Matabar

For a moment, the main gondola hall fell into silence, broken only by the crunch of shattered glasses beneath the intruders' heavy boots. The vampire paid no heed to the alarmed and rapidly paling nobles, aristocrats, and businessmen. Until recently, they had been pompous and self-important, but now they cowered and shrank in on themselves like unwanted scraps of paper tossed into the garbage.

Suddenly, they seemed so drab, so pitiful and ridiculous. They wore so much finery and were covered in glittering jewels, and yet, behind that façade, there was nothing but a gaping void.

Ardan turned to the side and pulled a small envelope of crimson powder from his pocket. Pouring it onto his palm, he smeared it across his face. For an instant, he felt as though enraged wasps were stinging his cheeks, nose, lips, and eyelids, stabbing every bit of flesh they could reach. And they could reach everywhere.

When one of the people who were lurking beneath those hideous, demonic masks approached him — there were already at least twenty of them in the room, along with the vampire, and many reeked of oil and coal, which made it clear that they'd been disguised as the crew, though how the vampire had managed to sneak aboard was anyone's guess — Ardan flinched slightly as the masked man asked, somewhat uncertainly, "Eternal Angels, kiddo... what's wrong with you?"

"Allergy," Ardan replied, feeling his face swell, ballooning with blisters and little abscesses beneath the skin. "I ate something with shellfish in it."

"Damn..." The mercenary reached for his revolver, making Ardi tense and tighten his grip on his staff, but he never pulled the trigger.

A "colleague" of his came up and seized the first mercenary's hand. "It's not contagious, Sixteenth."

The mercenaries exchanged glances. They were dressed identically: sturdy cloth pants, heavy boots, shirts with bandoliers for their revolvers and knives, several handheld fragmentation grenades on their belts, which was very surprising, and over that, a brown tunic beneath a black leather jacket. Everything looked new and still smelled of polish and factory grease.

"You sure about that, Seventh?"

"Yeah. My little bro — damn, why am I even telling you this? Point is, it's not contagious." The mercenary marked with the number seven turned to Ardan. "Do you need medicine, Mr. Mage?"

"In time… it'll pass on its own," Ardan said with some difficulty, his swollen tongue making speech cumbersome.

In truth, if not for the Matabar blood in his veins, the ground-up claw of the Acid Salamander would have required a special concoction to purge. Ardi had prepared this ploy in advance exactly because he didn't need such remedies.

"All right, sir. As the First said…" While the mercenary spoke, Ardan noticed that the others in masks — there were at least thirty of them by now — had split into pairs and were likewise approaching the other mages in the room. "…if you don't interfere, no one gets hurt. In ten minutes, the generators will shut down, so I doubt you'll have the time or inclination to bother us. But as a precaution, we're asking you to come with us to the officers' quarters, where you and the other mages will be locked up until we get to the capital. If you refuse..."

The mercenary pulled aside the edge of his jacket, revealing the hilt of a broad, leaf-shaped knife and the open holster of his revolver. He was unlikely to shoot him, but the knife was another matter altogether, especially since the vampire and the mercenaries clearly believed that the mages couldn't use any Ley in their current predicament. This was odd when you considered the fact that the Spiders had not only the logs, but also the calculations of Senior Magister Paarlax…

"Of course," Ardan answered with a jerky nod.

He didn't even have to pretend to be frightened. He and Milar had suspected that the Spiders would try something like this aboard the airship. They likely needed a few of the artifacts that had been brought here for the auction to complete their plan. And Milar (with whom Ardi had agreed) had believed that the Spiders would attempt to take Trevor Man hostage to demand access to the vault. That was why Ardi had decided to join the magnate's table — so he could better survey the situation.

But murdering the ship's captain? Making this a full-on hostage situation? And hijacking the airship itself? This all painted an odd picture, especially if you added the blatant disregard for the auction to the mix — unless the vampire had lied. Ardi, for obvious reasons, couldn't hear the heartbeat of an undead creature. Furthermore, the acrid caramel note of the salve vampires used to keep themselves from literally burning in the sunlight tended to drown out all other scents.

"This way, Mr. Mage." Seventh extended a polite hand to usher Ardi toward the archway leading to the stairs between decks.

