The wind whipped against Richard's face as he looked out at the snow-capped mountains that towered over the horizon. The blazing sun was now a crimson red, peeking out over the tips of the gargantuan ridges, providing each peak with a glowing outline that exacerbated the foreign landscape. Brushing back his messy blonde hair, he took a deep breath and placed both arms against the wooden railing of the sky-ship that was now speeding through the clouds away from the Eastern Reaches. With the sun now settling, dots of light began to grow across the mountains, as the people of the Yoai settlements began preparing for the long night.
The hum of the All-Shimmer core at the centre of the ship reverberated against the polished wooden floors, providing a meditative experience for the young royal. White, fluffy clouds streaked with kaleidoscopic shimmers of colour entranced him, melting away the problems he had waiting for him back home. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, inhaling the frosty but fresh air of the now-distant Eastern Reaches, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tattered piece of paper. He unfolded it and gripped it tight, the fierce gusts threatening to whisk it from his hand.
Your rule extends beyond the reaches of this world. Nurture life, strength, and responsibility. - J.G.
He glanced at the familiar words, a mix of emotions bubbling in his head, about to spill over. The paper, yellowed and creased from years of use was the only thing Richard had to remember his father by. King Johann Goldwall. Before tears started welling in his eyes he hurriedly folded the paper and thrust it in his pocket, quickly wiping his face and regaining his composure. The sun, now almost set beyond the mountains, invited the night.
"Prince!" a voice called out behind him.
Richard whipped around, and pulled out of the trance he had been in. A portly man with a scruffy black beard and a coat tightly wrapped around him as the blistering air blew around him stood, gripping his hat. With sharp eyes and a disposition of utmost seriousness, this man bore the the ghastly wind with confidence. He was short, but commanded respect, the weathered lines on his face indicating experience that most people dream about. His face was set to a permanent scowl, not for any particular reason, but as a part of his personality - or was it that he didn't enjoy chaperoning the young prince?
"What is it, captain?" Richard replied, almost shouting as the wind howled.
"It's best to come inside now. We're nearly above the Night Forest, and the night winds are some of the worst we've ever seen." the captain screamed back. "The ship will endure the journey, but we need to take precautions."
His sky-ship was a thing of technological marvel. Building on the architecture of sky-ships from centuries before, it had a classic wood finish, ripped straight from the bark of the Night Wood tree, giving the ship a regal dark-grey sheen. However, unlike the traditional shape of a sky-ship, with all its bulk and size, Richard's one, affectionately named the 'Shimmerbolt', was a sleek, aerodynamic creation, in the shape of an arrowhead. It had sharp black wings on either side of the deck, lined with tubes carrying a steady flow of All-Shimmer from its core (beneath the deck) to every part of the ship. It was relatively small for a royal ship, more likened to a speed vessel than a royal carrier. This was by design, as Richard had a distaste for Indirrel's insistence on gaudy design, and would rather travel by himself, rather than with a cohort of driveling social climbers who would pounce at the opportunity of traveling with royalty.
Stopping for a moment to appreciate the graceful flaps of his ship's wings, he stepped through the doors that led below deck and climbed down a ladder into the small, yet well-designed living space. Walking past his bunk, he followed the captain into the sky-pit, the captain's control room. Glass tubes of All-Shimmer were packed into every corner, with the larger tubes stemming off into smaller ones, a maze of mechanical roots spreading across the room. The pulsing of All-Shimmer through the tube had always scared the prince, since childhood. What if the glass cracked and released All-Shimmer into the ship? That would mean certain death. It was an irrational fear, however, as modern sky-ships were designed to be as reliable as possible, with a special form of mostly unbreakable glass known as Krystalli used for the tubing.
"The Night-Forest, huh?" The prince shuddered, as the captain grabbed the wooden wheel while carefully checking a line of vials filled with varying levels of coloured liquid.
"We flew over it on the way here, Prince" the captain muttered to himself, with a tinge of irritation that the young royalty had followed him to the sky-pit while he was carefully navigating through a climatically treacherous region. "We can fly over it again, no problem."
"Yes, yes, I'm not doubting your skill, Vakan" the prince exclaimed emphatically, missing why the captain seemed irritated. "I'm just saying, what lies down there...it's not good, or so I've heard" the Prince continued, adding the last bit hurriedly.
"Why don't you get some rest, Prince" the captain sighed. "By the time you wake up, the Night-Forest will be a distant memory."
"Good idea!" The prince reacted, good-naturedly, thumping the captain on the back. "You sure you won't be bored without me here to keep you company?"
