How often did this sort of chance come up in life? For some, it’d be a hundred times a year, the sort of occurrence you wouldn’t blink twice at.
For her, Rhoe knew, it was probably just this once.
She slowed her breaths, hoping to cool her nerve enough that she could pass off any shaking as nothing more than shivering. Then, she stepped forward, leaving the alleyway behind, and drifting towards the platform.
Three and a half years, Holsenrhime’s new Aerial Transit Terminal had hung here at the city’s uppermost level. It almost touched the roof of the canopy, close enough that the emerald hue of sunlight filtering through bathed everything in a monochrome glow. The only exception a large sliver of open space, cut away among the Khuran Tree branches, to make access for the transportation system of their overlords.
Three years she had watched through crowds and across corners, airships arriving and departing with almost clockwork efficiency. Almost. They were massive craft, and they cast shadows across the lower floors whenever their hulking frames sauntered into a mooring. Sleek, shining metal shells, pristine glass that shone like gemstone, and opulent embossments that never seemed to tarnish. It all amounted to a lot of splendour – and that of course meant a lot of work. Try as they might, they didn’t always keep to the departure schedules plastered on their timetables. And today, finally, she had her perfect storm.
The crews were woefully behind. For the last 20 minutes, underpaid, overworked staffers had sweated away, unloading, reloading, switching shifts, checklisting. All because one supervisor was sick, and one air mage was missing.
Now the remaining three mages were in a heated argument with the Coordinator General, their seething words hot enough and loud enough for her to overhear. They were refusing to work without extra compensation, something the Coordinator General apparently didn’t have the authority to promise. But without their magic, that airship wouldn’t fly. And they knew it.
Rhoe tried to lighten her steps as she drew in closer, almost at the perimeter of the restricted area. Not a pair of eyes fell on her, most either desperately affixed to crates and documents or conspicuously following the argument. This would be the best chance she’d ever get.
Without a sound, Rhoe concentrated, fighting hard to form the utterances she’d practiced in her mind’s eye. And slowly, her form shimmered, a tiny pinprick of pressure filling the air around her. She kept going, kept pushing, kept focus on the spell she’d put in so much work to master.
And it worked. Her skin shone, then dulled, then faded entirely, flickering into translucence, before sinking into transparency. She bit her tongue, holding back an instinctive cry.
She crossed onto the restricted area of the platform. And she began counting.
Fifteen seconds – that was the best she’d ever been able to manage. A quiet confidence reckoned she could push that to 16 with enough effort, but either way, she had to be fast.
Rhoe weaved around crates, keeping low, small, steady. The cloak wasn’t perfect. Enough jarring movement, and the shimmering outline of her presence would attract attention. But step after step, faces failed to notice her presence, even as she passed right under their noses.
Ten seconds.
The ramp was in clear view now. Its lone guard stood off to the side, dead-eyed in the midst of this morning of chaos. She held her breath, the distance shrinking and shrinking, every detail of it apparent.
Cleaned to an inch of its life, a stretch of soft, purple velvet pinned across the walkway. The railings had been handcrafted, shaped into crude but careful reflections of Khuran Trees. Silently, she sent out a prayer to those same trees flanking all sides of the horizon. They could see her, and they were watching intently; she was certain of that.
Five seconds.
A particularly loud snort of derision from the Coordinator General seemed to spurn the guard back to life. Rhoe’s gait faltered, just as she reached the ramp.
That was enough. The guard’s eyes began to shift in her direction.
No time.
She held a breath in her throat, crawled up the ramp, faster and faster as she passed by the guard’s feet.
Three.
Two.
One.
The illusion disintegrated.
That breath crept out of her as she dived through the threshold and broke into a run down the hallway.
But no shout of surprise crackled out from behind her. Had she made it? Had he just missed her? She didn’t dare stop and look back to check.
Instead, she pressed herself closer to the wall, sleek metal beams interrupted by monotone panels of a dark, amber-hued wood. Plasma lighting buzzed above, a gentle warm hue to its radiance. This wasn’t as opulent as she’d expected. Comfortable seemed a better description.
After a few more steps, she found the sort of thing she’d been looking for. A small alcove broke the uniformity of the corridor, inlaid with a heavy metal door. She pressed against it, pushing her whole frame and meagre weight into it. Slowly, it slid open. She stepped inside.