Meanwhile, the vampire climbed up onto the very same table that Ardan had been sitting at just moments before, kicking aside cards and chips as he went. Incidentally, neither of the Man cousins nor Alla Tantov were anywhere to be seen. The other players remained in their seats.

Trying not to draw the attention of his escorts, Ardan discreetly scanned the area. Alla and both of the men presumably still under her protection had vanished… Perhaps they'd known about the attack in advance? Unlikely…

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something about all of this was off. He and Milar had predicted that the Spiders would isolate all the mages and, just in case, disable the generators, but everything else… Ardan had been certain that he would have at least a few more hours before anything like this happened.

"I could tell all you powdered, spineless moneybags exactly what I think of you," the vampire drawled, pacing atop the table and making chips and tokens scatter around him while idly spinning his revolver. "But I have neither the desire nor any reason to chat with you, the useless dregs whom even your fellow elites regard as little more than refuse. And it looks to me like they have a point."

Not a single person among the dozens of "movers and shakers of the world" dared make a sound, despite the vampire uttering words that would ordinarily draw blood — blood that was far from "blue."

Interestingly, Arkady Agrov also held his tongue, which was surprising. Even more surprising to Ardan was that he couldn't catch the scent of either Great Prince in the room. They, too, had vanished, just like Alla and the Man cousins — it was almost as though the ground had swallowed them up. An odd expression, given the circumstances…

"So, let's begin with this little exercise: the first to tell me where Trevor Man is hiding will get a priceless gift — namely," the vampire said, drawing a long knife and running his reptilian tongue along the blade, "your life."

A wave of fearful gasps and a few shrieks rippled through the crowd, but those were swiftly silenced by strikes from the mercenaries stationed around the hall.

"I am an Imperial Mage! I'll have you-" The so-called "Imperial Mage" in a green cloak didn't even manage to raise his staff before the mercenaries flanking him sent the poor soul straight to the Angels.

One of the mercenaries standing to the left of him had deftly hooked the man's staff with the toe of his boot, preventing it from striking the floor. Grabbing the weapon in both hands, he'd then twisted it, dislocating the mage's shoulder and forcing him to double over in agony. His partner had then casually slit the mage's throat with a knife, as though he'd been butchering a pig.

Blood gushed out like water from a ruptured waterskin. The mage gargled incoherently, crumpled into a heap on the carpet, twitched once or twice in a pool of his own blood, and then lay still. His eyes went glassy. No one screamed or wailed. Only the "nieces" who had come along with these wealthy patrons whimpered and looked around at one another in horror.

As the mage cried out, an elderly woman raised her voice.

"Filthy peasant," she hissed, pinning the vampire with her gaze. "Fifty years ago, we would have had the likes of you strung up for one crooked gl-"

She didn't get to finish her sentence, just as the mage hadn't.

In a flash, the vampire was crouched in front of her, clamping his clawed hand over her mouth. "I respect your courage, Madam, but I'm afraid I must use you as an example." He spoke without the slightest trace of true regret — indeed, without any emotion at all — and then, much louder, clearly addressing the audience, he declared, "In fifteen minutes, if no one tells me where Trevor Man is, you will suffer the same fate."

He jerked his arm sharply, ripping away the woman's lower jaw along with a chunk of her throat. The skin of her neck snapped like a taut string, and her tongue — long and still convulsing like an eel on a sandy shore — flopped out of the gaping wound.

She made garbled sounds and flailed around. Collapsing to the floor, her tear-filled eyes rolled wildly as she clutched at her grandson's pant legs. But he only shrieked in terror, trying to kick his own grandmother away.

When he saw this, the vampire exhaled and swung his hand. The grandson's head flew up toward the ceiling, spinning in a crimson arc, blinking pathetically, and landed behind a nearby table. Blood gushed like a fountain from the aristocrat's decapitated body, and the grandmother's form, caught in its death throes, let out a choked gurgle. The rest of the room fell into a dead silence.

"Fifteen minutes, ladies and gentlemen," the vampire declared, standing upright and licking the blood from his hands. "After that, I'll start picking you off, one by one."

Ardan had been led up the staircase and so he'd lost sight of what had transpired in the room below. His nose still caught the scent of blood, fear and urine, but nothing more.

As he trudged upstairs with the other mages and their armed escort, he couldn't shake the feeling that none of it quite added up. If the Spiders had simply wanted to rob the airship, there was no point in eviscerating the aristocrats so graphically. And if their goal was to bathe everything in blood, there were far simpler ways to do so — like sabotaging the engines and sending the entire vessel crashing to the ground, killing everyone aboard, Trevor Man included.