"I assure you. I will be fine." The captain replied, through gritted teeth.
The prince walked out of the sky-pit, firmly shutting the wooden door behind him, and inspected his living quarters. Due to the Shimmerbolt being a small ship, his living space was cozy as well. A small bed lined the wall, donned with a soft, luxurious quilt and fluffy pillows stuffed with feathers. Lamps lit with All-Shimmer gave the cabin a homely glow. A small table sat, bolted down, in the centre of the room, with a leather sofa and a reading chair surrounding it, against the opposing walls. While it was certainly extravagant by sky-ship standards, Richard had conceded more furnishings for the sake of speedier travels, though he could not find it in himself to let go of certain royal comforts. The captain's room, which was an even tinier space that was set against the All-Shimmer core that controlled the ship, was much plainer, with a hammock and a simple writing desk, at the request of Captain Vakan.
Richard took off the giant fur coat he was wearing and tossed it over the sofa, the heat of the All-Shimmer lamps starting to warm him up. He sat in his chair, staring up at the ceiling, letting the hum of the core massage his brain. Creeping thoughts entered him, interrupting the seconds of quiet solitude that he was embracing. Upon his return to Indirrel, his mother would immediately pounce upon him, berating him for abandoning his royal duties for the sake of a 'holiday'. A 'holiday?', Richard retorted to himself in a huff. She would never understand why he needed such excursions. They were diplomatic duties! A royal visit to far settlements would expand Indirrel's reach. Is that not what she wanted? Ever since his father died, she had fervently begun expanding her sphere of influence across Selioth, starting to export Indirrith's 'golden' lifestyle to primitive nations across the world. Richard cringed to himself as he thought that. Primitive isn't the word...though they do live a simpler lifestyle, he conceded. Richard rubbed his temples as the warmth of the lamps started to tighten around his head. Nothing wrong with adopting Indirrith lifestyle, he continued, taking a deep breath. Culture, science, progress! Who doesn't want that in their society? The Yao people were wonderful, living their peaceful, quiet, herding life. But imagine if they had our technology! Using All-Shimmer to automate the herding process, using it to efficiently expand and export their artisan goods. No longer would you have to travel to the Eastern Reaches to try some of their famed Yao Milk, you could just buy it straight from the Merchant's Quarter in Indirrel!
Richard groaned out loud, his head throbbing. He leaped up from his chair and dimmed the lamps while wiping sweat from his forehead. The Shimmerbolt jolted sharply, nearly throwing him off his feet. Richard gripped the table for balance, startled by the sudden movements intruding on the otherwise smooth experience the ship usually provided.
"Captain?" Richard yelled out, with a noticeable tinge of fear in his voice.
"We're over the Night Forest. The weather is brutal" Vakan replied, with a concerning lack of certainty in his voice.
Richard let go of this fact, chalking it up to his own fears of travelling over the Night Forest, and sat back down, this time on his bed, sinking back into the soft pillows. And there was his brother, Richard continued thinking to himself, furrowing his brow in frustration. The golden child. Sent all over Selioth to 'spread the good word', he said the last part out loud, mockingly. His frustrated inner monologue was sending him into a painful spiral of thoughts and harsh memories of his upbringing. The ship jolted once again, this time with more force, sending Richard's fur coat flying across the room. Richard himself was nearly thrown off the bed, but managed to catch himself at the last minute and cling onto the ornate headboard.
"What is this?" Richard muttered to himself angrily, before carefully getting up onto his feet and striding into the pit, slamming the wooden door wide open. He entered and noticed the captain gripping the wheel with all his might with one hand, using the other to tinker with the line of vials that stood along the counter, now bubbling and bursting, threatening to explode through the glass.
"Captain?" Richard exclaimed, now in a full-blown panic.
"Prince, I urge you to head back inside!" the captain bellowed, looking up from the vials and instead at the tubing, that was now surging with glowing All-Shimmer, ebbing and flowing at incredible speeds.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The prince disregarded this request and stumbled forward as another jolt tilted the ship sideways. Through the glass panes that lay in front of the wheels was absolute darkness, with the wisp of an occasional cloud ripped into pieces by the Shimmerbolt.
"Whatever is happening is not normal, is it Captain?" Richard inquired, with a strange calmness in his tone.
"No." The captain admitted, panic now brewing in his experienced eyes as well. "Something is wrong with the core. I can't go check it now, I need to be in the pit or she'll veer into the forest."
"Can I help somehow?" Richard cried in fear.
"You don't know anything about cores, son" the captain replied slowly. "I reckon this is intentional,” he added mysteriously.
"Intentional?"
