Starfinder: A Novel of the Skylords Read online

Moth stopped talking at once. Old Leroux was sitting in his chair, staring out over the hills. His pet, an old kestrel he called Lady Esme, perched on the balcony’s shaky railing. She had been with Leroux since anyone could remember, much longer than a bird should live, but her feathers looked as bright as an eagle’s. But time had been less kind to Leroux. Gaunt from lack of appetite, his once clear eyes were misty with cataracts. His hair, snowy white, was combed lifelessly to the side.

  “You’re home?” said Leroux, struggling to his feet. “I didn’t hear you.”

  Moth tried to hide his distress. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  Instead of his usual clothes, Leroux had dug out his old uniform. A worn-out gray coat hung down to his knees. On it was emblazoned the crest of his old order, the long-dead Eldrin Knights. He wore the boots as well, scuffed and faded. A great buckle of tarnished silver cinched a wide belt around his pencil-like waist. Leroux stood as straight as he could.

  “Like it?” he asked Moth. “It still fits—see?”

  The truth was that it barely fit at all. In his younger days Leroux had been quite muscular. “Yeah, it does,” Moth lied. “But why?”

  “You turning thirteen put me in mind of it,” said Leroux. But Moth’s reaction had embarrassed him. “I won’t wear it tonight, don’t worry. I just wanted you to see what I looked like once.”

  Living with Leroux had never been dull. The old man was full of surprises, and not all of them good. He had always been strange, ever since Moth had met him. Back then he used to spend all day in the square with his kestrel, telling stories about his days as an Eldrin Knight and watching the new breed of warriors sail overhead in their airships. At ten years old, Moth had been enamored of the old man’s tales. Especially the ones about the Skylords.

  “Leroux, you should rest,” said Moth. Now that the sun was going down the chill had picked up. “Come inside with me.”

  “You sit with me here,” said Leroux. There was room enough for only two chairs on the balcony. The better, less rusted one was Moth’s. Leroux gestured toward it. “Tell me about the kite. Did it fly well?”

  “Great,” said Moth as he took a seat. On the floor between their chairs sat a bowl of gumdrops. Moth watched as Leroux picked up the bowl and tossed one of the treats to Lady Esme.

  “I figured she should have something special today, too,” said Leroux.

  Lady Esme ate every kind of food imaginable, except of course birdseed. At supper time she always sampled from both their plates.

  “Who shopped for you?” asked Moth. “Mrs. Jilla?”

  Leroux began coughing, answering only with a nod. To Moth the cough sounded frighteningly familiar.

  “It’s what happens when you’re old,” Dr. Trik had told Moth. “Keep him comfortable and rested. And keep him away from the candy!”

  There didn’t seem much sense in that, so Moth let Leroux eat as many gumdrops as he wanted. Between the old man and the bird, Moth was going to the candy shop nearly every other day. His job at the aerodrome paid only pennies, but he had everything he needed, thanks to Leroux, and didn’t mind spending his money on treats.

  “If your mother was here,” said Leroux, popping a candy into his mouth, “she’d be proud of the way you’ve grown up. I’m proud of you, Moth. You know that, yes?”

  “Yeah,” Moth answered.

  “I know it’s not the same,” said Leroux. “It’s all right to miss her.”

  Suddenly Moth couldn’t talk. His mother had been dead for three years now, taken by the same kind of coughing sickness Leroux seemed to have. Being so high up in the mountains made it easy to get sick, but remembering his mother had never gotten easier for Moth. He had no brothers and sisters, and had never known his father. He didn’t even know why his mother had ever come to Calio. All he had was Leroux, a grandfatherly friend who’d taken pity on an orphan.

  Far below, the train to Medona blew its mournful whistle, following the winding tracks through the mountains. Dark smoke puffed from its stack, hanging like a cloud in the air. The train was their only real link to the rest of the world, and every time it arrived was an event. Moth liked the train almost as much as the dragonflies and airships.

  One day, thought Moth, maybe I’ll be on that train.

  “If I can’t be a Skyknight, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.

  “Eh?”

  “The train. I’ll see the world, even if I can’t see it from the sky.”

