The Last Uncharted Sky: Book 3 of The Risen Kingdoms

By Curtis Craddock

The Three Musketeers meets Jules Verne in Curtis Craddock's The Last Uncharted Sky, the concluding novel in the critically-acclaimed high fantasy Risen Kingdoms series, an engrossing tale of courtly intrigue and breathtaking magic.

Isabelle and Jean-Claude undertake an airship expedition to recover a fabled treasure and claim a hitherto undiscovered craton for l'Empire Celeste. But Isabelle, as a result from a previous attack that tried to subsume her body and soul, suffers from increasingly disturbing and disruptive hallucinations. Disasters are compounded when the ship is sabotaged by an enemy agent, and Jean-Claude is separated from the expedition.

In a race against time, Isabelle must figure out how to ward off her ailment before it destroys her and reunite with Jean-Claude to seek the fabled treasure as ancient secrets and a royal conspiracy threaten to undo the entire realm.

“A gripping tale of a woman who refuses to be defined by her physical and magical limitations, thwarting both assassins and all who see her as a pawn. A great read!”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, on An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors

The Risen Kingdoms series
#1 An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors
#2 A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery
#3 The Last Uncharted Sky

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780765389671

Curtis Craddock

Curtis Craddock lives in Sterling, CO where he teaches English to inmates in a state penitentiary. An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors is his first book.

Book preview

CHAPTER

One

Draped in beggar’s rags and leaning on a cane, Jean-Claude lurked at the entry to Three Brick Alley, awaiting his quarry. Loose strips of transparent linen covered his eyes, and his face itched under layers of the best stage makeup alchemy could provide. He’d been here through the tolling of an hour, precious time slipping through his fingers. Apprehending a shape-shifting spy was not something one could jot down on an agenda, but he had only one day left to manage it.

Passersby went about their business, steering well clear of the blind and stinking beggar. Jean-Claude trusted that his young co-conspirator, lurking in an even narrower alley across the way, had not become distracted. She had proven herself a professional despite her tender age.

The chatter on the street rippled, like a herd of cows muttering to one another at the scent of predators nearby, a swift rumble of noise and then watchful silence.

From up the street came a surly mob of Last Men, a particularly desperate breed of doomsday cultists. Young, lean, and angry, they wore long feast-day robes, but went with hoods thrown back to display shaved heads tattooed with row upon row of saintly icons, each one defiled. Their leader had a disfigured omnioculus—the Builder’ eye, blind and bleeding—emblazoned on his forehead.

Jean-Claude stumbled from the alley wheezing, Alms for the blind. He held out a tin cup and blundered headlong into the nearest tough. The cultist fell, Jean-Claude collapsed backward on purpose, and accidentally barked the leader’s shin with his cane.

Filthy whoreson! the leader growled. Break his legs.

His bodyguards stepped in to give Jean-Claude a kicking.

Builder bless, Jean-Claude said, holding up his hands defensively and rocking wildly. Builder bless. I mean no harm.

The Builder’s dead, vermin. The mob piled on Jean-Claude, punching and kicking, blows that would leave bruises but no worse thanks to his failing to be a easy target. Jean-Claude wailed quite piteously.

Stop! came a high, shrill voice. Please stop! Don’t hurt my papa! A young girl, somewhere between eleven and thirteen squeezed through the press of men, fell to her knees, and covered Jean-Claude with her body.

Out of the way, girl. One of the brutes grabbed her by the hair and dragged her off Jean-Claude. You’ll get yours next, I—Breaker’s breath! He leapt back and shook his hand, recoiling from the field of open sores and blisters that covered her face.

Jean-Claude sat up, the bandages on his face falling away to reveal blackened skin, cracked and rotting, dripping with pus. Pox and plague take you all. He spit up the wad of rice and curds he’d been holding in his cheek.

Pest! They’ve got the pest! shouted one of the Last Men.

Jean-Claude lurched to his feet. Boils and blisters on your balls!

The first ruffian bolted, and the rest followed like a shoal of aerofish fleeing a leviathan.

Jean-Claude nodded to his young accomplice. They withdrew down Three Brick Alley until they came to a dark junction where several buildings didn’t quite line up.

Jean-Claude’s heart raced and his lungs burned from the exertion, but he looked down at the girl, Rebecca, and asked, Package delivered?

Rebecca was on loan from St. Josephine’s Home for Foundlings, which was a front for the most lucrative urchin gang in the city. An incomparable pickpocket, Rebecca could steal a man’s wooden teeth if he smiled at her. Alternately, she could play the part of a putpocket and plant a prize on a person.

Rebecca was already scrubbing the makeup off her face, or at least smearing it more evenly. Of course. They was distracted enough I coulda taken their boots.

Jean-Claude pulled at a small vial of wood spirits and started scrubbing off his makeup goo. The stinging liquid chilled his face and left his skin raw. He handed the spirits to Rebecca. Don’t get it in your eyes.

Her nose wrinkled but she splashed it on her face and got to work peeling off boils and blisters to reveal a face full of freckles. What’s that marble thing for anyway?

The contraband in question was a contraption that Capitaine Isabelle had contrived: small metal sphere, not much bigger than a marble, with a tiny sliver of chartstone inside. She’d actually gone on at some length to explain to him how it worked, showed him some very detailed technical drawings which he nodded at politely and completely failed to comprehend.