"Yes. Intentional."
"Like sabotage?"
"Yes, son. Sabotage." The little sense of deference and etiquette had now escaped the captain as the ship shook violently. This time, one of the vials filled to the brim with a bubbling green liquid exploded, with most of the liquid landing on Vakan's exposed arm, as he rolled up the sleeves of his sweat-drenched undershirt.
"AH!" Vakan yelped, retreating his arm from the wheel as the liquid burnt him.
As soon as his hands left the wheel it began rotating rapidly, as if being spun out of control by some malevolent force. The ship suddenly dipped, and Richard's feet left the ground, smashing into the window pane. The captain grabbed the wheel once again and furiously pulled at it, managing to avoid the ship from plunging nose-first into the Night Forest trees. Still planted against the window pane, Richard stared below him, the vast expanse of the canopy seemingly endless and pitch black. Finding balance once again, Richard turned to Vakan.
"Is the core sure to fail?"
"No idea." The captain replied, sharply focused on keeping the ship airborne as his skin sizzled from the intense burns.
Richard was acutely aware of the dip in their altitude as if the ship was slowly losing the power to keep them above the clouds. As he pressed his hands and looked below once again, the canopy seemed to be getting closer and closer.
"Damn this! I'm taking a look at the core." Richard exclaimed, tired of feeling like dead weight in an incoming disaster.
The captain didn't seem to have heard him, his attention preoccupied with one of the smallest tubes in the maze of Krystalli seemingly hissing, releasing shimmering gas into the pit. Richard hadn't noticed the leak, impulsively running out of the pit to do something, anything, to fix the flight. Sprinting out of the sky-pit, past his room, into the captain's quarters, he reached the heavy metal door that led into the core room. A large vault wheel and a small Krystalli viewing window took up a majority of space. Richard grabbed the wheel and strained. It moved slowly and took every bit of strength Richard had to rotate even the slightest degree. As he made incremental progress, he stared into the viewing window and his eyes widened in abject fear as he looked at the core.
The core, which was the main engine of the ship, was secured in a well-protected metal room. Due to the large amounts of All-Shimmer that swirled in this room, it was a highly volatile area, and even the slightest of imbalances could throw the core into a frenzy, zipping All-Shimmer in wrong quantities to different parts of the ship, causing disastrous malfunction. Therefore, the room was kept bare to prevent such mishaps. Visually, the core was a sight to behold, with a gigantic Krystalli tube from ceiling to floor bolted down in the middle of the room, with no conceivable way to access the core that was sealed within the tubing. Within the giant glass tubing, a metal ball that floated at the center was spinning at great speeds in different orientations, with reserves of All-Shimmer being pumped from the bottom. The spinning ball then accumulated the shimmering powder and distributed it into the several offshoots of tubing that seemed to grow out from the main tube, where they were spread across the ship. The All-Shimmer that was being pumped into the core was drawn from a tank of reserve powder that was stored beneath the ship, in a highly secure container. The All-Shimmer interacting with this spinning metal ball gave the image of a ball of furious rainbow energy spreading beams of light into the smaller tubes and through the ship.
However, this was not what Richard saw. Instead of the metal ball floating in place, it was now crashing into the Krystalli tubing at breakneck speeds, bouncing from wall to wall, threatening to burst through the tough glass. The distribution of All-Shimmer was erratic, with some of the smaller tubes pulsating with magic, while others were left completely bare. One of the smallest tubes was so overworked that it had exploded completely, releasing All-Shimmer into the air. What was the most strange, however, was the usual rainbow shimmering of the All-Shimmer was now replaced with a thick, evil purple miasma that the core was distributing throughout the ship. Richard immediately stopped trying to open the door, the only thing that stood between him and a potentially deadly gas, and covered his mouth in terror. All he could was watch as the core violently slammed against the glass, on a destructive warpath, threatening a prison escape that would ensure the doom of both himself and Captain Vakan.
"Curse it all!" Richard cried out loud. He was frozen in a moment of panic and was frustratingly aware of his inability to jump into action. "If Malcolm was in this situation, he would have done something!" Richard berated himself, before adding. "This is what I think of in my final moments? Unable to strategize, yet able to whine? Hell of an heir to the throne I am."
All at once, another worrying thought entered his mind. "Sabotage? Who had access to the ship? Who dares threaten an Indirrith royal?" He had no moment to ponder it further, as he had heard an explosion in the core room. Whipping his head back to the viewing area, he stumbled back as the core had finally burst through its containment and was now ricocheting off the metal walls with such intensity it left huge dents. The malevolent miasma seeped from the gaps under the door, and Richard gagged as an explosion of acidic stench ripped through his nose.