That was exactly why Ardan found all of this so senseless. If the Spiders had only needed Man, they wouldn't be killing everyone else. And if they just wanted to kill everyone, then by all means, blow the airship out of the sky.

And in that case, what role did the auction even play? Sabotage. The captain's death. And…

Ardan nearly stumbled on the steps.

The captain…

Of course!

Why kill the one person who knew how to operate the vessel, the one man — since airships had only recently completed their trial phase — who truly understood how to manage this flying monstrosity? There could only one be answer: the captain could interfere. And so the Spiders had removed yet another inconvenient piece from the board.

But he would interfere with what, exactly?

What could the captain possibly have known or been able to do…

That realization became the lynchpin of Ardan's current equation. The airship was returning to the capital with only a few hours left before its arrival. What could the captain have done? For instance, he might have prevented them from reaching the Metropolis at all — changed their course somehow, or maybe even sent out a signal. Perhaps there were tools aboard that were intended for just that; for example, the massive spotlights at the front of the gondola. With them, one could send out signals, turning one beam off while lighting another, and so on, producing simple encoded messages. It wouldn't be so difficult to exchange short phrases that way.

If the captain was an unwanted piece of the puzzle, then all of this slid neatly into place. The Spiders couldn't care less about the auction because none of the artifacts interested them (apart from, maybe, the Staff of Demons). And, of course, they had no qualms about killing Trevor Man and all the magnate's guests as well. That vampire's speech, all his talk of "Tell me where Man is," was just a charade, a brazen lie.

Why?

To buy time. Because, all in all, there were around two hundred people aboard, counting all the guests, mages, and the crew. The mercenaries, including the vampire, numbered only about thirty. They probably weren't afraid the aristocrats would stand up to them, but they still didn't want to risk anyone sending out a signal or interfering with the airship's ability to continue flying.

And so the vampire was providing a distraction with his "Where's Man?" ruse…

Damn it all.

If one stopped to think, then…

Alla, both Man cousins, and the Agrovs hadn't mysteriously disappeared at all. They'd already been taken, and were locked away somewhere at this very moment. The vampire would most likely keep tormenting the aristocrats right up until they reached the capital.

Ardan glanced at the mercenaries escorting the mages to the officers' mess.

Did they realize what sort of fate awaited them? After all, aside from the vampire, there were no other Spiders on board.
No, they most likely had no idea. They had no clue what the Spiders truly intended: to kill Trevor Man and everyone else aboard, but not by simply dropping the craft from the sky — no, they planned to do it right over the Metropolis.

The enormous vessel, which would still be carrying several tons of fuel on its return journey (according to regulations, airships had to carry extra fuel in case they needed to detour around bad weather), plus generators and industrial accumulators… To put it simply, Ardan and all the other passengers were sitting in a flying powder keg.

And the Spiders wanted to detonate that powder keg, igniting the skies and part of the city in the process.

All of these thoughts raced through Ardi's mind in the span of a few minutes. By the time they reached the metal door (the Spiders had apparently chosen the officers' mess to hold the mages precisely because of its reinforced construction), Ardan understood that once again, just like six months ago in Baliero's sewers, he was in a race against time. Only now, he had no partner and no Alexander or Din at his side.

"Move it," growled Sixteenth, prodding the mages along. "Sit tight and behave, and soon enough, you'll be hugging your loved ones again."

And the mages, with all their staves, grimoires and multicolored cloaks — even if they were stored away in their satchels — obediently filed into what was to be their future tomb, as docile as rabbits.

Worst of all, the mercenaries truly believed they were telling the truth: "Don't make trouble, and everything will be fine."

But it wouldn't be fine. Not for anyone. Unless Ardan found some way to reach the captain's bridge, contact the ground, then land the airship — or at least change its course.

"Sleeping Spirits," Ardan whispered under his breath as the last of the mages stepped inside ahead of him. He had to decide immediately…

"Excuse me," Ardan mumbled, "dropping" his staff due to his "numb" fingers and clutching his head. "I feel faint…"

Seventh caught the "collapsing" mage in his arms. Given their difference in height, the scene looked somewhat comical, even if it was believable. By now, the generators had already been shut down, and the mages truly felt unwell. From the sound of it, someone in the mess was already retching.