Jean-Claude arched an eyebrow at her. Why do you want to know?

Rebecca shrugged. Weren’t too long ago the Last Men was just a pack of nutters standing on street corners screaming, ‘Builder’s dead!’ Used to throw rocks at ’em. Never bothered with their pockets ’cause they never had anything worth taking. Since Burning Night, they ganged up. Started recruiting hard and beating up folks who won’t pay bribes. Makes lean pickings for me. Now you show up, la reine’s man, and says, how ’bout we put these marbles in their bags. So I think what’s they done to get the nobs mad at ’em?

Jean-Claude grunted approval at this line of reasoning. Orphans grew up fast on these streets, but Rebecca was quick and bold even by those standards.

Jean-Claude drew forth his hunter’s eye, a device that looked like a timepiece the size of his hand. He flipped open the lid and showed her the face. Instead of watch hands there were three needles with beads that could slide along their length showing distance and direction. All pointed in the general direction of Uptown, and the third bead was catching up with the first two.

The marble was a prey marker, Jean-Claude said, which was more evocative to his mind than sympathetic resonance nodes, which was what Isabelle called them. Works on the same principle as a ship’s orrery. That black needle points to the prey marker you just dropped off. The other two are the ones we planted earlier.

"The ones I planted. Rebecca looked rather more skeptical than impressed at this fine bit of engineering. If you want to know where they’re going, why not just follow ’em?"

I’ve been following them, Jean-Claude said. The problem is, I can’t be everywhere at once. Also, their new leader, Hasdrubal, is a Seelenjäger. He can hear you and smell you and get away before you ever catch sight of him. Jean-Claude wasn’t fond of shapeshifters at the best of times, but since he’d started hunting Hasdrubal, he half believed he was chasing a ghost. Now he was running out of time. After months of preparation, Isabelle’s ship was scheduled to loft tomorrow on an expedition to the top of the world, and Jean-Claude would be damned if he’d be left behind.

So why’s la reine care about the Last Men? Rebecca asked.

Because their leader is one of the men behind Burning Night, Jean-Claude said. A foreign spy and agent provocateur, Hasdrubal had helped the old roi’s estranged son depose him. The usurper had come within a heartbeat of claiming the crown before Isabelle had stopped him.

Since Burning Night, all the rest of the conspirators had been captured, killed, or chased away, but Hasdrubal remained at large. Spymaster Impervia wanted him interrogated for his knowledge of the Skaladin spy network, and la reine herself wanted to mount his head as a trophy and send it to his master, the Tyrant of Skaladin, as a warning.

Jean-Claude levered himself to his feet, his knees creaking. Thank you for your help.

Where are we going? Rebecca asked.

We aren’t going anywhere, Jean-Claude said. I’m going to fetch allies. You are going about your business. Not that he liked the idea of sending her back to the orphanage. Children deserved to be raised, not just trained to fetch like dogs, but at least she had a roof over her head and some measure of protection.

According to his hunter’s eye, the Last Men seemed to be gathering well outside their normal territory, and given their garb he thought he could guess where. It was time to muster his reinforcements, set an ambush, and hope Hasdrubal put in an appearance. Jean-Claude must catch him today.

Rebecca folded her arms and said, I don’t have to follow the marks. I just have to follow you. So you either have to waste time trying to lose me, which I’m betting you can’t, or you can let me help.

Jean-Claude glowered at her. I appreciate your courage, but these people are dangerous. Hasdrubal especially.

Which means you need all the eyes you can get.

Jean-Claude bit his tongue on another rebuff. She’d already dug her heels in, he didn’t technically have any authority over her, and there wasn’t anything he could do short of stuffing her in a barrel that would keep her from following him.

One question, he said. Why?

Because they turned me inside out last week and I means to get my own back. Besides, maybe la reine needs a pickpocket.

Jean-Claude snorted at her audacity, but in truth l’Empire did need its share of sanctioned smugglers, thieves, spies, and other scofflaws. Perhaps he could find a place for her in Impervia’s service.

Very well, he said. You can come with, but you’re in the army now, and I’m your sergeant. You do as I say and no buts about it. Deal?

Her eyes narrowed, You’re not just going to tell me to go away.

Where we’re going, I need someone who can stay out of sight and scout for me.

Where’s that?

The Uptown Temple, he said. Today was the Feast of Saint Cynessus and all the Last Men had been wearing feast-day robes. Given that they generally despised the Temple and defaced all ritual objects, it seemed a strange choice of raiment unless they meant to blend into the worship crowd and stir up trouble.

Deal, Rebecca said.

---

The oration for the Feast of Saint Cynessus the Blind had already started when Jean-Claude, Marie, and Jackhand Djordji arrived at the temple with Rebecca in tow. The worship hall was packed like a pickle barrel. Jean-Claude’s hunter’s eye pointed to all three of his prey markers being inside. Yet with everybody in feast-day robes, many with hoods pulled up, it was impossible to pick the Last Men out of the crowd.

It was Marie who’d suggested they come around back. They could get a better view of the faces in the crowd from the balcony behind the dais.

