He returned to awareness seated on a sack of beans with his back leaning up against the railing. He had traveled there from the library, he was sure, but no matter how he searched his memory he couldn’t recall the slightest detail of the time between.
The last thing he remembered were the words of Ach’magut. Those, he couldn’t forget.
The rest of the crew was strewn around the deck as though they’d been dropped there out of the sky, and they started to stir at the same time he did. Urzaia was on his feet and inspecting his armor, maybe checking himself for injuries, before Calder managed to stand up.
As soon as he did, he stumbled to the wheel and sent his Intent into the ship. He’d woken with an inexplicable certainty: that they should leave Silverreach as soon as possible. Not that he needed any supernatural urging to do that; he had already planned to show this town the back of his sails and never return.
The trick would be convincing the Lyathatan to stir. Calder had worked the Elder unusually hard over the past few months, and it had begun to let him know that it deserved a rest. Typically, it did so by sending him images of a broken ship littered with human bodies.
Today, the impression he received from the Lyathatan was very different.
The servant of Kelarac strains at its chains, eager to haul its cargo into the ocean. If it were allowed, it would depart without the human passengers, but a greater will consumes it. Not the will of the Lyathatan, nor the will of Kelarac, but the will of another Great One.
The Lyathatan knows it is in danger, that all the plans it has laid for the future will come to nothing if they cross the plans of Ach’magut.
With the closest thing to fear that Calder had ever sensed from the creature, the Lyathatan hauled The Testament out to sea. The acceleration made him clutch the wheel and sent Petal tumbling shoes-over-shoulders across the deck until Urzaia caught her. The Champion stood with his feet planted on the deck as though a hurricane couldn’t budge him.
In minutes, they left Silverreach behind. The town and its unlit lighthouse were swallowed up by the night, until the whole world was nothing more than the starlit waves, The Testament, and the submerged shadow pulling them forward.
That was when the ocean trembled.
A ripple shot across the surface of the water, like someone had dropped a pebble into a bathtub. Seconds after that, Calder heard a great roar, and sudden waves blasted them from behind. The aft half of the ship lifted up and slammed down, sending a creak of pain through Calder’s Vessel.
Petal started to tumble the other way, but Urzaia grabbed her out of the air and tossed her onto his shoulder.
The ocean shook with the wrath of a storm, but the Lyathatan neither faltered nor fumbled, dragging them forth as a team of dogs drags a sled. Calder mustered enough focus to wrap ropes around the entire crew, steadying them and ensuring he wouldn’t lose them overboard.
While he did, he considered the explosion behind them. At first, he wished he could extend his senses far enough to pick up some Intent, but he had to admit the truth to himself. He knew what had happened. Silverreach had been destroyed.
Whether Ach’magut had blown the town to pieces for secret reasons known only to the Elders, or whether something they’d done had led to the town’s collapse, Calder had no idea. But the Overseer had sent them away with an urge to flee only minutes before an explosion came from the direction of Silverreach. Either the town was gone, or they’d been deceived by the most coincidental earthquake of all time.
Calder knew which way he’d bet.
The night passed before the Lyathatan started to slow down, and Calder had enjoyed no sleep at all. He doubted anyone else had either. His bunk remained steady enough, though it was pitched at a fifteen degree angle thanks to the ship’s speed, and he was certainly exhausted. But the Great Elder’s words haunted him, prodding his consciousness like red-hot needles.
The throne will soon be empty, he’d said. And, Hail the Emperor of the world.
If there was ever anything to be excited about, inheriting the entire Empire would count. Calder spent the entire night turning the Elder’s intentions over in his mind, trying to find the angle. The hidden agenda. He knew beyond a doubt that Ach’magut had a plan, and a Great Elder wouldn’t care if that plan involved exalting Calder or crucifying him. One human life was simply irrelevant, on the Overseer’s scale.
So there was every possibility that the prophecy might doom him, which was how every folk tale of Elder prophecy usually ended. But one thing Calder never doubted: the Great Elder wouldn’t be wrong.
He might be playing Calder for the benefits of a game millennia in the playing, but he wouldn’t be wrong.
Which meant that Calder would get revenge for his father after all.
At the first glimmer of dawn, the Lyathatan finally slowed to a crawl, and Calder bolted from his bunk. He threw on some clothes, replaced his hat, and shot outside.
The crew was already waiting for him, and they looked worse than he did. Foster’s hair and beard had escaped his control entirely, hanging around him like an angry stormcloud. Petal leaned against the railing, holding her knees to her chest. Jerri paced back and forth, muttering, and Andel stared into the distance with his hat in his hand.
Urzaia, by contrast, beamed at the rest of them. “How wonderful is sleep after an adventure!” he said, and Foster glared.
When Calder emerged, they all turned to him. For a second, no one spoke, so Calder cleared his throat to break the silence. “So. I suspect we have a few things to talk about.”
Foster turned his glare to the Captain. “You think so? About what?”
Calder looked from him to Petal to Urzaia. “Jerri and Andel know my story already, and I’m sure you’ve picked up pieces of it. But in light of recent events, you deserve some…context.”
So Calder told them. He told them about his childhood, the sale of Imperial relics, his father’s arrest, his time with his mother and with the Blackwatch, and his own mistakes that had led to his banishment to the Navigators. To his father’s execution.
“I know the Emperor as well as anyone alive,” Calder said. “I’ve tracked his movements to get to relics, I’ve Read a relic or two myself, and I’ve even met the man. He doesn’t care about us. He’s so far distant he might as well be an Elder himself.”
He kept an eye on their faces as he spoke, looking for disgust or rejection. He was speaking blasphemy, essentially, but he had to know they could handle this much. What he saw pleased him. Andel’s face was a mask, Foster looked like he agreed, and Petal stared wide-eyed like a child hearing a story.
“When I was a child, I realized that the Empire needed to change. And it wouldn’t, as long as the Emperor remained in charge. Well…it looks like he won’t be there much longer. Now’s our chance to steer the Empire where we want to go, and if I get a chance, I intend to take the wheel.”
Foster snorted. “You can’t do a worse job than the old man.”
Urzaia, unsurprisingly, laughed. “Wherever you go, Captain, I will stand in front of you. You keep your promises, and the Emperor does not.”
“I want to stay here,” Petal whispered.
Jerri practically danced over to him, where she threw her arms around him. “This is perfect! Oh, light and life, I could never have imagined it…The Emperor has no official duties, the government works without him. He’s a figurehead with the absolute power to indulge his whims, so you won’t even have to do anything. Just…whatever you want!”