Despite the clanging in his head, the throbbing in his temples, and the cottony sensation filling his limbs, Ardi stayed on his feet, at least metaphorically. His vision swam just a little.

His staff rolled along the floor until it came to rest beneath Sixteenth's foot as he stepped on it. Ardi could scarcely have asked the Sleeping Spirits for a better chance.

Seventh, who was gripping Ardan's shoulders, must have sensed the tension in the mage's muscles.

"Sixteen-"

He never finished that sentence. As Guta had taught him long ago, Ardan brought his arms behind the mercenary's head, pressing Seventh's face into Ardan's shoulder, then he wrenched his entire body around, crushing the man's windpipe and simultaneously twisting his neck around. The mercenary managed only a feeble twitch and a desperate gurgle, spraying Ardi's coat with pink foam.

Sixteenth's eyes went wide, and he instinctively reached for his revolver. Perhaps he'd forgotten that firing a gun in the gondola — let alone in the cabins located just beneath the ship's technical deck — was a horrendously bad idea.

But he never got the chance to shoot. Ardan, still in the midst of his pivot, bent his knees, tensed his back and forearms, and hurled the dying body of Seventh over his shoulder. It flew a meter through the air and smashed into Sixteenth's chest, knocking him off his feet. While toppling backwards, the mercenary clawed clumsily at his holster, trying to pull out his gun, but couldn't manage it.

Without wasting a moment, Ardan sprang forward. Pinning the twitching corpse against the sprawled-out mercenary with his knees, he locked his hands together and raised them high, then slammed them down onto Sixteenth's nose.

The flesh burst like a soap bubble, spraying hot, thick, sickly-sweet blood everywhere, and shards of bone scraped Ardan's palms. The mercenary's skull caved inward like a broken egg, lying in a puddle of blood and gray matter. Ardan felt his heartbeat quicken, felt the brush of elongated fangs on his lips, and the smell of blood began to wrap around him in a tempting, gentle haze, inviting him to shed the trappings of civility and stalk forward, guided by the secret trails of the hunt that only he could perceive…

He inhaled, then exhaled.

Ardan repeated the motion several times, then closed his eyes. Groping for his staff, he clutched it tightly, as though searching its warm oak surface for refuge — some place he could hide from the beast straining to break free of its cramped cage inside his own mind. And in the wood's rough grain, which cried out for a fresh coat of varnish, he sensed himself not only on those mountain and forest paths where only hunter and prey existed, but also… somewhere else. Somewhere that smelled of spring flowers by a cool river.

Green eyes and fiery hair flared behind his eyelids for just an instant, and Ardan opened his eyes again.

His claws withdrew into his fingers, becoming mere nails once more, and the lengthened fangs poised to push past his lips receded. The blood no longer smelled sweet — only of copper and fear.

Trying not to look at the corpses (not out of fear or disgust, but for another reason entirely…), Ardan got to his feet and approached the door. He likely didn't have much time. Sixteenth and Seventh were supposed to stand guard at the officers' mess, and then other mercenaries would surely come to relieve them — perhaps in an hour, or thirty minutes, or much sooner.

He opened the door, revealing a peculiar sight. Several mages had settled into the chairs, propping their staves against the armrests and opening up newspapers. Others had gathered at a table, pouring drinks and breaking out a deck of cards to play Sevens. Someone was even leaning against a porthole, calmly watching the city lights drawing closer.

It was as if none of what was happening affected them at all, and the grimoires at their belts and the staves by their sides belonged to some entirely different "tribe."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Is anyone coming with me to the generators?" Ardi asked, though he could already guess the answer.

The mages paused and looked him over, eyeing his bloodstained coat and the cuts on his hands. Most simply returned to what they were doing — reading the news, shuffling their decks. The one at the porthole waved dismissively.

"The generators are bound to be locked, boy. And what can we really do up here?" He said in a bored tone, despite wearing three stars on his epaulettes.

"And kindly shut the door on your way out," added another, still reading his newspaper. "I've no desire to deal with any terrorists once they find out what you did to their comrades."

With that, the mage calmly turned a page. Ardan stood in the doorway a moment longer.

"Close the door already, young man," said the mage dealing cards at the table. "And we'll be sure to pray to the Eternal Angels for you, since you're so eager to meet them."

