Vincent

"How much longer do you plan on looking?" Mercy asked.

Vincent had been at the wheel for nearly twenty hours, steering through the churning maze of floating stone that the island of Grainglove had been broken into. He was weary, heartbroken, and lost. He wondered if continuing was an expression of fortitude or the stubbornness of habit. "This area seems to have all the pieces we've found with soil and small plants. If we don't find the Monastery's ship around here, we won't find it."

Mercy frowned as he answered, and her hand idly tapped the rails. "How do you know that?"

It hurt to give his answer, knowing what failing to find that ship meant. He knew the people who would be on that ship, and was surprised to learn how deeply he still cared. "The plant life we've found must have been on the far side of Grainglove, where the rest of the island sheltered it from the explosion. So unless the Monastery ship was on the far side, like the plants on these shards were, the ship wouldn't have survived. Our course has taken us around the edges of any greenery I can find."

"Unless we find the ship here, there isn't a ship left to find. That makes a certain grim sense," Mercy replied. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. But the next thing she said, in the middle of a slow turn to weave around a pair of rocks linked together by the roots of a single tree, was a shock to Vincent's system. "That's the first time you called that flash of light we saw an explosion."

Vincent was too tired, too weary, and too grateful to her, to even consider lying. "Every light as bright as the one we saw, just before the storm, is an explosion."

Mercy pointed to the sun. "Even that?" she asked.

"Especially that," Vincent replied, and a slew of old lessons from his childhood washed over his thoughts. The drone of a lecture, sunlight spilling through the windows, textbooks, fingertips black with ink. He didn't realize he would miss so much of it, until it wasn't a part of his life. "Sun's just an explosion so big it can't escape its own pull, so it keeps on exploding."

"Huh," Mercy mused. "You'll have to tell me more about that someday. And where you learned that from. It feels like there's a story in there for a Wayfarer clan to carry."

Vincent froze for a moment, panic knocking his thoughts out of his head. Her question, once again, cut alarmingly close to things he had never talked about. "You plan on making yourself a Storykeeper?" he asked to cover his reaction.

"I dreamt of it when my name wasn't Mercy Larkin," she admitted.

"Who knows where the winds will take us?" Vincent said. He chuckled, and waved his arms, following the ship's rails. "Three weeks ago, I didn't expect to be anywhere except on the deck of the Hood."

"There it is," Mercy said.

Vincent though, reflexively, that it was a comment on his griping. But Mercy's tone was wrong, and she was reaching for her spyglass. "Do you see something?" Vincent asked.

"Two o'clock by eight. It looks like a ship listing in an idle spin."

Vincent unfolded his spyglass even as his eyes tracked the direction Mercy had called out. The first hour was for the horizontal axis, with two o'clock just to Vincent's right. Eight meant it was low, a little below level with the deck. Vincent saw the object Mercy had announced, and took a closer look.

He could see a ship, a sloop twice the length of their own vessel, as it listed slowly, its broken bow dipping into the river of mist that gently pulled it along. The bottom of the hull was shattered, most of its keel was missing, and the propellers only turned because the wind spun them about.

He could see the tattered remains of a ship's colours. Grey on green, the same flag it had flown when the Victorious had been hunting it.

"That's the Monastery ship," Vincent said, accenting his announcement with the click of the collapsing spyglass. "Mercy, prep the anchoring ropes. We'll tie ourselves to that ship, then take a look.

"Aye, captain," Mercy said, and she vaulted over the rails in front of the wheel, and pulled herself down to the lower deck.

Vincent eased off the propellers, and let the ship slow as it closed with the wreck. By the time they came alongside, they had matched the wreck's drift. Vincent switched the engine to idle, disengaged the propellers, and locked the wheel in place.

As he gathered up one of the anchor ropes Mercy had set nearby, he looked over the Monastery's ship. The wooden hull was scarred, both with the recent patchwork done by the shipwrights of Vol Ayre, and new holes that each looked to be just a little smaller than Vincent's head. The lift balloon was only tethered by two chains, the others had snapped. And much of the ship's bottom was missing, with sizeable portions of the lower deck open to the sky.

"Something broke your back," Vincent whispered. The keel of a ship was its spine, the firm foundation of the entire hull. The Monastery's ship would never fly again.

Vincent wove the loose end of the anchor rope through the hoops of his harness and tied it. He stepped over the rails, braced his feet on the side of the hull, and took a moment to let himself orient to standing sideways on his ship's hull. He bent his knees, took a steadying breath, and jumped.

And for seven seconds, he was in the open sky.

One second in, fear grasped his heart and stomach, and twisted them both violently. Another second after, the wind brushing against his face was brutally cold, as sweat broke out around his forehead and his neck. Two more seconds, and his hands were shaking. His teeth began to chatter just a second after, and he bit down on his tongue to both stop the chatter and keep himself from screaming.

