The coast could not be far, Ridley thought; with every
hoarse breath he could catch the whiff of sea-things dying, of salts in strange
combinations collecting on a near shore. But the kraken labored to remain even
skimming the tall pines, unable to soar as it used to. The once-majestic ruler
of the skies, mortally wounded, keened silently at each stroke of its feathery
tentacles, wheezed out each giant breath, and its bound-pilot, Ridley
Fogchaser, once the Master Pilot of the fleet, found himself unable to ease the
beast’s suffering or coax it higher above the forested hills. He himself was
faint, unable to even cling to his beloved mount, wearily thankful he’d had the
foresight to lash his limbs tight to the monster’s mantle days ago. If he could
direct the kraken to the ocean, it might perhaps have a chance...although
Ridley might drown, if it plunged to the depths upon entering the water. He
wasn’t sure how far along his alterations had progressed, whether the changes
would save him in such an event. Were it not for his precious cargo, he would
yet give the beast its head, let it strain for the brine as it wished to,
though it meant his death...
Ahead, he caught glimpses of tiny lights. They must be
approaching the city at last. The homing sense of the kraken, ever reliable,
had brought them nearly back to Concordia, but he wondered now what reception
might await them. He had no regrets about killing the saboteur, but he knew
whom had planted the spy in their crew. And after witnessing Mikael’s
death...no one with a heart would judge him for his reaction, Ridley thought
grimly. Yet we are dealing with a man
without a heart, aren’t we, Dearie?
The kraken rumbled and wheezed, commiserating. It had no
concept of jealousy, and had accepted the new lover in its Pilot’s life as a
matter of course, even though it meant fewer opportunities to caress Ridley
when the others were asleep, exchanging thoughts and touches in a language of
tenderness no other humans would comprehend. Mikael had understood. Ridley had hoped, after reading the adventurer’s
article on how closely entwined, mind and body, the krakenships and their Pilots
became, that perhaps Mikael might become the third point of a blissful
triangle. Their mission had ended abruptly in fire and pain before such a
glorious joining could be consummated. Ridley forced his right hand, trembling
from the cold, to stroke the rubbery mantle, offering what little comfort he
could to the kraken. Almost there,
Dearie, almost there...come on...see the lights? Go to the lights. Lights in
the deep, oh yes, solemn and lovely, waiting...
He reeled as the beast turned, orienting its remaining
limbs to the lamps glittering through the smog. Dimly it came to him that he
was thirsty, desperately so. Lowering his cheek to the skin of his gigantic
mount and only remaining friend, he licked it with a dry tongue. The
condensation, admixed with the oil the kraken exuded to ease its passage
through the air, tasted dark across his palate, like gin fouled by river
sediment, but he swallowed gratefully. Ever
closer, Dearie, ever closer to you...soon I will soar beside you, freed from
this awkward form, graceful like you... He closed his eyes, exhausted.
Shudders coursed down his helpless body, and the kraken rippled in concern as
it felt his fingers clench in its mantle-skin. No, no, don’t worry...we’re almost home...almost home...
He tried not to let it hear his worry: would anyone
welcome them back? What tales had been told of the expedition’s failure? What
explanation given for the missing krakenship? The heavy buckles of Taftinnium
still jangled as they swung loosely below the torpedo-shaped body, though the
straps which had bound the cabin to the beast fluttered, frayed, useless now.
Ridley had hacked the cabin free with a small axe, desperate to save the
monster he was tethered to in spirit, when the soldiers attacked. Most of the
party was dead by then, the cabin partially afire, and rather than risk certain
death for himself and his alien beloved, he’d sent the remaining crew
plummeting to the barren earth along with their assailants. Poor bastards good as dead anyway, he
thought miserably. Gods below! poor
Mikael. Poor Doctors and all them. “But we made it, eh, Dearie?” he
whispered. One bulging eye swiveled slowly up to regard him, and he managed a
smile. “You an’ me, eh? Inseparable!”