Ardan sighed and, rather than waiting for more snide remarks, shut the door. A year ago, he had thought that Mart Borskov — a mage archaeologist and, as Ardan had later discovered, a well-traveled scholar of antiques — was simply a coward and a selfish man.

But in truth, someone who had devoted himself to that field couldn't be a coward. And so, selfishness remained the only explanation, though not the natural kind, but rather the type that came from the culture and society in which Star Mages lived.

A grimoire, a staff, a cloak, and epaulettes—these "starry regalia" made them, in the minds of the people, and thus their own as well, into beings who didn't have to follow ordinary rules or carry the burdens that plagued "mere mortals."

One couldn't expect cooperation from people like that. Even if Ardan told them that the airship was about to be dashed from the sky, that reactivating the generators would restore their Star Magic — none of it would matter. They either wouldn't believe him or wouldn't bother listening to him.

This didn't mean that Ardan had forgiven Mart for failing to help the northerners.

But after spending a year in the Metropolis, he at least understood why the man had been so self-serving.

Ardan crouched by Seventh's corpse and unfastened his bandolier. Strapping the holster, spare rounds, and knife to his own belt, Ardi repeated the process with Sixteenth's gear, first twisting the bandolier into a clever knot, then snapping it free with one quick motion. The cartridges cascaded to the floor in a jingling rain. Loosening the fastenings, Ardan slung the empty belt across his chest and buckled it in place. This was a trick the cowboys had sometimes used when setting out in a hurry after… thieves who stole horses and cattle.

A few more seconds passed as he replaced the cartridges with small vials of potions and other mixtures, slotting them into the chambers that had once held ammunition.

He chose not to remove his footwear. Not so much because of the mechanisms and seals built into their heels, but because hiding in the shadows no longer seemed necessary.

Recalling the schematics of the airship, Ardan paused for a heartbeat. He had read every scrap of documentation about this vessel, but that didn't mean he actually understood much about this intricate contraption forged by hundreds of the Empire's brightest minds over nearly fifteen years.

What he needed right now was one of the senior officers. Ideally the first mate, if the man was still alive. Obviously, the entire officer corps, along with the sailors, was locked up somewhere, probably in the hold. It was the only place large enough to take them, aside from the gondola where the wealthy passengers were already imprisoned. They wouldn't be kept in the cabins; that would require too many guards.

The hold was located near the tail, in the lower engineering sections, opposite the fuel storage. The generators, as far as Ardan could recall, were in the middle, while the engines were underneath the fuel tanks and coal containers. And worst of all, the captain's bridge was at the very prow of the ship.

"First the generators, then the sailors, then the bridge," Ardan muttered under his breath.

Of course, once the generators were back online, the mercenaries would realize that something was amiss and rush toward the air sailors — assuming they hadn't already discovered the two bodies he'd left behind by then. He wouldn't have been able to hide them, anyway. The floor was too slick with blood, fragments of bone, and bits of brain.

But as Ergar had used to say: "If you've already leapt off the cliff while chasing a mountain goat, there's no point fretting over how well you calculated the drop. Just try not to smash yourself to bits."

Running his fingers along his staff, Ardan leaned over the bodies of the mercenaries once more. This time, he took their belts, fastened them crosswise over his shoulders, then slid his staff behind his back and strapped it down tight using his own belt. Until the generators were running, he couldn't use its power anyway.

"Why has no one invented a holster for a staff yet?" Ardan wondered aloud.

Though, given how mages usually saw the world, maybe it had just never occurred to anyone that a staff could be inconvenient.

Drawing his newly-acquired pair of leaf-shaped daggers, Ardan moved toward the staircase. Leaning cautiously over the railing, he looked down. There was not the slightest trace of mercenaries in sight. Ardi, reversing his grip on the blades so they curved like claws, began a careful descent.

Each time the heels of his shoes rang out — even softly — against the iron steps, he froze, expecting a fight to break out at any moment. But it seemed like no one could hear him, or if they could, they weren't in a position to respond to the noise. Even so, Ardan remained on edge. Then, just before he reached the lower deck — where the route to the engineering section lay — he spotted four mercenaries standing guard at the archway leading to the gondola. They each held a short, curved saber, the kind typically favored by cavalry. Infantry usually carried longer, broader blades.