A rectory was attached to the apse of the temple. Rebecca slipped in through a basement window and hurried to unbar the door. There was a time when Jean-Claude could have squeezed through that window. These days he’d get stuck like a cork in a bottle.

What is it with you and strays? Djordji said. Never meets an urchin you doesn’t coddle. As thin and knotty as an old rope, Djordji had trained the best fighters in l’Empire over the last half century. He’d also trained Jean-Claude, though he wouldn’t admit to it.

She just followed me home, Jean-Claude said. I didn’t even feed her.

You bought her a fish pie on the way up here, Marie said in a voice that sounded like it was echoing through a misty graveyard at night. Her whole form was white and bright as the silver moon Kore, and her expression was as blank as a porcelain doll’s.

I offered everyone a fish pie on the way up here, Jean-Claude said.

Only because she was hungry, Marie countered.

It’s not like she can’t get her own, Djordji said. She picks about a dozen purses.

Before Jean-Claude could retort, the door shuddered and opened, and the urchin in question poked her head out. Come on.

Jean-Claude led the way through the clerical residence and along the passageway to the vestry behind the dais. A startled usher hurried toward them, Messieurs, mesdemoiselles, what are you doing—

Jean-Claude doffed his hat and said, I’m so sorry we’re late; the crowds were terrible.

But— said the usher.

Has the sagax arrived yet? We were supposed to meet him for private instruction.

No, but—

If he’s not here, we’ll just wait for him in the gallery. I think I see one of his attendants. Thank you. Builder keep you.

Jean-Claude’s companions slipped by the usher while Jean-Claude kept him occupied. Djordji paused and peeked through the curtain separating the vestry from the dais. Beyond, the temple orator delivered the blind saint’s Exhortation of Return in the Saintstongue. The congregations of the Enlightened faithful chanted along, speaking words they believed without understanding.

Sharpshooters in the window, Djordji snapped. Three by my count.

Jean-Claude abandoned the usher. Marie, countersniper.

Marie unslung her twist gun. Jean-Claude peered through the draperies. The warm, golden light of ten thousand candles filled the temple instruction hall. On the dais, in elaborate golden vestments, the orator lifted the reliquary of Saint Cynessus from the altar and raised it over his head. The reliquary’s box, made of the finest burlwood, was engraved with the icon of a winged key with a blind eye for a head.

Up behind the clerestory windows, men with profane symbols tattooed on their faces took aim and cocked their weapons.

Jean-Claude rushed through the curtain, vaulted the guardrail, and plowed into the orator from behind. Down!

The orator collapsed in tangle of heavy limbs just as gunshots split the air. The reliquary flew from the orator’s hands, bounced off the altar, and arced toward the Enlightened worshippers, who shrieked in fear and confusion. A bullet spanged off the altar. The two temple knights who had been flanking the dais jerked and fell. Gouts of blood spurted from grotesque wounds.

Marie braced against the vestry doorframe and squeezed the trigger on her twist gun. Fire and smoke belched from the barrel. One of the assassins fell away. She ducked to reload.

Jean-Claude grabbed the orator and pulled him into better cover. Why in Torment are the Last Men trying to kill you? Killing an orator and terrorizing a temple service were the sort of thing a mad cult might do, but it was far too senseless for Hasdrubal.

I have no idea! the orator squealed, and covered his head.

Two dozen men burst from the crowd, howling like fiends slipped from the halls of Torment. They threw back their hoods to reveal their tattooed heads and produced a variety of weapons from under their robes. The frighted worshippers broke and stampeded, crashing through the main doors and into the street, trampling anyone who fell.

A half squad of temple knights raced from the side hall and charged the cultists. Gunshots from above sent one sprawling and screaming. A temple page sprinted for the reliquary. A mob of Last Men hurled themselves at the knights and drove them back. The chief cultist split the page’s head with a meat cleaver.

Marie leaned out of the vestry and pulled her trigger. Another sharpshooter fell. Marie had always been fierce in her quiet way, but her progress since she started combat training was nothing short of terrifying.

Jean-Claude pointed the orator at the vestry. Go. That way! Rebecca, get him out of here! That would get her out as well.

A cultist pounced on the reliquary, held it up, and screamed at the fleeing crowd. Heretics! The Savior is dead. He rose from the Vault of Ages and the Temple murdered him because they could not bear to be exposed as the charlatans they are! Today, see the first of the saints fall!

Bafflement stumbled through Jean-Claude’s mind. They had come for the reliquary?

Behind the altar, get them! The mob swarmed toward Jean-Claude’s position.

Jean-Claude drew rapier and main gauche and heaved himself over the rail into the main gallery, landing with an inelastic creak of his knees.

Two cultists rushed him. Jean-Claude stepped into the one on the left, ducked his flailing club, and ran the main gauche between his ribs, then shoved him back as the second cultist swung a fireplace poker where Jean-Claude’s head had just been. A flick from the tip of Jean-Claude’s rapier slit the man’s throat, but two more were already on him.

Two more gunshots banged, and the air around Jean-Claude’s head clouded with gun smoke as Marie leapt on the altar and unloaded two of her six pistols into Jean-Claude’s attackers. Both men went down and a space cleared up, but it was like blowing a hole in the water, for even more filled in.