The kraken wanted to agree, he could tell, but the only
sound it made was a high keening, pitched above the audible range of most humans
but clear enough to Ridley. He winced. “Now, now...almost there...we’ll patch
you right up, won’t we? Dump me off to take care of this little crumpet, like,
and there’ll be fish an’ crabs aplenty for my Dearie, won’t there?” He giggled,
and weakly wriggled his hips against the slimy skin beneath him. “An’ a little
roll an’ cuddle, won’t we, soon as you’re feeling all better, my pet!”
The kraken wheezed again, and sank lower. Feebly it
thrust its remaining tentacles ahead, drawing them back and under as if
paddling through syrup, blowing air out its twin nostrils in the rear of its
arrow-shaped head, but they continued to lose altitude. Worried, Ridley
struggled to sit up, patting the kraken, trying to project reassurance. “Almost
there, you can do it! See, smell the ocean? Just get me to the city, pet, and
then it’s off to the briny lovely deep for you! Roll in the water and heal
thyself, physician! Won’t we have good times then!” Desperately, he tried to
sing, though his throat was hoarse from days of exposure, the skin of his lips
cracked. “Oh, we’ll have such good times; won’t we all have good times; we’ll
have such a gooood, tiiiime, theeennn!”
The kraken groaned, stuttered, its limbs flailing wildly,
then dropped.
Ridley screamed, terror of falling competing with fear of
the bond between them sputtering out. “No!
No no no! Dearie!” The dying shriek of the kraken, agony shooting through
its body as it vainly strove to heave itself aloft one last time, echoed
through the forest and through Ridley’s brain, and he clapped both hands to his
head, overwhelmed. The whip-arms grabbed tall pines, latched on, and slung them
forward. Ridley felt the leftmost arm
rip from the kraken’s body, and screamed in pain as though his own arm had been
savagely cut from his shoulder. The rubbery, massive body flattened trees, hit
the crest of a hill and sickeningly bounced,
skin tearing, innards spilling. Its Pilot, helpless, howled in wordless terror
as they careened down the far side of the hill, slamming trees askew, flesh
ripping, dirt flying, plowing headfirst through the underbrush until at last
the great body rolled to a bloody stop. Dew rained down from disturbed
fir-needles, the surrounding trees waving like ladies’ fans for several minutes
after the final impact.
Ridley sobbed, sprawled prone, his ankles and one wrist
still lashed tight to the lifeless body of the kraken. He crooned to it, weakly
stroking the unresponsive skin. The great eye nearest him stared outward, all
spark of animation gone. The loss of the bond he’d spent years carefully
tending felt as though his own heart had been plucked from his ribs, leaving a
gaping void. He could no longer feel the creature’s thoughts, and hearing only
his own in his head seemed wrong, seemed less than sane. “My Dearie,” he
muttered, tears streaking the dirt on his gaunt cheeks. “Dearie, where did you
go? Why didn’t you take me? Please take me,” he groaned, but no response welled
up in his thoughts as it used to. The kraken entering his brain had felt, that
first magical time, like seeing the mythical beast of sailor’s lore rising from
the depths under wavering moonlight, terrifying and glorious. It had possessed
him, and he it, from then on, for almost four years. He’d conversed with it
more often than the humans around him; it had made more calm, perfect sense to him than they did, with their
petty concerns, their politics and their love affairs and their wars. Kraken
cared little for these things. There was the prey, and there was the mate, and
there was the flight. Oh, they loved
to fly, they did...the Cataclysm had awakened in the massive lords of the ocean
a yearning for the skies, grey and thick almost as the seas where they were
born, and a good Pilot understood this love of flying, nurtured it, used it to
persuade the creatures to go where the Pilot wished. What most people didn’t
understand was how Ridley and other krakenship Pilots experienced their bond:
when the great beasts launched themselves into the sky, the men bound to them
always felt their own hearts soar.
That was more than symbiosis; that was love.
He remained atop the corpse for some time. Gradually the
night sounds of the forest resumed around him, stillness slowly transforming
into the thin chirps of crickets, the occasional too-whoo of a nightjar, the noiseless swoop of an owl overhead.