Without magic, there was no chance Ardan could slip past them unseen. That left him only one option — he lifted his hand to his neck.

It was a pity he had to part with the medallion so soon...

Stowing his daggers, he pressed the raised engraving of the symbol, and in that same instant, he felt a cool shroud wrap around him. Inside the medallion, the little pin crafted by Dagdag pierced a wafer-thin piece of Crystal Salamander scale. A sudden surge of wild, unrefined Ley energy roused from within it, flooding the delicate seal with power.

Ardan jumped forward, landing as he had in his childhood: first on his spread palms with their fingers splayed, then letting his toes brush the floor. His shoes scraped softly against the carpet, and one of the mercenaries twitched at the faint whisper of sound. But after seeing no one there in the gray half-light of the service bay, he returned to his silent vigil.

"Your time is running out, gentlemen," the vampire's dismissive remark reached Ardi's ears. "As is my patience. Perhaps I should choose who I'll send to the Angels first. Maybe the fattest among you? Or the shortest? Or you, my dear lady?"

Pressing his back against the cold metal of the wall that lacked any decorative paneling, Ardan edged his way down, step by painstaking step.

The Crystal Salamander was famed for blending seamlessly with any surface. Its scales absorbed light and refracted it to mimic whatever lay on the other side of the anomaly, making the creature one of the most formidable hunters in the rocky canyons of the Dead Lands.

How did artifacts like this and certain potions retain their properties even with the generators shut down? For the same reason that the generators themselves could still be "switched on" at all. Paarlax had once demonstrated a long, complicated equation — stretching on for several pages — that had offered an explanation, but Ardan hadn't understood a word of it back then and certainly wasn't inclined to dwell on it now.

He had far more pressing concerns than the complexities and paradoxes of the Ley field. Like the two mercenaries now walking along the corridor. Both of them were carrying those same short sabers and moving at a leisurely pace. Ardan, hugging the wall and balancing on his toes, crept after them.

"What will you do with your exes, Twenty-First?" One mercenary asked the other.

In the narrow corridor, their shoulders nearly touched, and they had to duck every now and then to avoid colliding with a steam pipe or a coil of Ley-cabling.

This engineering passage was much humbler than the passenger corridors. It was essentially a long, narrow tunnel crammed full of pipework, cables, crates, and all manner of complicated contraptions.

Ardan had to stay half-crouched just to avoid knocking his head against the metal overhead.

"First, I'll settle my debts," the mercenary replied, rather matter-of-factly. "Then I'll buy some new gear and head for the Ralsk Mountains."

"The Dead Lands?"

"Yeah. The season's about to start out there. Summer and fall are the best time for hunting, when there's no wind and no cold."

The downside of the airship's engineering deck was that everything lay in a straight line — it was simply one long corridor, with no branches or side passages.

Ideally, Ardan would've just slunk along behind them until the path split and found a way to let them pass. But there was no such split. Which meant…

"So you're one of those who like risking their hide?"

"No, I'm one of those who like money and cheap whor-"

Ardan never heard the rest of that sentence.

"Gentlemen…"

They spun around at once, sabers raised in unison, but it was already too late. Ardan lifted his hand, which held a fine blue dust, and blew it straight into their faces.

The men blinked once or twice. Then, in that strange, jittery fashion of marionettes directed by clumsy hands, they lowered their weapons and stood at attention. Their pupils, huge and quivering, danced wildly, yet their bodies refused to obey them.

The airborne mixture of the Grim Ley-Belladonna and powdered hemlock stem was quite an effective paralytic for humans — though it had no effect on the Matabar, in whose habitat this plant actually grew. The key was not to overdo the dosage, or you risked paralyzing a person's respiratory system outright.

"Allow me," Ardan said as he slipped between the two frozen men, then paused for a moment.

Back on that fateful train, he'd been so flustered that he'd thrown his revolver at one of the bandits. Now… all he felt was the blood drying on his palms, the prickling in his gums as his fangs threatened to show themselves, and the tingling in his fingertips as his claws yearned for freedom.

He hated these sensations.

In the Alcade, he had hunted only when he'd been hungry, and even then, he'd only taken as much as he had actually needed. He'd fought on hunters' trails because otherwise, they would have killed him. His prey had been crafted by the Sleeping Spirits to serve as sustenance for those skilled enough to claim it.