He managed to keep his feet from kicking on their own accord, and the approach of the ship's rails was accompanied by a wave of relief. He snatched at the rail and hugged it close, trying to slow his stuttering breath. He stopped hearing his own heart hammering in his ears, and in a few more moments was able to sling himself up and over the rails, finding a metal sheet to plant the magnets in his boots.

"The open sky is for birds," Vincent muttered to himself, as he untied the rope around his waist and secured it to one of the anchoring points near his feet. He looked over his shoulder, just as Mercy was finishing her trip through the open-air between the ships. She scampered over the rails and sticking her boots to the metal sheets on the deck.

Vincent grinned at her, and gave her a mock salute that was half admiration, half envy. "No one else in the navy was as comfortable in the skies beyond the pull of the isles," Vincent admitted aloud, as Mercy clipped onto the ship and braced herself. When she looked his way, and their eyes met, he gave her a signal, and they started pulling their ship in.

The ship was easy to tow, this far from the pull of any large isle. Long before Vincent would have broken a sweat, their vessel was alongside the Monastery's wreck, and a quick bit of knot-tying secured the ships together. Their work wouldn't hold through a storm, but an ordinary storm could be seen from hundreds, or sometimes over a thousand miles away.

Vincent finished his knot and stepped away from the rope. "Tacked off?" he asked.

Mercy finished tying, pulled on the rope once to test it, and waved. "Tacked off, captain."

Vincent stepped towards the hatch leading to the lower decks, his eyes following the deck as he walked. There were splotches of red spattered irregularly on the wood. The metal handle wore some of the same colour, already dry and flaking off the metal.

"Blood?" Mercy asked. She reached the handle, picked up a flake, and rubbed it between her fingers.

"Looks like it. Can't say whose, or why it ain't in them," Vincent replied, and he drew his pistol. "So let's be cautious."

Mercy mimicked his movement, pointed her pistol down at the deck, and took the handle in her other hand. "Ready," she said.

Vincent pointed his weapon down the hatch, and nodded. Mercy yanked it open, and Vincent carefully lowered himself down the steps, head first. Upside down, he checked one corridor to the next, before he spun in place, pointed his feet towards the deck, and pushed himself off the ceiling until his boots hit the floor and stuck.

"All's quiet," Vincent said to Mercy, who nodded and followed him down.

The corridor was empty, and asides from the occasional creak of the ship's broken hull, silent. The shelves lining the walls were stripped bare, tools and debris hung in the still air, and light shone through a dozen small holes in the walls.

Vincent stepped forward and tried the first door. He opened it cautiously, pistol pointed at the expanding entrance.

The smell hit him first. Putrid, acidic decay struck his nose like daggers and pulled at his stomach. He managed to suppress the urge to spit, vomit, or cough, even as his eyes followed his nose and began to look properly at what was there.

A woman was half-draped over the bed, half floating in the minuscule pull from the distant isles. She had cuts and bruises on her arms and face, her open eyes had turned grey, and her arms and her legs were bent in unnatural angles. She wore a simple grey cloak over a grey robe, same as any member of the Monastery.

Swallowing his emotions, Vincent stepped into the room. A little closer, and he realized he recognized the face. The straw-coloured hair, matted in blood, was still the same colour, and her broken nose was an old adornment. "Gerana," Vincent said, the dead woman's name escaping his lips before he could think to stay silent.

"You know her?" Mercy asked as she stepped up beside Vincent. She holstered her pistol and stepped past him to look at the woman he had identified. "She was one of the Monastery's people, a monk. How did you know her?"

"She taught me algebra when I was a child," Vincent admitted, the truth spilling out of his lips unbidden. His thoughts sailed on as he spoke, back to lessons with dozens of other small children, he and all of the others wearing the same, simple grey cloak. Giggles and whispers, and small sweets given out to anyone brave enough to offer the correct answer at the front of the class. "Her name was Gerana."

"Just Gerana? What was her last name?" Mercy asked.

"We don't have last names at the Monastery," Vincent said. And it wasn't until he spoke that he realized just what he had revealed.

"We don't have last names? Vincent, what are you-"

"If she's here, the box has to be. She wouldn't have let someone take it, none of them would have," Vincent cut her off, turning away. Fear, rage, and a dozen other emotions were pressing on his thoughts, making it harder and harder to focus.

Gerana, a woman who would disappear for a couple of months every few years, doing something she only called a 'delivery'. And on her return, she would sketch the isles they visited on their trip. The Rainfall of Duolun, the towers of Vol Ayre, even the volcanoes of Abyddon. Now set adrift, left to die alone in a small room on a broken ship.

"The box," Vincent muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Cargo hold, near the engines. It's how they always carry it."

"Vincent," Mercy said, lifting her feet off the floor to glide after him. "Wait."

"Soon, Mercy," Vincent pleaded, as he reached the stairwell. He pulled himself down through the opening, not even bothering with the stairs. He fell straight down...

And nearly threw himself out into the sky. The bottom deck was missing long patches all along the floor, some holes more than enough to let Vincent fall through and out into the open air below. Vincent grabbed one of the rails, spun himself around, and caught himself at what was left of the engine room.

