Joseph Lewis - Halcyon

Kenan yelled over the droning propellers, “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Taziri waved and watched him and Ghanima climb back down the spiral stairs inside the lighthouse, thumping on wrought iron steps that rang and clanged with every footfall.

“Now where are they going?” Evander asked. “We finally find them and they just run off again. We’re never going to get to Orossa at this rate.”

“They’re just going to get the major,” Taziri said. “It won’t kill you to wait a few more minutes. When they get back, I’m sure they’ll take Hamuy and we’ll be free to go. We’ll tell them about the doctor in Arafez and let them deal with it. All right?”

“Fine.”

Two minutes later, Taziri heard the wrought iron stairs rattling again and the two young officers leapt up onto the landing. Kenan waved sharply, gesturing for them to come closer to the lighthouse. Evander pointed at the marshal and said, “What’s he want now?”

“I think they need a ride. Right now.” Taziri steered the Halcyon closer to the tower and then stepped back to the open hatch and kicked the rolled rope ladder over the threshold. “Climb up!” she yelled into the wind. As Ghanima began scrambling up the wriggling ladder, Taziri heard a new pounding and rattling on the spiral stairs behind the marshal. “Kenan! Climb up with her! I can carry you both away on the ladder!”

But the corporal remained on the landing, glancing back over his shoulder at the stairs. As Taziri pulled Ghanima up over the lip of the hatch, Kenan stepped out onto the ladder and yelled, “Go!”

A man’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. He squinted into the sunlight and shouted, “Hey, they’re taking off!”

“Taziri! Go-go-go!” Kenan kicked away from the railing and the rope ladder swung out from the lighthouse as two men dashed out onto the landing. One pulled a short knife from his sleeve while the other drew a gun. “Taziri! Go!”

She dashed to the cockpit to find that Ghanima was already in the pilot’s seat and wrestling with the controls. The young aviator threw a frown over her shoulder. “What is this? It’s all different from the Crake.”

“Move!” Taziri slid into the seat and shoved the throttle forward as the propellers flipped over to thrust down and away from the lighthouse tower. She peered down through the window by her feet to get a glimpse of the corporal, but the ladder swung out of view. “Ghanima, take over. Just hold the flight stick steady and get us into open air. Don’t touch anything else.”

The young pilot took back the seat with an anxious nod. Taziri ran back to the open hatch, noting that the doctor was sitting in the far corner with both hands clutching the handrail by his shoulder. The Hellan’s boot rested on the still-soaking shoulder of the unconscious man on the floor.

Looking down the ladder, Taziri saw they were still perilously close to the tower as the Halcyon ’s engine battled with a light breeze coming in off the sea. The brute with the gun leaned far over the railing trying to grab Kenan’s legs while his friend slashed at the empty air, trying to skewer the dangling marshal.

“Hold on,” said Ghanima. “I’m going to try something.” Halcyon juddered and shook, throwing Taziri to her knees and she grabbed a rail to stop herself from falling out the open hatch. The deck tilted suddenly as the airship began nosing up and Taziri saw the harbor master’s office falling away faster and faster. The rope ladder swung wide and Kenan swung with it toward the great glass eye of the lighthouse lantern. He kicked one of the men on the landing as he crashed into the stone wall beside the lantern and the second man leapt up to grab Kenan’s feet. The marshal yelped and fell several feet before he wrapped both arms around the bottom rung. As the airship rose, the two men rose with it. Kenan shrieked as he was dragged up across the jagged roof tiles and the man hanging on his leg lost his grip and fell back to the landing. Taziri winced as she watched the marshal’s shoulder crash into the flag pole at the top of the roof, and then they were free in the open air.

“Oh no, his arm. He can’t climb!” Taziri fumbled for the winch rope, yanking it free and hurling it down beside the ladder. For a moment, Kenan looked up and she saw how little was left in him. His eyes couldn’t quite focus and his mouth hung open, gasping for breath. As he reached for the winch cable, Taziri almost thought he would fall, but Kenan jammed the cable hook into his belt. She hit the winch switch and the marshal flew up into the hatch. He rolled into the cabin and Taziri slammed the hatch shut with the ladder still dangling outside. “Doctor!”

Evander grunted and knelt at Kenan’s side with his black bag. Taziri got out of his way, hesitated, then went up to the cockpit. “Ghanima, let me take over. Help the doctor. And get the ladder up.”

“Right.” The pilot moved aside and gestured at the switchboard. “You’re going to have to tell me what all this does sometime.”

Taziri took the controls and glanced up at the mirror where she saw the doctor and Ghanima bent over Kenan. Ghanima held Kenan steady and Evander pulled on the soldier’s arm. Kenan gasped and groaned as his shoulder shifted and popped back where it belonged, and then he fell quiet as the doctor fabricated a sling out of bandages.

With restless feet on the pedals and anxious fingers drumming on the throttles, Taziri waited for the marshal to sit up. Through the windows, she saw the harbor waters glittering blue and white around the gray and brown shapes of boats. “Are you all right back there?”

Kenan grunted and nodded.

“Well, we’re going to need a plan, and fast. The major is still down there somewhere, and those two heavies may be looking for him right now. What do we do?”

Kenan-in-the-mirror shook his sweaty head. “I don’t know.”

“Kenan, we have no time.” Taziri looked back over her shoulder. “The major is in danger every minute that we’re up here and he’s outnumbered down there. You said you just left him, so where is he? Where did he go?”

Ghanima slipped into the cockpit and sat down beside her. “We left him near the ferry. He said he was going to check the ships.”

“The ferry.” Taziri unbalanced the throttles and the Halcyon spun a long and lazy half-circle. The view of the harbor below rotated to reveal the lighthouse, the pier, and the empty slip beside it. “Where is it?”

“There!” Ghanima pointed across the water to the far side of the harbor, where the white bulk of the ferry was slowly churning its way into the mouth of the Bou Regreg River heading toward the Zemmour Canal.

“Well, that’s just perfect,” Taziri said. “So either he’s still wandering the docks, or he’s sailing inland, or he’s somewhere else entirely.”

“I think we should go back to Tingis and tell the marshals. Let them figure it out.” Ghanima raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “We’re just pilots. They should have a whole team of marshals and police officers tracking down the ambassador and the major. We should get out of this mess.”

“There’s nothing I’d like more,” Taziri muttered. Menna. Yuba. Isoke. My arm. So many reasons. “Which is why this is so hard to do.” She turned the propellers up and eased the throttles forward, driving the ship down.

“What are you doing?” Ghanima rose from her seat, eyes darting from window to window. “We can’t land there!”

“Of course we can. We shouldn’t. We really, really shouldn’t. But we can.” Taziri watched the shapes below resolve from toys into ships and the ants evolve into women and men. Directly below them, a slender brown finger sharpened into the broad wooden pier where dozens of people, many brandishing fishing poles, were pointing upward or jogging back toward the street. In the center of the pier a ring of bizarre figures became a carousel of tiny wooden sailboats and airships rotating around a central engine, all dressed in waving flags and painted in garish blues, yellows, and reds.