  “Don’t give up on your dreams,” said Leroux. “That’s what old people do.” He held out his arm for Lady Esme. The kestrel hopped on, her talons gently grabbing the fabric of his coat. “Now that you’re thirteen you can show them you’re a man.” Leroux smiled. “When I was thirteen I squired for an Eldrin Knight. That’s the age to do it.”

  “That’s not how it works anymore. They save those jobs for important kids. Sons of lords and governors. Not sons of cleaning ladies.”

  It was an argument Leroux always refused to accept. This time, though, it saddened him. “If there was someone I could talk to for you, I would,” he said. “But they’re all gone. No one listens to an Eldrin Knight anymore. Only you and Esme listen to me now.”

  “Listen to your stories, you mean,” joked Moth. He reached over and took a gumdrop for himself. “I don’t mind. Never have.”

  Old Leroux narrowed his eyes on the mountains. “I have one more story for you, Moth.”

  “Really? I thought I heard them all.” He sucked on the candy, hoping for one of Leroux’s grand tales about the land beyond the Reach. It was forbidden for anyone to cross the Reach, and those who tried surely never made it. The Reach bewitched people, making it impossible to cross. But Leroux had done it, or so he claimed, and his stories about the world beyond their own were legendary. “So?” asked Moth. “What’s it about? The Skylords?”

  Leroux dodged the question. “Later. Your friends will be here soon.”

  “We got time,” said Moth. “I told them to come after supper. Go on, tell me the story.”

  “This is a special story, Moth. It’s a gift. To tell you now would spoil it.”

  “A gift?” Moth grew intrigued. “A birthday gift?”

  “Of course. You think all I have for you is a kite?”

  Moth grimaced. “Yeah, about the kite . . .”

  “You’re old enough now to hear this story, Moth.” Leroux settled back in his chair, looking as if he might fall asleep. “And to have the gift.”

  The old man had lapsed into one of his senseless moods. “All right,” said Moth softly. “You can tell me the story later. Whatever you want, okay?”

  Leroux closed his eyes. “I’m tired. Let me rest a little. Wake me when your friends come.”

  Moth agreed, waiting with Leroux until the old man drifted to sleep. His words about stories and gifts baffled Moth, and worried him too.

  He’s getting worse, he realized.

  Leroux’s kestrel, Lady Esme, had hopped back onto the railing. Instead of eating gumdrops, though, she stared at Moth with the strangest eyes he had ever seen.

  DINNER

  FIONA SAT AT THE ENORMOUS TABLE, her eyes fixed in an empty stare at the gleaming silverware and crystal. Trays of food lay cold under metal lids. At the opposite side of the table, a vacant chair waited for Fiona’s grandfather to arrive. An embarrassing silence hung over the dining room. Fiona blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes just to hear a noise.

  Two of the mansion’s servants stood near the table, beneath a gigantic painting of an old fashioned fox hunt. Their names were Jonathan and Lucie, a married couple who, like all the mansion’s servants, had arrived in Calio long before Fiona and her grandfather. Jonathan and Lucie had served the last three Governors of Calio, in fact, and knew every minor fact about the grand house. They were impeccable, uncomplaining, and, to fourteen-year-old Fiona, as boring as everything else about the city.

  Fiona hated Calio. Through the window of the dining room, she could see why it was called
“the edge of the world.” Calio was a two day train ride from Medona and four days from Capital City, where Fiona was raised. She had left behind her friends and everything familiar, falling into her grandfather’s hands when her parents had suddenly died. For three months now she had been with her grandfather Rendor, yet still she hardly knew him.

  Jonathan cleared his throat to break the silence. “Mistress Fiona, you’ve waited the proper amount of time now. I’m sure the Governor wouldn’t mind you starting without him.”

  But Fiona wasn’t hungry. These meals with her grandfather always killed her appetite. Luckily, he’d been too busy lately to bother with them more than once a week.

  “It’s okay,” said Fiona absently. Secretly she liked her grandfather being late. It always forced him to apologize to her. Still, there was Moth’s party to attend. If her grandfather didn’t get here soon. . . .