Get the one with the box! Jean-Claude shouted. He stabbed a cultist whose eyes were green with glimmer oil. Too intoxicated to care, the man ran up Jean-Claude’s blade to the hilt and stabbed with his knives. Jean-Claude let go of the rapier to avoid being perforated, decked the cultist in the face with his left hand and then bore him backward into his fellows.

Marie fired again, but Jean-Claude couldn’t see what she’d hit.

A blade flashed to Jean-Claude’s left and a cultist fell, moaning. Djordji appeared beside him.

I see you loses your sword, Djordji said, skewering a cultist and guiding his body into the path of another. You learns nothing I teaches you.

Fight now. Critique later, Jean-Claude said, drawing his pistol and shooting a cultist who had climbed up behind Marie.

Kill the heretics! shouted the leader. Gut them on the altar of their—

Marie’s pistol ball turned his shout into a splat and he pitched backward.

The crowd clogged up the far end of the worship hall, climbing over a pile of bodies they’d made in their panic. Two temple knights had been slain, though they’d winnowed the cultists.

Down from the shadows at the top of the octagonal dome stooped a great pyrebird, black oily smoke trailing from its charcoal wings. It landed next to the reliquary and spat tongues of flame that ignited tapestries to either side of the dais.

The pyrebird’s form blurred. It billowed upward and outward and solidified into a shape that was almost a man, if a man had cloven hooves and the head of a black goat with long scimitar-shaped horns. He wore robes the color of fresh-spilt blood and a sleevelike hood that covered his face except for his caprine beard and scarlet eyes.

Hasdrubal, Jean-Claude growled. You’re late.

The remaining cultists circled their leader. He crouched and hefted the reliquary in a large, blunt-fingered hand. Flames leapt from the tapestries to the old wooden beams.

Hasdrubal turned one scarlet eye to Jean-Claude. His voice was a bray. Congratulations, Old Hand. You have failed, which was the most noble and correct thing you could have done.

I didn’t know the tyrant cared so much for old bones, Jean-Claude replied. Why did Hasdrubal want the reliquary? It wasn’t as if they were particularly hard to come by. Nearly every temple he’d ever set foot in claimed at least one saintly remnant. Jean-Claude reckoned that the saints must have actually been snakes, judging from how many rib bones they’d left behind to be venerated.

Hasdrubal said, I have done the tyrant’s bidding and have seen your roi cast down, but it is not enough. You should take joy. The lie of lies has been exposed. I will bring an end to everything the Breaker has wrought. Hasdrubal made a sweeping gesture toward Jean-Claude and company. Kill them.

Marie, Jean-Claude called. Bullets were their best chance against a Seelenjäger. They couldn’t shift shape while they had metal in their bodies.

Empty, she replied, her voice toneless.

The Last Men charged. Hasdrubal changed into a chimerical form that was part mountain ape, part hard-shelled crackback and bounded away, crashing through the press of people still trying to get out the door and scattering them like autumn leaves.

Jean-Claude grabbed a banner pole and used it like a quarterstaff. He cracked a cultist’s skull and swept the legs from under another. Djordji cut throats and punctured lungs. Marie plunged into the fray, slashing a man’s belly open with her short curved blades.

The ceiling caught fire and hot ash rained down. A flaming timber crashed onto to the benches, setting them alight. The final few cultists broke and ran.

Out, out! Jean-Claude retrieved his good sword, and ran for the vestry with Marie and Djordji on his heels. He had to make sure Rebecca had escaped. He pelted through the residence then out into the alley and saw her nowhere. He prayed she’d gotten away cleanly. If Hasdrubal really was just after the reliquary, he’d have no reason to chase her or the orator.

He hurried around to the front of the building, calling Rebecca’s name. At the front steps, rescuers were ducking into the burning building to pull out those who’d fallen. The heat grew like the inside of a furnace being stoked. Jean-Claude joined the smoke eaters, grabbed a groaning trample victim by his tunic, and dragged him out.

He left the victim with a group of rescuers at the bottom of the temple steps, then rushed back for another. The heat rolled over him like dragon’s breath. If the temple didn’t have such a high ceiling, he wouldn’t have been able to make past the doors. Marie and Djordji helped rescue another handful, but when Jean-Claude turned to go back for more, the inferno defeated him. Three times he crawled into the smoke, trying to get under it, calling out for anyone still alive, but it reached into his lungs to smother and choke.

He could do nothing but watch as the roof collapsed, shooting embers into the darkening sky. They were lucky, he supposed, that Rocher Royale was the one city in l’Empire Céleste were the fire had almost no chance of spreading. Etched into the side of an immense cliff, the capital city was carved from stone: bas relief on an urban scale. All the wood in the temple had been imported, a tribute to the Temple’s stately decadence.

Jean-Claude turned his attention to the stricken. He had seen many battlefields, but few where the victims were so bewildered. He sent runners to the royal infirmary, rallied the congregation, and moved the casualties to the temple outbuildings. They opened up the refectory and laid the worst cases out on the stone tables. He, Marie, and Djordji bandaged wounds and secured broken limbs. He applied every bit of battlefield medicine he’d ever learned until the doctors and surgeons from the infirmary showed up to do battle with death for those who clung to the brink.

A tight band around his chest loosened when Rebecca showed up with the orator in tow.