The Monastery ship's engine was mostly missing. A large hole in the deck marked where the firebox and the boiler should have been. Most of the connecting gears to the propellers had come loose, leaving bent gears and ruined pipes scattered about the half-open room.

As Vincent rounded the stairwell, he passed over a large metal sheet set in the floor. A quick glance at the corners of this sheet, and he could see the warping where powerful magnetic clamps had once held a large object in place.

"It's not here," Vincent muttered, staring down numbly at his feet. "It's not here."

"The box?" Mercy asked. "The same box we fought the Victorious to protect?"

"The same," Vincent admitted. He tried to reach for the stairwell, to turn himself around, but his trembling hands slipped on the rails.

"Vincent, what could be in that box that's so important? All the gold under the sky wouldn't drive you like this," Mercy asked, but she stepped aside to let him lead them back up the stairs.

"Vincent?" a voice asked. Vincent's eyes widened, and his head jerked up towards the top of the stairs. He stopped and held his breath, waiting.

"Vincent?" someone called again. The call was weak, quivering, more groan than speech. But Vincent recognized the voice, and the recognition put new life into his legs as he flung himself up the stairs, rising up to the next deck before his feet touched down again. Through the door back into the hallway, he took a sharp left turn and floated over to the captain's cabin.

Vincent wrenched the door open, and the smell of rot and bile felt like a blow to the stomach. He cringed, bit his lip, and stepped inside.

A man was floating in the middle of the room. His hands were black, shrivelled, and leaking yellow fluids from untreated wounds. One leg was broken in at least two places. The man's eyes, worst of all, were milky-white.

But Vincent still recognized him. Roguish grin, wry smile, constant tales of all the sights to be seen in the skies. A man the Monastery trusted so much, they took his name away and left him with nothing but the title of his service.

"Vicar?" Vincent asked, his own voice quivering in pain and grief.

"Vincent, is that you?" the Vicar asked weakly. His fingers trembled, and he hacked and coughed, weak and sick, as soon as he spoke.

"What happened here?" Vincent asked. He clenched his teeth, and despite the sight and smell, stepped into the room. He followed the strips of metal carefully until he stopped beside the broken man floating in front of him.

"Raiders. They had a skimmer, rode the mist cover off a lake on the leeward side of Grainglove. By the time we saw them, they had already put a dozen shots into the hull. One of their first hits was in the cargo hold."

"They hit the box?" Vincent asked.

"They did," the Vicar confirmed.

Vincent could hear the gentle click of Mercy's boots sticking to the metal plates on the floor, as she followed him into the room. And so could the Vicar, who asked, "Vincent, who is that?"

"She came here with me, to find you," Vincent said.

"That's not," the Vicar's response was interrupted by his own wheezing gasp, as he struggled to pull air into his lungs. "Not an answer."

"The skies aren't safe for the Monastery any more," Vincent replied.

"I noticed," the Vicar said, and he smiled weakly. The sight nearly brought Vincent to tears. The Vicar bent his arm, trembling as he moved, until his shaking hand wrapped around the chain at his neck. He pulled it out of his shirt collar and jerked on the necklace until it came free.

"The containment was failing, and so was the power. If we had been near a larger isle, it would have ruptured on the spot. We dropped the box in a chasm, the deepest part of Grainglove we could find. Then we sailed hard for the far side of the isle. We hoped the blast, if it faced the edge of the sky, could be contained by the island. We were terribly, terribly wrong," the Vicar said weakly.

"The blast?" Mercy asked. Vincent could hear her confusion in her question. Confusion and anger.

"Vincent, you need to tell them what happened," the Vicar said, though he frowned in Mercy's direction.

"Pretty sure they couldn't have missed it," Vincent said drily.

"They need to know we were attacked, twice, on the same delivery run to the Shield." The Vicar held out his hand as he spoke, and the necklace dangled in his fingers. "Take this. Hold your thumb on the bottom side. If you have a ship, you'll need to make the next run for us. We can make another box, and get more material to them in time. But we don't have the years it would take to get a crew prepared. You know the dangers out here, you can make it."

"You expect me to do the shield run?" Vincent asked. He wanted to be angry, but he couldn't find it while he looked at the Vicar's broken form.

"We have no other choice. We don't have another crew at the Monastery, and even if we did, we wouldn't have anyone who's faced the dangers of these skies."

Vincent took the necklace and held it up. On a simple steel chain, a single ornament, a black cube, blinked with various tiny lights in irregular increments. Vincent set his thumb on the underside, and a few seconds later it emitted a bright-blue flash of light, then stopped.

"That's so the Abbess knows I sanctioned it," the Vicar said.

"The Abbess and I are not on the best of terms," Vincent said.

"The Abbess will listen, nevertheless. The Monastery respects reason, and you are the best candidate to do this. Far better than any of us. You proved it when you saved us," the Vicar insisted. He sighed, and for the first time, smiled. "And I have one last favour to ask."

"What is it?" Vincent asked.

"I need you to help me die."