He'd learned the art of the Aean'Hane in order to play with snowy illusions, to conjure miniature castles of ice, to listen to the stories of the forests, mountains and valleys.

And now he was using it all not for wonder or hunger, but for killing and survival. And with every passing month, the bloody footprints he left behind grew wider and deeper. His Star Magic and the art of the Aean'Hane now felt more like a revolver or a knife, not the wondrous secrets they'd once been.

Ardan felt soiled. And wretched. It was a lot like that time in the Grand's library when he had compelled Lisa in order to pry out the knowledge he'd desired from her.

"And all your lofty philosophizing will blow away with time. Believe me…" Arkar spoke in his head.

But Ardi didn't know if he wanted such thoughts to wither.

"Those are problems for another day," he reminded himself, his words slightly shaky. He wiped the blood from his knives and moved on.

Pipes and cables lined the walls, looking less like serpents and more like the tangled hair of some ancient beast unleashed from an elder's fireside tale. In this metal monster's bowels — forever hissing, groaning and trembling — Ardan tiptoed forward, listening for the steadily-increasing thud of its heart: the engines. They struck with giant pistons, devouring thick drops of fuel that exploded into clouds of gas and steam, heaving enormous rods upward.

Maybe this was how he would have felt had that Mountain Troll swallowed him whole back when he'd been a boy.

When he finally reached the generator chamber, he sank to his haunches and pressed a palm against the floor. Through the rhythmic humming of the machinery, he felt subtle, dissonant vibrations. There were sharp intrusions in the great mechanical pulse of the steel behemoth.

People. Lots of them.

As he'd assumed, the air sailors were locked up somewhere beyond. Thankfully, with the dim lights and the maze of cables venting chilly steam every now and then, even his Matabar eyes couldn't see more than ten paces ahead. Otherwise, he'd surely have been spotted by the six guards pacing anxiously.

Ardi straightened and approached the door to the generator room. It was made of sturdy metal, and perhaps a full eight millimeters thick. Instead of a handle, there was a large wheel and lever. Surprisingly, no one was standing watch here. Apparently, they didn't think anyone would be foolish enough — or skilled enough — to repair what had been sabotaged.

All the better for him.

Ardan turned the wheel several times and, cracking the door open, waited a few moments. If anyone inside was standing still, he might miss their vibrations. But as it turned out, he wasn't greeted with shouts, the clash of sabers, or — thank the Sleeping Spirits — gunshots.

In one swift motion, Ardi opened the door fully and stepped inside. His Matabar eyes caught the faint light filtering in from the corridor, which was lit by an auxiliary circuit powered by the ship's sole reserve generator situated under the bridge. No one had shut that one down, presumably because they still needed some measure of control over the airship. Besides, a single generator couldn't possibly create a Ley field dense enough for mages to use their magic.

The generator room was a square space, roughly forty meters on each side. Contrary to the official documentation, it held eight generators that were all bigger than the ones they'd found in the "Heron." Rectangular and elongated, each one rose nearly to Ardan's chest. Thick bundles of cables ran from them into the walls, and the sheer number of gauges and instruments — sprouting not just from the generators, but also across the walls behind them — made his eyes water.

"Well now," Ardan murmured, surveying the somewhat-chaotic arrangement of the Ley energy generation bay.

If Professor Convel ever saw the blueprints for this place, he'd probably refuse to let any student ever leave the Grand again.

Nearly every principle of proper design had been ignored. The heat exhaust shafts seemed randomly placed, so that even an hour after shutdown, the air in the room felt stifling. The wiring wasn't laid at right angles; lines of cable overlapped and had gotten tangled up like a cat's ball of yarn. And the generators were practically touching one another, which risked cross-vibrations moving from one unit to the next. Naturally, there was no "floating" platform beneath them to help dampen those vibrations.

In the short term, this probably wouldn't cause catastrophic problems, but in a year, the situation would become not just hazardous, but potentially deadly. It was astonishing that the official documentation painted such a vastly different picture.

Ardan wondered how much the consciences of the Guild mage and engineer inspectors had cost to get all the necessary stamps and permits for this. And how much all the other bureaucrats and officials involved had charged as well.

"Metropolis and its love of exes," Ardi sighed, stepping up to the nearest generator.