I took him the back way in case the buggers chased us, she said. Never saw one though.

Well done, Jean-Claude said. Get some water and see what Marie has for you to do.

Rebecca departed, and Jean-Claude turned his attention to the orator, a square man well padded and drooping round the edges. The orator dabbed at his red sweaty face with a cloth.

Jean-Claude said, Learned one, what was so important about that reliquary that a Skaladin spy was willing to risk himself and sacrifice his followers to obtain it?

Oh. The orator’s flesh sagged across his frame like a sail taken out of the wind. That was the Hand of Saint Cynessus, a true reliquary, and now it’s fallen into the hands of that thief. Saints forgive me.

A true reliquary? As opposed to an untrue one? Jean-Claude asked.

The orator winced and said, Most reliquaries have been … adulterated over time, but the provenance of the hand is impeccable. It belonged to the gatekeeper himself.

That doesn’t explain why the thief wanted it. Does it hold some miraculous power? Will it restore a man’s grip or make his cock hard?

The orator fluffed up like an angry chicken and scolded. That reliquary was sacred. To touch it was to touch the path to Paradise Everlasting.

The Hand of Saint Cynessus has never produced a miracle, but I imagine the relic will be of great interest to the heretic’s master back in Skaladin, said another voice, deep and grating, as if the gears of the speaker’s voice box did not quite mesh. Up the aisle between the tables in the makeshift surgery strode a quaestor, one of the Temple’s own hounds. Jean-Claude knew the man’s rank by the pair of scythes sewn in yellow thread on his umber mantle. The hand sticking out of his right sleeve was made of quondam metal the color of bronze but filled with purple shadows that oozed and flowed like clouds of ink underwater.

The sight of the living prosthesis raised all the hair on the back of Jean-Claude’s neck; the last man he’d seen wearing one of those had been the same one who cut off his beloved Isabelle’s arm and nearly plunged the whole world into war. Yet this quaestor had no clockwork eye, and no hump on his back that might indicate the presence of a pickled head.

The orator placed his hands on his chest and bowed. Quaestor Czensos, thank the saints you’re here.

Be about your business, Czensos said. And reflect on your failures today.

The orator’s face went red and he bowed himself out. Builder keep.

Czensos did not respond in kind.

Jean-Claude didn’t like men who bullied their subordinates. So, Quaestor, you’re saying this mummified hand has only sentimental value.

Czensos adjusted the line of his nose so there could be no mistake he was looking down it at Jean-Claude. The Tyrant of Skaladin hates the Risen Saints with the terrible passion of a jealous lover. He knows salvation is beyond him and therefore seeks to deprive the Savior’s gift to everyone else. He razes temples wherever he finds them, burns books of Enlightened wisdom, enslaves sorcerers, binds them to the lash and breeds them like pigs. It would give him great pleasure to destroy the last remnants of the saint who held the door to the Vault of Ages or anything that took part in Legend. Is that sentimental enough for you?

Jean-Claude rubbed the back of his neck. It seems a rather trivial prize for all the effort put in to obtain it.

Czensos folded his arms across his chest in a pose Jean-Claude silently dubbed A study in imperious prickishness.

Czensos said, You underestimate its political value. It is a victory the tyrant can parade in front of his own people or a token he can use against the Temple. Your failure to stop the theft cannot be excused by diminishing the value of the stolen item.

Jean-Claude laughed. Ha! I’m no mangy dog to carry off your fleas. The relic was not my responsibility to keep. I’m only interested in the thief, not the bauble. If you want your worthless-yet-valuable trinket back, you’d be best served by lending your assistance to l’Empire in catching him.

If l’Empire wishes to aid in capturing this Skaladin spy, l’Empire can begin by telling me his name.

Jean-Claude considered telling Czensos to go chase a falling rock, but even if he was of little direct use to Jean-Claude’s pursuit, he might still make Hasdrubal’s life more difficult, which was an indirect benefit.

The thief’s name is Hasdrubal, Jean-Claude said.

Czensos frowned. A beast-man with the form of a black goat?

Not bad for a first guess, Jean-Claude said. How did Czensos know him?

Then you are lucky to have survived the encounter. The black goat is a sanctified thrall from the Maze of Eyes. He is the tyrant’s personal assassin and spy. I know you will not take my advice, but I am compelled by duty and conscience to warn you not to pursue this villain. You are not a match for him. The Temple will deal with him. Builder keep.

So you’re saying the Temple does not intend to coordinate with l’Empire in this matter? Jean-Claude asked.

Czensos walked away without another word.

Jean-Claude watched the noxious little stoat out the door before stirring himself to look for Marie. It made sense that having failed in his bid to install a puppet on l’Empire’s throne, Hasdrubal would like to have some secondary prize to bring home to his master by way of apology, but I will undo all the Breaker has wrought, sounded rather more ambitious than a man running back to his master with his tail between his legs.

In all likelihood Jean-Claude would never find out what Hasdrubal meant by his enigmatic proclamation. Isabelle’s ship would sail on the morrow and he’d have to turn this investigation over to Comtesse Impervia and her other agents. He did not want to think about the report he had to give her. Debacle did not begin to describe it. He’d managed to let Hasdrubal slip away, lost a true reliquary before he even knew he had it, and let a temple burn down. Impervia would march straight past disappointment and directly into sarcasm. Not the way he wanted to say goodbye.