She’d expected a storeroom, and again, she’d been right. It was dim, disorganised, and overflowing with boxes and crates. This would be home for the next few hours. Rhoe crept deeper inside, weaving around shelving and storage units, until she found a spot sufficiently hidden from the view of the entryway. Then, quietly, she sat down and waited.
Three years she’d chased after this. Three years, she’d watched the airships land and fly away again, while she’d rotted in the frigid slums of what was once a city of light and colour. Holsenrhime had changed, and she might not understand it all, but she could tell it was because something had happened at the upper echelons. She’d hear whispers about it in the taverns, and grumbles from labourers ground down to the bone. Whatever that change had been, it had left her weaker and colder than ever.
She knew, quietly, that she wasn’t going to last on the streets forever. She’d been coughing herself awake lately. Her chest would ache at night. And her arms were getting thinner.
One night, maybe soon, it was going to get worse than usual. One night, she’d be alone in a back alley, and the shivering wouldn’t stop. And eventually, like the others she’d once known on the streets, she’d close her eyes, and they wouldn’t open again.
So before that happened, just one time, she wanted to see it. She wanted to climb high into the sky, break above the forest canopy, and see the whole world stretching away down below.
It didn’t matter what happened to her after that. As long as she reached that dream.
And now, it was hours away.
Rhoe must have drifted to sleep at some point, because she found herself waking up again to the faint buzz of lights, the twinkling air pressure of distant magic, and the rumbling ballad of a plasma engine.
They were in flight.
She couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face. This was it.
Slowly, she pushed onto her feet and climbed out of her nook. The room looked as it had when she’d entered, not a crate out of place, nor any sign of life apart from her. Good.
She’d spent a few weeks counting once. Watching how many people left and returned down that ramp, and for which types of airship. This was a particularly big one, but there still wouldn’t be more than fifty people in all. With enough care, she could make it to her destination without seeing another soul.
She wound her way back to the door, pushed both palms against it, softer this time, and pushed as quickly as she dared. No reaction came from the hallway beyond as it slid open. Rhoe took a moment regardless, listening. When still no response came, she stepped back into the hallway. It was as she’d last seen it. Long, cozy, but oddly sparse. And beckoning her to explore.
She started down it, keeping her pace light, and balancing thoughts of her spell in the back of her mind. The rest of her attention went into focusing her senses; listening, watching the shifting patterns of light as she walked.
But as expected, there were no footsteps beyond her own. Soon her pace began to quicken, picking up almost to a run.
A few moments passed, and the hallway widened, before opening up entirely. She slowed to a crawl, then to a full stop, and stood at the precipice of the junction. Again, she listened. This time faint sounds replied to her efforts. Footsteps echoed ahead, far away, but coming closer. Light conversation bounced off the walls to the right, too quiet to decipher, but seemingly unfriendly. To the left, the crushing weight of silence continued. It wasn’t a hard decision.
She twisted left, almost colliding with the corner as she passed into a much tighter, winding corridor.
The aesthetics were still uniform. And clean. Very, very clean. Perhaps this airship was meant for important passengers. That’d surely explain the size.
But as she thought on it and moved deeper inward, the scene before her changed. A dim glow she recognised as natural light painted the far end of the hall. She stalled for a heartbeat, her body suddenly heavy. A turn, and she’d be there. She’d have the only thing she wanted. The moment that she’d remember for the rest of her days.
Rhoe moved more quietly now, each motion calculated, cautious, and dripping with anticipation.
She came to the end of the corridor. Turned the corner. Stepped into the outermost hallway that ran around the deck’s perimeter. In front of her, stretching away in both directions, a vast array of thick glass windows opened a view to the outside world.
She pressed both hands up against a pane and stared out.
She’d made it. To the very top of creation.
Below, the vastness of the continent of Ancarin rolled out like a frozen ocean. It yawned, almost endless, before crashing into a horizon of crystalline hues. Neon scarlet rippled on the highest clouds, melting down into ruby, which cascaded towards a twilight azure. The mound of a receding sun sank moment by moment, leaving her world behind.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
She’d spent her whole life hearing about Ancarin’s true form. The wastes of a death-winter beyond the safety of the guardian forests. But she’d never understood the scale. They were enormous, those plains of stark white, sent glittering under the sunset. Winds lashed their surface, but whether by height or by low illumination, there wasn’t a shred more detail upon them. No features, no valleys, certainly no life.