  Outside the sun dropped below the hills, yet she could still make out the mists of the Reach in the fading light. Growing up she had heard about the Reach and wondered what it really looked like. Now that she had seen it for herself Fiona wasn’t impressed. To her it looked like a cottony blanket, bumpy and white, spreading out forever so that it covered the whole north world.

  Could it really be that big, she wondered? Some folks believed faeries lived beyond the Reach. Old Leroux thought so, at least. Fiona didn’t know what to believe.

  “It’s the land of the Skylords,” her grandfather had told her. It was why they had come to Calio, and why the city had been built. “The Skylord problem,” that’s what her grandfather called it. And the important people back in Capital City believed him enough to make him a governor.

  Looking at the Reach, Fiona simply couldn’t imagine anything dangerous about it. It all seemed so peaceful to her. If the Skylords did exist, they had been quiet for hundreds of years.

  At last the doors of the dining room opened and her grandfather breezed into the chamber. He straightened the tie beneath his bearded chin, dressed in his usual blue suit and grey waistcoat.

  “I’m sorry,” he announced. “Business.”

  He smoothed down his clothes, composing himself. After three months together, the old man was still uncomfortable around Fiona.

  Because he doesn’t want to be here, she thought blackly. Because he’d rather be working.

  Her grandfather Rendor always kept a full schedule. He was over sixty now, yet he remained virile and quick. He was even handsome, Fiona supposed. Striking, like her mother. Fiona wasn’t like either of them. With a teenager’s awkward bones and her shocking red hair, she knew she would never become the beauty her mother had been. Nor would she be a genius like her grandfather.

  The Governor let Jonathan pull out his chair, then smiled cordially at Lucie as she poured him a glass of wine. When he looked across the table at Fiona, he seemed ridiculously far away.

  “You waited for me,” he said. “You needn’t have.”

  “You’re the one who wants these dinners,” Fiona replied.

  Her sharp reply drew a frown from her grandfather. “Family is important, Fiona. I make what time I can for you.”

  Family was the one thing neither of them had anymore. Fiona was an only child, and Rendor’s wife had left him years ago.

  Probably because he paid no attention to her, guessed Fiona.

  Her mother had been an only child, too. She had told Fiona once that her grandfather had always been secretive and ambitious. He had even been a soldier once, one of the legendary Eldrin Knights, but Fiona found it hard to picture that. He was cold and distant, and his coldness had driven Fiona’s mother to marry the first man who ever showed her kindness—Fiona’s father. When the airship accident had taken them away, only Rendor was left to care for Fiona.

  Jonathan and Lucie went to work serving the food—a fricassee of duck, a hodgepodge of vegetables, bread that had gone stone cold and goat cheese from the farms that clung to the side of the mountain. Lucie spooned small portions of everything into Fiona’s plate, even laying a napkin across her lap. Fiona watched as her grandfather tore hungrily into the food.

  “So?” he said after a moment. “Tell me about your day.”

  It was the same question he always asked, not even bothering to look up from his food.

  “I took a walk,” said Fiona. “Down to the farms.”

  “See anything interesting?”

  Fiona shrugged. “Some animals.”

  Rendor reached across the table for the bread, tearing off a great hunk and dipping it in his gravy. Fiona sighed, picking at her duck with her fork. Then, a wicked little idea popped into her brain.

  “I heard that a dragonfly crashed today,” she said.

  Her grandfather’s chewing slowed. “That’s right.” He motioned for Jonathan to serve him more duck.

  “Is the pilot okay?”

  “Some bruises,” said Rendor. “Nothing serious.”

  “How many is that since we came here? Crashes, I mean. Three?”

  “Bad wind,” said her grandfather. “That’s how it gets at the end of the day. The wind comes out of the Reach.”

  “Oh.” Fiona pretended to be very interested. “The dragonflies don’t do so good here, huh? Is that why you’ve been so busy lately? Working out the kinks?”

  All the pleasantness left the old man’s bearded face. “Kinks? There are no kinks in the dragonflies, Fiona. They’re precision machines. It takes a better pilot than most to fly them up here, that’s all.”