Rebecca returned with a cup of hot cider. Marie says you’re to drink this.

Merci, Jean-Claude said. He took the cup and considered the child, the orphan, the budding artist of misdirection and prestidigitation before him. Impervia would certainly take her in, train her to be an unstoppable thief, but children needed more than training. She wasn’t a tool.

How much does Old Spiderfingers take of your catch? Jean-Claude asked. He knew the thief master from her days as master thief. These days she ran St. Josephine’s. She provided food, shelter, education, and discipline to the biggest gang of orphans in the city. The powers that be tolerated her crew of underage pickpockets, housebreakers, and beggars because she was wise enough to direct her charges at foreign visitors, and because she made the orphanage largely self-sufficient.

Rebecca flinched. Nobody calls her that anymore. It’s Madame Ophelia.

Jean-Claude wondered when the old woman had started putting on airs.

He said, You didn’t answer my question.

I still owe her indenture, Rebecca said bluntly, meeting him with the sort of feral stare that suggested further inquiries in that direction would be considered acts of aggression.

Jean-Claude despised orphan indenture, a legal noose that obligated foundlings to pay back their caretakers for the expense of raising them, reducing many to perpetual servitude.

What would you do if you didn’t owe?

Rebecca looked wary. I don’t know.

I know a ship that’s leaving soon, and it has need of a cabin girl. Isabelle’s much-anticipated expedition to recover the Conquest’s lost treasure was due to set sail tomorrow. Isabelle could use someone like Rebecca, someone quick and clever to relieve Marie of her duties as handmaid. Likewise, Isabelle was incapable of not caring about people in her charge.

Rebecca’s eyes went round. She leaned forward, yearning, but caught herself. I can’t.

I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you wanted to.

She made a surly face. What good’s wanting sommat you can’t have?

Because every good thing in the world comes from someone doing something they didn’t think they could.

That’s why the world’s such a shithole then.

Jean-Claude shrugged with a nonchalance he did not feel. She must feel he was trying to trick her. Offering bait for a scam she could not see. It was a thought. I’ll be on the ship. So will Marie and Djordji.

That gave Rebecca pause. What about Madame Ophelia?

I’ll deal with Old Spiderfingers, get her off your neck even if you don’t want the job, Jean-Claude said.

But I don’t know anything about ships, Rebecca said.

Neither does Jean-Claude. Difference is, he’s got no excuse, Djordji said, coming up behind her. He held a long-stemmed pipe in his teeth, and the sweet and sulfurous smoke of dragonweed gathered under the wide brim of his hat.

Marie came with him. The smoke smudges and bloodstains on her clothes slowly faded to white over time.

Isabelle already has a handmaid, Marie said. She and Isabelle had been living arm in arm since they were both in pigtails. Even when Marie had been turned into a bloodhollow, Isabelle had maintained their friendship, keeping her sane through twelve years of torture, and resuscitating her mind and soul when the whole world said it was impossible. You couldn’t slide a knife between them.

Jean-Claude said, If you’re going to be her bodyguard, you have to stop being her handmaid.

Jean-Claude makes good point for once, Djordji said. You can’t be tied down making tea and lacing bodices, and child’s the kind who comes sharp but needs balance. She’s cleverer than Jean-Claude was at her age.

Jean-Claude protested, You hadn’t even met me when I was her age.

And when I does, you aren’t as clever as she is now.

Marie said, Have you told Isabelle about this, or is it going to come as a surprise?

It was a surprise to me when I thought of it, but what do you imagine the odds are of Isabelle turning away a plucky orphan?

About the same as a fish wearing mittens, Marie acknowledged tonelessly.

If she wants to go, Jean-Claude said.

Rebecca’s brow furrowed as if she were groping for a clear path through a thick wood.

Which ship? she asked.

Jean-Claude smiled on the inside. "The Thunderclap."

Rebecca’s eyes rounded. That new frigate? They say the capitaine is an abomination. This last was said in a tone of amazement.

Djordji chuckled.

Jean-Claude’s anger came up at the mere mention of the insult, but Rebecca had not meant any harm. Her name is Isabelle. She’s a dear friend of mine, and I will advise you not to slander her that way again.

No offense, Rebecca said without a trace of contrition.

Jean-Claude snorted. So the question is, are you interested in applying for the position, or would you rather stay here?

Rebecca took a deep breath before the plunge. I want to go.

Djordji sat on one of the tables and took another pull at his pipe. Now that’s set, what does we do about Hasdrubal? Does that fancy timepiece of yours say which way he goes?

Jean-Claude flipped open the hunter’s eye, but the needles were loose and wobbled wherever momentum took them. I deduce the prey markers were destroyed in the fight.

Djordji coughed into his hand, a deep cough that sounded like he was trying to shift wet leaves. Jean-Claude grimaced. Djordji had been suckling that pipe for sixty years, and it had its hooks in deep. Sticky black flecks covered his glove, and the reek of his breath diffused through the refectory, joining all the other infirmary smells. Marie touched his shoulder in worry, but he shrugged her off. Jean-Claude felt sick to his gut; he hated to see the old man in this state. Rebecca shied away.