At that moment, he heard a cry from the pit. With one last glance at the increasingly destabilized core, he rushed back to the sky-pit, and noticed the door was already ajar. The Shimmerbolt suddenly lurched forward into a deep dive, and this time Richard managed to grab onto the door frame. The same could not be said for Captain Vakan, who had let go of the wheel moments ago to try and contain the All-Shimmer that had been spewing from a crack in the tube. In his attempt to do so, another tube exploded, sending shards of glass flying into Vakan's face. That was the cry that Richard had heard. The burly captain had now been flung straight into the windows, shoulder first. Richard winced as a sickening crunch rang through his head as Vakan crashed into the pane. The acrid scent of unfiltered All-Shimmer tore through Richard's nostrils as he desperately hung on for dear life. As they flew careening through the air, the sky-ship twisted sideways and then started spinning uncontrollably. Richard could hold on no longer, and his fingers slipped. He flew through the sky-pit, colliding into Vakan with such force that the captain's head crunched against the glass.
Both members of the ship lay against the glass, unconscious. This is where Richard loses memory of what happens after. Unbeknownst to Richard, the core did finally escape, as the metal ball only picked up speed bouncing against the walls before it exploded through the metal door, tearing it off its hinges, blazed through the captain's quarters, and ending its journey at the sky pit, not before leaving a gaping hole inches away from Richard's face, flying into the night like a ominous shooting star. It was through that very hole that Richard's unconscious body slipped, beginning his free-fall into the Night Forest.
A few hundred metres away, a lone sky-ship hung still in the sky, an incredibly long anchor wrapped around a Night-Forest tree holding it in place. It was being battered by the nightmarish gusts that threatened to rip the vessel from its chain, flinging it into the Night-Sky, but somehow the chain held, being pushed to its absolute limits. This sky-ship was far larger than the Shimmerbolt, and resembled the shape of a classic sea vessel of a foregone era. Its lights were dimmed and it made no sound, outside the droning hum of its core. It was purposefully inconspicuous. Since no man would survive the ripping wind that was a constant feature of the Night-Forest region, or the freezing temperatures of the dark night, the crew hid below-deck, finding respite within the warm glows of All-Shimmer lamps.
A cloud-surfer, in military uniform, was intently observing something that was happening in the distance through a spyglass. Wearing a black shirt lined with gold and a singular spiral on his right breast, he wore his outfit with pride. Through the scope, he finally caught something. A purple comet flew through the air at blazing speed, its trajectory curving towards the far reaches of the Night-Forest. Swiftly swiveling his scope back, assessing the direction from which the 'comet' came, he finally saw it. A fierce inferno enveloped a sleek sky-ship, that was now descending into the expansive canopy. Retracting his spyglass, he turned back and started sprinting from his below-deck lookout into the living quarters. A crew of 20 or so cloud-surfers lay huddled together, laughing and spreading stories while passing around a bottle of dark liquid. They didn't seem to acknowledge the entrance of their comrade, clearly inebriated to forget the dangers that existed around them.
Pushing past his crew-mates, rejecting offers to take a swig from the bottle, and waving off the loud requests for him to sit down with them and engage in their revelry, he finally made it to the other side of the room. The captain's quarter. He paused for a second, closing his eyes, and taking a deep breath. Sweat started pooling at his forehead, partly from the heat of the lamps, and partly from his anxiety. Three sharp raps against the wooden door. A few moments passed. Just as he was about to knock again, he heard.
"Come in." a muffled voice from behind the door ordered.
Grabbing the handle, the man pushed the door open and marched in, promptly shutting the door behind him. A man sat behind a large writing desk, neatly piled with books and maps, one of which was spread open, with a bright lamp illuminating it. The man who sat behind the chair was shrouded in darkness, though his terrifying presence oozed through the cabin.
"Yes?" the shrouded man inquired.
"It's gone. I...I...mean the Prince's ship is gone." the soldier stammered, standing at attention.
"Gone? What does gone mean?" the commanding voice replied.
"It exploded. I saw its core fly out of the ship into the forest, Captain" the soldier relayed.
"Good. Prepare a dispatch team first thing in the morning."
"Captain? The ship exploded. He's dead."
"I'm not taking any chances," the shrouded man growled. "We will scour the forest until we find his body, do you understand?"
"Yes sir."
"Leave."
"Yes sir."
As the soldier promptly left the room, almost running, the man behind the desk clasped his hands together and sighed. The first plan was a success. His job wasn’t over yet.