Finally Ridley reminded himself of why they’d come back to a city full of
traitors, angrily rising from his grief. Dearie had perished slowly,
agonizingly over weeks of flying without respite or refreshment, to bring him
back here...only because Mikael had wished it. Because Mikael, before the shot
which pierced his skull, had implored Ridley to help him subvert the Company
men, to get this blasted chunk of rock back to someone. Ridley strained to
remember who, and why. Rage overtook him, and he screamed at the blackness
overhead. Dead, they’re all dead, and
it’s the Company that done it, the bloody frigging Company innit everytime,
every frigging time! He screamed, screamed again, again until only a ragged
breath came out, his vocal chords too dry to go on. He collapsed, racked with
soundless sobs.
Dearie would want him to do what was important to him.
Mikael had begged him this favor; Mikael, who loved him despite his
differences. Ridley paused, remembering the younger man’s curious touch, gentle
fingers caressing the Pilot’s changed form where what had been the root of a
man now writhed and stretched in sympathy with his kraken partner. Mikael had
been amazed, eager, willing...the only human Ridley had felt any sort of
connection to since his induction to the Krakenship Flying Guild. And Mikael
Autumnson had asked him to bring this fool stone back to Concordia and give it
to...to...
Ridley shook his head. Too many thoughts crowded there,
now that the steadying influence of the kraken was silent. He remembered Mikael
saying something about a sister. Sisters
of the Oncoming Storm? No...not the nuns, why would he give a rock to the nuns,
they’re all fools, aren’t they Dearie? Calling us abominations! Curse them,
idiot women, all bound up in their scarves, what do they know... Angrily,
he nipped at the strap binding his left wrist, sawing the cords with the
fledgling beak behind human lips until the leather snapped. Groaning, he
levered himself up, his arms weak. The vestigial limbs below his tunic wriggled
feebly, unable to do anything useful but responding already to the impetus of
his thoughts. Greedily he lowered his head to the cooling flesh again, and
licked all the cold droplets he could reach, instinct guiding him to take
whatever nourishment he could from the water and oil coating the dead skin of
his partner in flight. He’d been so close to becoming one with the kraken! So
close, and now never to be completed... Ridley whined quietly, rejecting the
thought of finding another kraken-mate. Never
be the same, wouldn’t be my Dearie, never the same...
Eventually he freed himself of the lashings, and slid
ungainly to the ground. He lingered by the still head, staring at the lifeless
eye, its diameter encompassing half his body. Were it wholly up to him, he
would never leave, would guard the corpse until it rotted entire, but Mikael’s
worried face rose in his thoughts. At last he straightened his shoulders and
examined his clothing, making small adjustments to his thigh-length tunic,
tightening the ragged belt, discarding the rubbery but ripped gloves, and
tapping his feet uncertainly in the thick-soled boots. His cloak was long gone,
and without his mask of office he wasn’t sure how people would react to seeing
him. He had no way to judge his own appearance. Mikael wasn’t afraid, he thought, and pursed his lips. Maybe it’ll be all right. We’ll do it for
our love, won’t we, Dearie? He loved us, didn’t he now? He frowned,
touching his swollen throat. Dry. So dry.
They’ll have water, won’t they, these sisters? Sister? Sister of autumn, funny
name that, where does she live, is that a title or a person, don’t know...
He rubbed aching temples, wishing for a comforting presence in his brain again.
He felt so bloody empty. This is hard,
Mikael, this is ridiculous hard, why did you make this so hard? Dearie is dead,
and where do I go now, I ask you? Where do I take this thing?
A sibilant whisper made him turn his head. Wind, stirring
the pines, produced a creaking, susurrant voice, just shy of his ears. “I’m
coming, Dearie,” Ridley said, his voice barely a croak. “Where are you?”
Element. Sister.
Love. Important. Mikael’s voice staggered in and out of Ridley’s memory,
uneven echoes rippling over one another, confusing. Shaking his head, the
bereft Pilot took an unsteady step downhill. He had not stood on true earth in
years, not since his partnering with the kraken. Shaky legs barely bore him,
and any observer would have thought him a newborn, falling footsteps only just
saving him from a painful tumble one after the other, but he persisted,
stomping over leafless bracken and needle-carpet as he traversed the high
forest, heading down, heading toward the lights which now and then he could
glimpse through the swaying trees.
Heading toward Concordia, and the last duty he had any
heart for completing. Even if he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
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