When the fit finally passed, Jean-Claude relayed what he’d learned from Czensos and said, I’ll talk to Impervia and Isabelle, see if they know anything more about the reliquary.

By the time Jean-Claude was done, Djordji was already back on his pipe. I puts the harbormaster on alert, and has a word with some fishermen I know.

And by fishermen you mean smugglers, Jean-Claude said. Dodging excise officers and evading the port authority was the sport and livelihood of all the fisherfolk along the Towering Coast. It was amazing the sorts of things that fishermen pulled up in their nets. Not just aerofish, crackbacks, and reef krakens, but plenty of things that had no business in the open sky: bales of dragonweed, rum, rare spices, a cornucopia of shipwrecked cargo, and the occasional fugitive.

Jean-Claude said, So you think Czensos has it right and Hasdrubal will bolt?

Djordji shrugged. If he scarpers, we has to catch him now. If he doesn’t, Impervia catches him later.

Jean-Claude allowed the logic of that. To Marie he said, You take Rebecca and get Spiderfingers to sign off on her indenture.

Marie’s porcelain-doll face could not change expression, but her answer was very careful, I’ve never met Spiderfingers.

Jean-Claude grunted. He’d been training Marie for months how to talk her way through trouble and out the other side. She didn’t take to it like she did to fighting.

He said, Then it’s time you did. She’s a thief, used to be a good one, till she got caught and the city guard lopped off her right hand. She lost her nerve after that, opened up the orphanage. She’s not likely to become violent, and she’s very susceptible to bribes.

Didn’t you promise to do this? Marie asked.

Yes, and I am using one of the tools at my disposal, to wit, one apprentice. As much as you might like it to be otherwise, being a bodyguard involves much more talking than stabbing. You know the dance steps. Now you need to trust the music.

CHAPTER

Two

Isabelle had all but lost count of the number of times she’d stood before some judicial body that considered her an existential threat. This time it was a triumvirate of Fenice sorcerers, each clad in colorful feathers and iridescent scales that gave them armor as light as down but stronger than steel. The Fenice of the Vecci city-states had a blood feud against Isabelle’s sire’s family that stretched back hundreds of years to the Maximi, Fenice twins who had all but conquered the world. Isabelle had arranged this tribunal to bring that vendetta to an end.

At least this time l’Empire Céleste was on Isabelle’s side.

Impératrice Sireen had lent her forestlike throne room at le Ville Céleste to the occasion and watched the proceedings from atop her throne, playing the arbiter of protocol but not currently asserting herself as the giver of law. For the time being, this was Isabelle’s show.

She’d donned her naval capitaine’s uniform, a burgundy jacket with silver trim, and a single loop of crimson braid that marked her as a sorcerer in l’Empire’s military service, and stepped smartly into the arena to present her case to these ambassadors of ill will.

As support, she brought along Major Bitterlich, her friend and protector. He was dapper as always in his marine uniform, his feline eyes half-lidded, his cravat just so, a sheathed longsword in his hand. He surveyed the Fenice as a streetwise tomcat might evaluate a group of pigeons: fun to play with if too wormy to eat.

She also brought the newly minted Lord Chancellor Thibaut, borrowed from l’impératrice in a firm acknowledgment of her favor. He bore a white specimen box.

To the Fenice, Isabelle said, You sought to end the line of the Maximi. That has been accomplished. My sister, Brunela, was the last to carry their memories. She tried to hand her memories down to me, but as many can attest, I crushed her vitera before it could implant them in my brain.

Isabelle’s right arm, amputated just below the shoulder, had been replaced with her spark-arm, a manifestation of her unique l’Étincelle sorcery. It was a ghostly limb, made up of swirling pink and purple sparks and filled with luminescent clouds of lavender and rose. With it, she gestured to the white specimen box in which was displayed the crushed and desiccated body of an insect-like creature about the size of a plum. There is nothing left of my ancestors.

This was not entirely true. Brunela’s attempted usurpation of her skull had left Isabelle with the spiteful echoes of her past lives, an ancestral chorus. For the last three months a gibbering mob of other people’s memories whispered in her ears, shouted from the shadows, and occasionally bled through to stain her vision with bits of the past that weren’t really there. It was like having a whole troupe of ghostly actors stepping from behind the curtain to deliver random lines from a hundred different plays.

Don Pyros, the Fenice leader, was tall and broad, with a great crest of red-and-gold feathers that shimmered like flames under the harsh alchemical lights. His companions were similarly beplumed, though in shades of green and blue. How many lives had they lived, and what memories of their ancestors did they carry down the ages? Had any of their forebears actually witnessed the Great Betrayal that began this cascade of vengeance?

Don Pyros looked unconvinced. Let me see your hair.

Both of Isabelle’s honor guards quivered with affront. To demand a Célestial woman take off her wig was tantamount to commanding her to disrobe in public. It was a humiliation and a prelude to degradation.

Isabelle held up her flesh hand to restrain her compatriots. She’d been expecting this, counting on it in fact, and hadn’t pinned her wig in place. She doffed her plumed hat and pulled off her raven tresses to reveal a head of knuckle-length mouse-brown hair, patchy on the right side where she’d been burned. It had been three months since she very publicly destroyed Brunela’s vitera. If she was going to become a Fenice and carry on her father’s line, she should have sprouted feathers by now. The lack of down or feather proved her claim was true.

