Discovered, Alisaundra stepped from her hiding spot.
“Uh, Alis, I’m naked in here,” said Moth, suddenly self-conscious. “Could you stay back a little?”
The Redeemer looked bemused and grossly overdressed in her heavy cloak and silver chain.
“Something on your mind?” asked Moth.
Alisaundra seemed to struggle with her thoughts, unnerving Moth with her silence.
“You’re staring,” he pointed out. “You told me not to stare, remember?”
She glided closer, her brow ridged in troubled thought. Moth shifted uncomfortably in his bath, glad for the cloudy water. He thought of calling out for Esculor or jumping up to get his clothes, but Alis wasn’t really frightening him. She came to the very edge of the pool, squatting down next to him and threading her clawed fingers through the water.
“Listen,” said Moth, trying to distract her. “I never thanked you for saving me the other day. From Artaios, I mean. I got a little mad when he started talking about Fiona. I shouldn’t have done that. So thanks. Okay?”
Alis went from squatting to kneeling. She tapped a long fingernail against her blonde head. “In here. I see pictures. Old things.”
“Pictures? You mean memories?”
“I remember,” she said, “because of you.”
Moth wasn’t sure if she was happy or just accusing him. He kept his voice low and said, “Because you’ve been around humans again, right? You’ve been mucking around in my head. But this is good, Alis. You see? You are human.”
“I am a Redeemer,” Alis insisted. “I serve the Skylords.”
“Yeah, all right. Tell me about your memories. What do you see?”
“They scream at me. They want to come out! I can’t let them.”
“Who? Who’s screaming at you?”
Alis put her claws to her face, driving her nails into her scaly cheeks. “Family.”
Moth stayed very still. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“I remember…” Alis hesitated. “Remember…” Her reptilian eyes glazed over. “Sitting. My father’s lap.”
“Go on,” said Moth. “You remember sitting in your father’s lap…”
“He smelled like earth. I remember being afraid.”
“Why?” Moth rolled onto his side, intrigued. “Why were you afraid of him?”
“Not of him,” said Alis. Her eyes sparkled as the memory took hold. “Afraid to move. Afraid to make him uncomfortable. Afraid he would tell me to get off his lap.” She made a little noise of happiness. “That was the best place. On Father.”
Her fanged mouth smiled. Her black wings shrouded her body. But she was human, and Moth saw it.
“I would sit with him for hours,” Alis continued. “And he would touch my hair.” She pulled at a tangled blonde tendril, horrified by it. “Not this hair. Real hair. He would sit and I would sing, and he would stroke my hair.”
Then she started humming to herself, her voice softly echoing through the cavernous baths. She no longer looked at Moth; her vision turned inward instead.
“Alis?” said Moth. “Look away.”
“Why?” asked the Redeemer.
“I want to get dressed. Close your eyes or something.”
Alis obeyed, letting Moth climb out of the pool and grab up his clothing. He didn’t bother drying off, just slipped on his breeches.
“Alis, you can’t talk like this to anyone,” said Moth as he pulled his shirt over his head. “If Artaios knows about your memories he’ll punish you. You shouldn’t even be telling me about them.”
Alis stood up. “Do not trust Artaios,” she warned.
“Huh?”
“He gives you the cloud horse. He gives you a room, servants. Do you wonder why?”
“Yes,” admitted Moth. He felt ashamed suddenly. “I guess I do.”
“Soon he will ask you questions,” whispered Alis. “About Calio. The airships. Things no one else can tell him. About how strong humans are.”
“You mean he’s bribing me? But why? Why does he want to know—”
Before Moth could finish he heard Esculor returning, heading for the bath chamber in a flutter of wings. Moth turned back to Alis.
“Why, Alis?”
Alis flashed her pointed teeth and hissed, “To end the human dream.”
She said nothing more, bowing to Esculor as the young Skylord entered the chamber, then left quietly, disappearing through the steam.
“Hideous creatures,” said Esculor. He turned his perfect smile toward Moth. A hair comb flashed in his hand, ready to pamper his human charge. “Finished?”
“Yes,” nodded Moth. “I think I am.”
He stood, frozen, letting Esculor’s jeweled comb sweep through his wet hair, trying to imagine Alisaundra as a girl.
HIGHER
THE AVATAR HOVERED at fifteen thousand feet, the last mark on her vacuum-powered altimeter. For nearly an hour she had been at that height, time for her crew to acclimate to the cold and thin air as they prepared for their ascent. Each man had left behind every bit of extra weight possible, shedding every knickknack and memento brought from home. Canisters and barrels had been tossed overboard, weapons were stripped of their heavy safety shields, and even the furniture in Rendor’s quarters had been discarded, all to make the airship light enough for the climb.
Rendor peered through the rectangle of netting sewn into the tarp stretched across the ship’s damaged bridge. His nose burned from the cold, but he did not shiver as he looked at the sheer wall of rock facing them. Snow and mist obscured the mountaintops. His breath froze on his lips. Already a headache from altitude sickness throbbed in his skull. On the other side of the mountain waited Pandera, warm and thick with breathable air. Rendor blew into his gloved hands. Behind him, Lieutenant Stringfellow sat at the engine console, taking deep, rapid breaths the way Rendor had shown him. Rendor counted ten breaths, then twelve as Stringfellow kept going.
“That’s enough,” barked Rendor. “A dozen breaths, no more.” He looked at the others on the bridge. “If your hands and feet start tingling you’ve done too many,” he warned. “Ten to twelve deep breaths every five minutes. Don’t do it unless you have to.”
Donnar nodded as he paced the bridge, seemingly immune to the dwindling air pressure. Bottling, on the other hand, had already vomited twice. He kept a bucket next to him as he watched a bank of gauges, his eyes the only part of his face visible behind a woolen scarf. Four additional crewmen manned the bridge as well, a pair of them assigned to consoles, the other two ready with tools to mend steam pipes or tears in the tarp. The entire crew had dressed in layers and drunk gallons of water to prepare their bodies for the moisture-sucking atmosphere. They were all well-trained and hand-picked, but none of them had ever flown as high as they would today.
Through the netting, the world was a swirl of clouds and jagged rock. Rendor felt the thrumming of the engines under his feet, felt the way the wind rattled the airship like a baby’s toy, and knew the time had come.
“Commander Donnar,” he said, “get ready to climb.”
Donnar strapped himself in his captain’s chair, pulling a stout leather belt across his lap. Bottling turned his covered face toward the Commander, waiting for the order. His right hand, fitted with a fingerless glove, hovered over a silver lever.
“Slow climb, Mister Bottling,” said Donnar. “Stringfellow, listen for the watch.”
Bottling eased the lever forward. The Avatar shuddered as hidrenium swelled her envelope. Rendor peered through his viewport as the airship slowly rose. The wind off the peaks swayed her back and forth. Stringfellow manned the engine deck, listening for Rendor’s orders.
“Steady on the watch,” said Rendor.
He ignored his growing fatigue and the pounding in his forehead, wrapping his arms around himself for warmth as the Avatar floated upward. Unlike the other airships he’d designed, the Avatar’s flatter shape made climbing easier, relying not just on hidrenium but also the force of the atmosphere to push her skyward. But it was the job of the engines to move her laterally, and unless he held a steady watch, one stray wind might send them crashing into the face of the mountain.