeping late or hiding out in Harper's room, reading or eating, while Harper wandered the ship. No one had come to reprimand either of them. No other guard had come to take Wills's place.

  So every morning, Harper had gotten up and gone back to the silent black corridor of cells. And every morning, one door was open. And every morning, he had walked through the open door to talk to the old man – the man who he now knew made chairs.

  Every morning, their conversations had gone much the same way.

  "I don't–don't know anything," the old man would say, even when Harper had not asked a single question.

  He seemed incapable of saying almost anything else.

  "I know, gramps. I know," Harper would say.

  "Go, go," the old man would say.

  And eventually Harper would go, because his presence only seemed to make the chair maker more anxious. The old man trembled sometimes, and sometimes curled in a despondent ball, and sometimes looked around the room, eyes darting here and there, maybe looking for the invisible watcher, the invisible listener.

  But no watcher, no listener had not made themselves known.

  Every morning, when he left the chair maker, Harper went and wandered innocently around the base and looked for a way out. And he'd found one – a few actually. Back doors and service routes, shockingly unguarded.

  "I can get you out of here," he had told the old man more than once.

  "No... no."

  "I can."

  "No... no," the old man would say again and again and again, and Harper could not get him to pass the open door of the cell.

  Every day it was the same.

  And every day, Harper left with the same question.

  What could they possibly want with a carpenter?

  And every day, he had the same answer.

  It doesn't matter.

  A piss-soaked cell was not a place for anyone.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  in which there is not a surprise...

  The cold stabbed deep into his chest.

  Harper's lungs stopped. His throat tightened like a fist, froze like a stone. He bent double, hands flat on his knees, chest aching, struggling. Finally his lungs drew breath and he gasped at the cold. The puddle of piss, bigger than befo
re, didn't smell so much today. Had the air frozen the stench in it?

  "Wh–why... why is it so cold?" He straightened and looked at the old man, sitting up on the bed this time.

  The old man shook his head.

  "Do you... d-d'you," Harper stuttered. "Do you have the blanket s-still?"

  The old man didn't answer and Harper stumbled over to the bed, his legs frozen, almost too tight to move. He reached a hand into the wall behind the bed, felt the puffy quilt there, and pulled it out.

  "It's frozen in here." He sat down beside the chair maker and flung the quilt over both of them. "What's going on, old man? Are they trying to kill you?"

  "I don't know..."

  Harper looked at the chair maker. The dark pouches under his eyes were even darker than the day before.

  Of course. You can't sleep in this cold. "You have to let me get you out of here."

  "No."

  "Really. People will help you out in the country, they can hide you."

  "You-you are f-from the country?" the old man asked, his teeth chattering from the cold.

  It was the first question he had asked Harper.

  "Yes."

  Harper got up and opened the cell door all the way, and felt some of the cold leak out into the dark hall. He went back to the bed and sat cross-legged at the end, letting the old man have the whole quilt. The chair maker leaned back against the wall, his arms curled in. Despite the dark circles under his eyes and his cold-reddened cheeks, he looked more relaxed now.

  No... not relaxed... Lucid?

  His eyes were sharp. He did not look around the room or turn away as usual. Instead, the grey eyes above the dark pouches now looked Harper straight in the eye.

  "Did you... did you," the chair maker stammered, "d-did you do... did you do it?"

  "Do what?"

  "Th-the second ship. D-did you..."

  "Did I destroy the second ship?" Harper shook his head. "No."

  "But you are... with them. You are from the c-country–"

  "With the Sky Reverends? Yes. I am. Well, my village is. My father is a Sky Reverend."

  "They killed my wife."

  "I'm sorry." Harper looked right into the flat grey eyes under the stringy white hair. "I am so sorry."

  The chair maker said nothing.

  "I left them," said Harper. "I went on the first ship that they wanted to destroy. I wanted to take my wife away from all of this."

  "Your wife..."

  "Yes."

  "But now you are back."

  "Not back with the Sky Reverends," he answered warily but truthfully, eager to keep the old man talking, now that he had started. "I won't. I won't go back to that life."

  "You are helping the Union?"

  Harper shrugged. "I don't like them. But I will help them take away the weapons of the Sky Reverends. Maybe then there will be some peace." Whose side are you on, old man? he wondered, knowing it didn't matter.

  "Maybe... You just turned away from your family?"

  Harper grimaced. He had thought the same thing over and over as his father's voice rung in his head. Abomination... abomination... "I don't know..." he said. "I didn't see it as turning away from them. It was more like turning away from what they were doing... what they wanted me to do."

  "So you were involved?"

  "Yes. I mean, I was... " Careful. He sighed. He shook his head absently. How do you explain? "I was raised to believe that defending the Sky was the highest honor. I was raised to revere those that fought for Her, and to see the city folk as enemy."

  "And do you... believe?"

  "No."

  "But did... did your family drew you back here."

  "The Union brought me back here. Not my family." Harper heard the bitterness in his own voice.

  "But surely your family... Now that you are back... surely they draw you back."

  Harper shrugged. "Not really."

  "But you want to do what's right... You believe... You have to do what's right..."

  Harper laughed. "I'm not that moral."

  "What?"