She might have considered them a perfect visualisation of infinity. But the plains, while barren, were starkly interrupted. Vast rocks heaved upward, piercing into the sky, and while the rest of the land below looked infinitely distant, those mountains were close enough that they almost seemed to reach out after the passing airship. Around their bases, the white-grey monotones of the world vanished.
Great, snaking rivers bloomed, filled not with chill waters, but trees. The Khuran Forests, the lifeblood of the continent, and the only reason any of them were alive at all. Their thick canopies were littered with snow, but even from here she could see the mass of green-cyan leaves piercing through, and if she really focused, Rhoe could have sworn she could even feel that familiar warmth that radiated from their bark.
She took it all in. She stared out for what might have been forever, or a heartbeat. This, she knew, was the most beautiful sight she would ever see. But she caught sight of something else then.
A dim form, lingering over the top of the land. Her own reflection.
How long had it been since she’d seen herself?
Tired cobalt eyes stared back at her from a gaunt face. She was pale, almost sickly, and despite the layers of ragged, filthy clothes, she could see now how hollow her frame really was. She moved a shaking, lean hand up to her cheek, across cracked lips, and into locks of matted, greasy black hair.
And the wonder died then. The most beautiful moment in her life suddenly felt tarnished. Rhoe peeled away from the window and its view of splendour, stepped back, back, and shrank in on herself.
What was she doing here? Why had she done this? They’d catch her, surely, and the only thing she’d still owned, her freedom, would be taken away as well. Panic, viscous and heavy, started to well up in her gut. She was a fool, she was a reckless, worthless idiot. And she-
And she hadn’t noticed until now, but there was another, more distant reflection behind her on the glass.
Rhoe spun around, face-to-face with a man carrying a rifle.
Her world tilted, toppled, fell apart in the time it took a breath to catch in her throat. The utterance for her spell hung in her mind, desperately crying for action. Yet she did nothing. She stood there, helpless, as the man’s attention left the pocket watch in his hand and fell upon her. His gait stumbled; his eyes went wide.
Hold on. She’d watched the docks for years. She knew the uniforms. And this man?
Short, dirty blonde hair, narrow, luminous brown eyes, a mess of stubble, broad shoulders stuffed into a thick leather overcoat that definitely didn’t fit. It was like staring at a façade of a guard who’d spent years sleeping on the streets.
“You’re not meant to be here, are you,” she suddenly found herself saying in a hoarse, dry voice.
The man blinked, the act seemingly resetting whatever had shorted in his brain.
“What? You’re a child. You shouldn’t be here!”
“I’m 17, actually,” she protested. What was she doing? Why wasn’t she running?
“What the Hells is a child doing onboard?” His voice was loud, and it balanced a cocktail of fear, confusion, and rage.
As the words left his lips, another two figures appeared behind him. Another man and a woman, both as incongruous to the airship as the first man. They stopped and stared as well, but the woman was the first to react.
“Why is there a kid in front of me Islen?”
“How the Hells should I know? Do you think I brought her onboard?” the man – Islen - snapped.
“There shouldn’t be any civilians. That was confirmed ahead of time,” the other man said, a hand moving to rest on the hilt of a sheathed blade at his side.
“I…” Rhoe started, then stopped, unsure of what, if anything she could possibly say next.
And they stared back, but only for a moment. The second man’s pointed ears flicked, and his head turned in response. “Left,” he muttered.
The others moved almost synchronously, silent words exchanging in glances as they came into the hallway and took up aim. The woman tapped Rhoe on the shoulder as she moved around her, resting on one knee and pulling a weapon loose from her holster.
“Behind me.” There wasn’t room for debate. Rhoe complied, ducking below her arm and climbing behind her frame, eyes never leaving the far end of the hall.
It happened so fast. Faster than she could believe.
A shadow shifted in the corridor as someone rounded the corner. They didn’t even have time to turn their head, or bring the long, insidious rifle in their hands to bear.