  Rendor was famously proud of his inventions. His obsession for flight had led him to create the airships, the great, teardrop-shaped vessels that floated through the country-side. There were always airships in Calio, tethered at the aerodrome or making the trek back to Medona. But the dragonfly was his greatest achievement. Fiona had been six years old when the first one took flight.

  “If it’s too high and windy here, why not move them away?” asked Fiona. “Build an aerodrome back in Medona, or maybe Capital City.”

  “You know why, Fiona. Because of the Skylords.”

  “But they crash here. People die when your ships crash.”

  As soon as she’d said it, Fiona knew she’d gone too far. Her grandfather put down his fork and gazed at her across the table.

  “You think I don’t care about that.”

  “Grandfather, I—”

  “No, you do. You think I don’t care when people die, that all I care about is my work. But my work is important, Fiona. You’re young. You have no idea how things really are or the dangers we face. What I do protects Calio, Fiona. It protects our whole world.”

  Fiona felt her face growing hot. “I don’t see anything to be afraid of,” she said. She pointed out toward the Reach. “You know what that looks like to me? A lot of nothing. No one’s even seen a Skylord. Why should we be afraid of something we can’t see?”

  Instead of answering her question, her grandfather returned to his meal. “Someday,” he said calmly, “mankind won’t have to be afraid of the Skylords. Someday we’ll have enough airships and dragonflies to defend ourselves from everything across the Reach.” He picked up his wine as if about to toast what he’d just said. “By the time you’re my age, Fiona, airships will be everywhere. They’ll replace the trains and all the horses and carts, too. Flying will be everyone’s gift. And it’ll be safe.” He took a sip of wine, then looked seriously at Fiona. “Do you blame me for what happened to your parents?”

  Fiona sat very still in her chair. She was about to lie, then said, “Yes.”

  Her grandfather picked up his fork and knife again. “Good. That’s out of the way, then.” He went back to eating. “In a few days there’ll be an important meeting here. There’ll be governors coming from the other provinces. I won’t be able to spend any time with you, Fiona.”

  “Governors? Coming all the way out here? Why?”

  “To talk about the Skylord problem,” said Rendor. “I’ll need you to stay out of the way, please.”

&nb
sp; Fiona pushed her plate forward. “Can I be excused now?”

  Rendor looked up, finally noticing she hadn’t eaten a bite. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “I’m going to a party tonight. I’ll eat there.”

  “What party? Not for that boy Moth, I hope.”

  “It’s his birthday,” Fiona explained. “I told him I’d be there.”

  “He’s a cleaning boy, Fiona. I’m a Governor, for pity’s sake. You running around with him makes you look like a vagabond.”

  “He’s my friend. I don’t have any other friends, Grandfather.”

  Rendor’s expression grew thunderous. “That’s my fault too, is it?”

  “There are no girls my age here! Nothing but boys and old men.”

  “It’s a big city, Fiona. You’ll find other friends if you look harder.”

  Fiona got out of her chair, letting her napkin fall to the floor. “What do you care what I do? You don’t want me here. I’m just a burden to you. You just said it yourself; I’m in the way.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down,” said Fiona fiercely. “I don’t want to eat dinner with you anymore. Stop asking me how my day was, please. Stop pretending you care about me!”

  Rendor put a hand up to his forehead. A pained expression came over his face. “Jonathan, some headache powder, please,” he said.

  Jonathan bowed and left the dining room, eager to get away. His wife Lucie gazed down awkwardly at her feet.

  “Go on, go to your party,” said the governor. “We’ll talk about this when my meeting is done.”

  Fiona paused, stunned by his decision to let her go. She decided not to thank him and headed for the door. But before she could leave her grandfather called after her.

  “Fiona.”

  She stopped and looked at him. “What?”

  “That boy, Moth. He lives with an old man. Do you know him?”

  “His name is Leroux,” said Fiona sharply.

  “I hear that he’s unwell.” Her grandfather reached for the wine decanter. “Find out how he’s doing for me, please.”

  Fiona wrinkled her nose at the request. “Why?”