  "I'm selfish. Everything I do..." He shook his head in disgust. "Everything. When I went on the first ship, it was only partly because it was... right. The Sky Reverends are a hateful bunch, and breaking away was the right thing to do, yes. But mostly, I just wanted... better. I wanted a better life for myself and my wife. Selfishness."

  "Yes... yes, I see."

  "It's why I do everything," he continued. And then the words were tumbling out. "It's why I came back here, too. They would have locked me up otherwise. But this way they'll let Zara... they'll let my wife go on to Den, make a life there. They'll take care of her. It's still not the moral decision... just the one that leads to... better. It doesn't matter what I believe or what is right. Family be damned. Belief be damned." He clenched his teeth and swallowed against the truth that tightened his throat.

  "You'll go back..."

  "No. The Sky Reverends will never have me again."

  "But can you leave? Can you really?" The old man leaned forward so that his limp hair dangled in strings from his head over his face. His eyes bulged slightly. "They have not yet destroyed all the ships. They are zealots, they won't rest. They will try again. You will abandon them again?"

  Harper recoiled. Abandoner! Abomination! "I-I will have no part in it."

  "They are your family."

  "My wife is my family now."

  "But the Sky Reverends are your people."

  "The Sky Reverends are Skylanders. So is Zara. So am I. So are the city folk and the refugees on the ship. I will defend us."

  "Are you curious about what the Reverends will do?"

  "I am... anxious about it.."

  "Surely you knew something of their plans before you left?"

  "I don't know anything about their plans. Not anymore."

  The chair maker shivered violently under the thick blanket. "My wife... my wife was killed – burned! – I don't want... I don't want that to happen t-to anyone..." Tears dripped off his chin as his head shook. "I don't want them t-to do it again. They c-cant..."

  "I know. I know." Harper's lips moved automatically. "I– know." But he did not know how to comfort the old man.

  "You are here to help, then? You are here to spy on the Sky Reverends?"

  Spy. Harper cringed at the word. "No. Well... not spy. Not exactly. But I am here to help."

  "But then you do know something?"

  "No. I don't. Only that they will try again. And that is just logic."

  "But–"

  The old man went silent.

  A voice came from the open door. "Are you sure about that?"

  Harper's head whipped around so fast his neck cricked. He got to his feet and faced the tall, bearded figure standing in the doorway.

  So this is... "He." The man.

  Harper's heart thudded in his chest. But this time it was not fear that pushed the blood through his veins, throbbing in his temples, pushing against his neck. It was anger. He glared at the man in the doorway, his fists clenched at his sides.

  The man stared silently back.

  "Yes, Eavesdropper?" Harper's voice came out muffled through his clenched teeth. "What do you want?"

  "If you have no further information, farmer, you may go."

  The man's lips barely moved when he talked. The voice that came from between them was smooth. Calm. As if nothing in this silent hall could worry it. Distinguished. As if it'd been groomed to match the combed beard and ironed uniform. Quiet. As if it didn't need volume to claim authority over a room.

  It infuriated Harper.

  His throat was tight. Not from the cold this time, but from the anger. His jaw clenched so hard it felt like it would snap. But he choked out one word,

  "Go?"

  "Go back to your guide. You will have your chance to help us, too."

  "Back to my... So you tricked us," he said, stating the obvious. "The open door, that was a trap. Obviously."

 
No surprise could work its way past the anger. Harper couldn't be surprised. He'd been wondering when someone would step out. The rage at having his suspicions confirmed, at looking the eavesdropper in the eye was hard to contain.

  He looked away, back at the chair maker. The old man had drawn up his knees to his chest and was covering his face with his old, knobbly hands.

  Of course. He knew. Poor man.

  Harper turned back to the bearded man "Well, you tricked me, anyway. But why? I was already asked about the Sky Reverends. I told you... well, I told that other guy I would help. That's why I'm here. But no one's been too interested in anything I have to say lately."

  "On the contrary," the bearded man said. "We are very interested."

  "Well, you've got a funny way of showing it."

  "Go back to your guide, farmer," he said again. "You will have your chance to help. You are not needed here."

  "You don't need me. You need a grandpa in a freezer!" Harper's teeth ground against each other. His head shook in angry disbelief. "You cowards! An old man. What do you think you're–"

  "Go back to your guide, Harper Fields."

  "What do you think you're doing here!"

  "Go back to your guide."

  The bearded soldier stepped into the room. Harper reflexively stepped away, circling around to the door, and the man swiveled with him, keeping them face-to-face. The bearded man took a step closer and put out a hand. With what seemed like no effort he shoved Harper hard in the chest. Harper backpedaled a few paces and barely managed to keep from falling. The soldier pushed him again. Then again. Then Harper was out in the dark hallway.

  Then the soldier stepped back into the cell.

  The obsidian door closed.

  The almost seamless black wall faced out again.

  Harper pounded on the door, but there was no noise from inside it. No motion. No answer. Nothing. He hung his head in frustration.

  There was nothing to do but turn around and walk back down the hallway of cells.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  in which there is a spy...

  This time, out in the open hallways, Harper did not wander. He did not meander slowly through the halls, looking here and there, exploring. He did not make a show of looking casual. He did not look carefully around the corners before turning them or eye the guards he passed.