Islen fired first, and the space before Rhoe blinked with a hot emerald flash of light. Plasma screamed from his rifle, leapt through the air, and tore into its target.
He cried out, folded, and by the time his body hit the floor, another three shadows had appeared behind him.
Islen swore, firing again in quick succession. The second and third target went down, but the fourth rolled, took up aim, and fired back.
The shot went wide, rippling past Rhoe’s head as it tunnelled down the hall, a noise like a nest of raging Fire Hornets.
Then a second shot did the same, coming the other way.
It clipped Islen’s shoulder, and he swore, diving downward. Rhoe looked on at the five men who’d appeared down the right, catching them in her sight for only a second before a hand slammed into her and sent her tumbling through the air. She hit the deck again with force, and her body stung at the impact. But as she looked up, a shot whistled through the space she’d occupied, ripping into the woman instead.
She crashed to the deck too, harder than Rhoe. But without a hint of pain. Instead, she slipped her plasma pistol into her uninjured arm, and opened up a volley of tight, whistling shots that scattered azure colour across the space.
And Rhoe simply sat there, on the floor, as the firefight roared up into a brutal rain of heat and light from both directions, the four of them caught in the middle caught in the middle, answering with brutal accuracy.
There were certainly too many. They had a few heartbeats more until it came to a smouldering, ruinous end.
And again, by instinct, by the overpowering word of some voice in her minds eye, Rhoe chose differently.
A string of utterances sprayed from her mouth, thick, fast, shaky. But clear. This time, she altered the end. This time, a grim, slicing pain rippled through her muscles, and coiled her gut at the strain of it.
And despite every primal sense urging stop, Rhoe cast the spell.
Light fractured around her. And for a moment, she, the woman, and the two men shimmered, then dulled into translucence, then vanished.
“What-” Islen got out.
“Move,” Rhoe said, her voice strangled against the weight of power overcoming her.
But they didn’t need to be told twice. She felt an invisible force grab her by the scruff of her collar and haul her onto her feet. And they were moving then, slipping back down the corridor she’d originally navigated.
Another contingent of footsteps broke out before them, and they rounded the corner into a third squadron of guards. But the spell held. They saw nothing. Until the four invisible enemies were upon them.
Rhoe heard a knife unsheathe, and blood sprayed from the unprepared squad as phantom hands lacerated them. They hit the wall, Rhoe and the others clambering over them as they tried to call out.
And then, suddenly, they were past their pursuers and running through empty space. Step by step, her magic faltered, and the illusion broke, and every form returned to her, bright with colour.
“They didn’t say anything about kids being caught up in this,” the woman said, still holding Rhoe tight with her good arm.
“I know damnit,” Islen hissed, looking both ways as they reached the junction again before glancing back at Rhoe. He seemed to be calculating, even if it was only for a fraction of a second. She saw the conclusion linger silently on his face, the realisation as he took the time to actually look at her. He knew, surely, that she wasn’t a part of this airship. She didn’t belong.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “We don’t have time left to argue.” The woman finally loosened her grip on Rhoe, but kept walking, the silent expectation for her to follow along growing with the widening distance between them.
Because for some reason, now, Rhoe’s feet were planted. The adrenaline rush stalled; the pulse of her heart seemed to halt on a knife-edge.
She had taken off with these people without a second thought. Two of them were injured. She had nearly died. And the reality of it broke on her. And she suddenly had no courage left.
But a shadow fell over her middle-distant stare. Islen, the strange, scruffy imbecile eclipsed her field of view. As his compatriots waited, as distant shouts echoed from far behind their path. And he held out a hand.
Sometimes, a second seemed to tumble on for an eternity. This was one of those times. Rhoe stared at it, the silent offer it represented. And perhaps, despite how brief this moment was, she should have thought about it for longer and reflected further.
But the fear thawed into trepidation as she looked again at this man, his companions, and herself.
She may well regret this.
But the alternative was to let it all end with that beautiful, painful dream of seeing the world from above the forest canopy.
She wasn’t ready to let it end. Not yet.
Rhoe took his hand, and the world exploded back into a blitzing tempo of noise and smell and light.
He pulled her back across the hall with startling force, and she was running, racing. Ahead, then right, then left.
Air whipped past her, footsteps thundering until they were replaced by hornets and flashes of light again. Bolt by bolt, then volley by volley, plasma rippled around her, missing, barely, as their pursuers closed.