She stepped forward and bent her head for examination.

All three of the Fenice moved in, combing her hair as if looking for lice.

He’ll break your neck … gut him now … filthy vermin, growled Isabelle’s ancestral chorus, a mélange of voices each talking over all the others. Between one voice and the next, the parquetry floor of Sireen’s throne room disappeared, and in its stead was a heap of sandstone rubble on which lay the broken corpse of her brother, Nunzio, from some life long ago. She might have reached out and touched his feathery crest.

Isabelle squeezed her eyes shut against the hallucination, a ghostly stain of her ancestor’s life that leaked into her mind like blood through cloth. It was maddening to see things she knew were false but that no amount of logic would allow her to dismiss. All of her senses insisted the corpse was there—the rotten meat stink of its decay got up her nose and made her gag—despite all the evidence reason could bring to bear.

She took a twice-daily potion that kept the chorus quiet and kept the ghost stains from leaking through, but the foul brew also made her thickheaded. She’d trimmed today’s dose to let her think more quickly and clearly during the tribunal. Apparently she’d cut down a little too far.

Finally Pyros stepped back and frowned. It seems you are telling the truth, he said, clearly disgruntled to find that his chosen prey had died without his help. How much of his life had he dedicated to this endeavor? How many lifetimes, just to find the job already done?

Isabelle opened her eyes. The ghost stain had faded, thank the saints. The chorus was still there, mumbling in the background like voices at a party consisting entirely of uninvited guests.

Isabelle put her wig back on. Your relentless pursuit made Brunela desperate. Desperation caused her to make mistakes of which I was the beneficiary, she said, by way of offering a balm for his pride. She certainly took no joy in her sister’s death. It had been entirely necessary, but killing was never something to be proud of, no matter how dire the need.

Pyros made the barest shrug, accepting this narrative without enthusiasm.

Isabelle said, As a further proof of the deed and as a token to carry back to your people, I give you Primus Maximus’s sword, Ultor. Isabelle gestured to Bitterlich, who stepped smartly forward and presented the blade in a newly made sheath across both his palms.

Pyros reached for the scabbard, hesitated, then lifted it anyway.

If I may, he said, for drawing weapons in la reine’s presence was generally a faux pas of fatal proportions.

Gently, said Sireen, her voice smooth and mellow.

Pyros stepped back and drew the weapon partway. Even the smallest sliver of the blade would have been enough to testify to its authenticity. The metal itself was emerald green and honed so fine that light shone through the edges of the blade as if through an icicle. When it moved, it threw sparks and left a green smear in its wake as if cutting a bloody rent in the air. Arcanite blades such as this had not been crafted since the soul forges died after the Annihilation of Rüul, the city the saints had founded after emerging from the Vault of Ages.

Pyros stared at the weapon for a long moment, then closed his eyes, blew out his breath, and pushed the sword back into its sheath.

A perilous trophy indeed, he said.

You will trouble my subject no more, then, Sireen said, a decree rather than a request.

Pyros made a show of settling his crest. We are satisfied vengeance is done. The Maximi are dead and shall not rise again. Capitaine Isabelle and her descendants have nothing to fear on that score.

No one’s children should have to grow up with the fear of being assassinated, Isabelle said pointedly. Not that she had children … yet. She certainly had the urge to motherhood, an ember of curiosity and fascination that glowed warm whenever she spent time with her women friends and their offspring. Yet it seemed a goal that should be pursued from a position of security and stability, which she’d never had and likely never would.

The tribunal broke up with all due ceremony. When the Fenice departed, Isabelle bowed to Sireen. There was no precedent for commissioning a woman as a naval capitaine, and so she had adopted the male protocols by default, much to the annoyance of her peers, who had been doing their best to pretend she didn’t exist.

Thank you, Madame, Isabelle said. Without Sireen’s permission, this parley would not have been possible.

You are most welcome. You were correct to point out that it would have done your mission no good to have them chasing you through the deep sky.

Isabelle’s pulse thrummed in anticipation of her mission, of being aloft on a skyship again. Excitement kept one step ahead of her dread of fouling it all up.

She had been commissioned especially to lead an expedition to the top of the world. At the first glimmering of spring, when the Solar’s light spilled into the Twilight Latitudes after months of darkness, she would sail north and challenge the Bittergale—a lethal tumult of tumbling stonebergs and a constant cyclone of hailstones the size and speed of cannonballs, an impossible, impassable barrier that chewed up ships and spat out flinders even more surely than a great fetch.

Yet beyond it, if she could clear the way, was the wreck of the Conquest, fabled flagship of Secundus Maximus’s lost armada, and its legendary pay chest: the treasure of a century in coin and plunder. It was enough to make a pirate weep.

Of more interest to Isabelle and value to l’Empire was the Craton Auroborea on which the Conquest had crashed. If her guide was to be believed, it was a lush, green land ripe for exploration and

Reviews for The Last Uncharted Sky

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lots of adventure in store as the strange and capable crew of the earlier volumes go on a voyage more dangerous than they can imagine with others racing toward the same and diverse goals. While everyone has challenges to overcome, painful and difficult, the author is not quite so hard on characters and readers as has become epic fantasy norm.