The old man in the group slipped his dagger upwards and tightened his grip. It flashed with a reflectiveness she’d never seen before. Something ominous about it under the light. His ears flicked as another volley started, and as though it were practised to second nature, the blade whirled in his hands, as he twisted, ran backwards, and struck parrying blow after parrying blow on hits that otherwise would’ve made their mark. Burst plasma fizzled and shattered about the blade, snaking energy whittling away to nothing in the air.
And by the time Rhoe managed to break her gaze away and look forward again, another change was upon them. They were back at the outer perimeter, but no longer in the same windowed hall. No, she barely had time to even register it as she and the others scrambled into a large alcove of metal protruding from the airship’s hull.
As they tripped through the threshold, the woman slammed her fist against a control port, and a thick door slammed shut behind them.
This, she now realised, was an airlock.
Rhoe went still. Doubt and questions flooded back into her mind. “What are-” she managed, before a thunder crash against the closed door sent her jumping back a step. Guards piled up outside, weapons ready, faces an odd mixture of anger and unfiltered terror.
“Escaping,” Islen replied. “Stay with me, don’t let go. We don’t have enough gear for four, so it’s going to be a rough ride.”
He didn’t offer a further explanation, just took her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and gestured for her to hold onto his jacket as tightly as she could.
As she did, the woman hit another button, and the outer airlock door hissed open. Rhoe flinched. But there was nothing. No sudden decompression, no blast of icy wind. Something was holding the air in tight, keeping it still. One of them was an air mage too – they had to be, right?
That thought didn’t linger, instead overwhelmed by the dawning comprehension of Islen’s words. The woman looked out over the edge, grimaced, turned around.
Then fell backwards, dropping out without another word.
Rhoe swore. The old elf chuckled at that. “Don’t worry, lass, a slim chance of going splat is a damn sight better than a certainty of being blown to bits.”
“What?” She’d intended to follow up with a more specific question. But she didn’t get the chance. Men still pummelling against the door, and a chill now creeping into the chamber, Rhoe lost her balance as Ilsen dragged them both to the lip of the airlock. And leapt.
The deck of the airship disappeared beneath her feet. Replaced by 16,000 meters of empty space.
And they began to plummet.
Rhoe’s grip tightened, her nails clawing into the fabric, the shield of air flickering as blasts of cold ripped through. Her breath caught in her throat, unable to escape and unable to be replaced. And every fragment of every second, it got worse.
They sped up, and up, and up, tumbling through nothing, hurtling out of the sky, wind lashing through to her bones as the air shield started to fail entirely.
Her heart threatened to rupture, blood boiling with terror and energy.
Then it all stilled, as the tumble continued, as she faced back towards their jump point. The airship flashed.
Bright white, then gold, then amber, then thick, impermeable black. In the span of a moment, a fireball engulfed the airship, and the sound of the explosion tore through the air like thunder rolling across a mountain.
They seemed to fall even faster then. Rhoe closed her eyes tight, and held her breath, and waited for the final, agonising moment of her life.
Instead, she felt Islen twist, reorienting himself, and a sudden jolt as their acceleration stalled. She reopened her eyes.
They were gliding now, a silver mesh spread out above them, attached by dozens of thin, taut wires to the man’s back. They slowed, and the air became breathable again, if still bitterly cold. And in the span of a quiet moment where only the gentle drone of the wind spoke, Rhoe realised she was going to be okay.
Then they touched down, landing heavily in the snow. She finally lost her grip, rolling across ice with a painful thud. But then she stopped moving, and her hands were under her, and she was kneeling, blinking, alive.
She looked up, the three strangers already standing and watching her. Behind them, a ball of smoke still roiled high in the sky, shattered debris raining down in its wake.
Again, Islen held out a hand.
“Well that could have gone worse, everything considered,” he said. “Come on. Unless you want to freeze out here.”
She looked around, recognising now that they were in the midst of one of those brutal, empty plains. But in the distant horizon, a thin treeline rose and fell above the snowdrifts.
Should she run for it? Could she make it all the way there on her own?
Again, her blood still hot, her heart still hammering in her ears, she took Islen’s helping hand, and rose to her feet.