Immediately, he noticed the gauge that was meant to measure the wear and tear on the combustion chamber. It showed the bare minimum, but it had clearly been tampered with — either replaced outright, or rigged to lower the mercury sensor. A single glance at the metal casing, the flimsy components and rivets, and the outdated platform was enough to see that this generator was already well past its prime.

"No more airship flights for me," he muttered to himself, taking in the quality — if it could even be called that — of this central node of the vessel's power system.

Then again, Convel and an Manish had shown them samples of accredited Star Magic seals in class that had been so poorly designed that it was a wonder the arrays and contours hadn't been swapped around in them. Sometimes, Ardi found himself doubting even the simplest bits of Star-driven tech, like Ley-plates or a mere light switch. Knowing what sort of "bright minds" had been responsible for these inventions made the world feel far more fragile than most people realized.

He pulled the mechanical ignition lever, which should have produced the first Ley-sparks. Nothing happened. There were no rattling cogs hinting at mechanical failure, no squeal of a snapped belt, and no hollow gurgle that would indicate a cracked or missing crystal.

In the Grand, they had only worked with generators a couple of times in the lab (the subject was typically fourth-year coursework). But at "Bruce's," the ancient generator that powered it often broke down, forcing Ardi to learn at least the basics of troubleshooting. Not to mention what he'd picked up after the incident at the "Heron."

Frowning, Ardan glanced lower.

"Of course…"

Right by the generator's external oil chamber, there was a distinctly nonstandard hole, as if someone had slashed it open with a saber. Ardan stepped aside to inspect the other generators. The news was grim: every single unit had that same gaping slash. The design flaws in the flooring — it was angled where it met the walls — had initially hidden the oil leaks from view, but peering past the bulk of the machinery, Ardan saw thick, yellow puddles gathered on the metal.

Even if he could miraculously get the oil back inside, the generators would only run for a few minutes before failing again.

For the moment, Ardi set aside the question of why the vampire had a military-grade saber forged from Star-enhanced steel.

"Looks like we'll have to make do without any Ley," Ardan concluded.

Casting a farewell glance at this chaotic "generation bay," he returned to the door and peered out. No one was coming from the gondola's side or from the direction of the hold. He wouldn't remain this lucky for long; in a matter of minutes, the mercenaries above would notice that their patrol hadn't returned, and things would unravel quickly.

Time was short.

He pulled two vials from his bandolier. One held a black, inky mist that seemed to move of its own accord, rapping at the hazy glass. The other contained violet granules, each a bit larger than a grain of coarse salt.

Clutching a vial in each hand, Ardi raised them over his head and walked toward the hold. With every step he took, the scents in the corridor intensified, and between the roar of the engines, the rattling of the pipes, and the wheezing of coal furnaces, he thought he could almost hear the mercenaries' hearts beating. His own hunter's ears were well-trained to pick up that sound, though he was never certain if he'd truly heard it, or merely imagined it in his own anxious pulse.

"Stop!" Barked one of the mercenaries as Ardan stepped out of a swirling cloud of cold steam.

Whoever had engineered this system that vented pressure directly into the corridor… At least they'd had the sense to cool the steam first.

"Who are you?!" Another mercenary shouted.

It turned out that there weren't six of them, but eight. Two more men sat on chairs positioned against the wall.

The passage ended in a junction that split into two routes. One led to the hold, and the other to the fuel storage and the airship's beating heart — the engines.

Ardan couldn't think of any convincing reply. And it seemed like one of the mercenaries had already spotted the staff on his back and his bandoliers full of potions.

"It's a mage!" The mercenary shouted, reaching for his revolvers.

Ardan snapped his wrists, letting both vials tumble from his hands. He'd spent some time filing down the thick glass so it would break on impact. Sure enough, as soon as they hit the steel floor, they didn't roll away, but shattered with a chime of scattering shards.

Black vapor burst from the broken glass, unfurling like spilled ink through the passageway and instantly enveloping everything in a heavy, murky haze. The mercenaries coughed and cursed, their shouts muffled as the dark fog seeped into their mouths and ears and clung to their eyes and hands, caking their clothes like soot. It writhed and frothed, boiling like milk before fusing with the violet granules that had spilled across the floor.

Those granules crackled like walnut shells being crushed, and from each of them, a thin stalk of purple sparks arose. These wisps of violet fed into the black mist, drawn in by countless fleeting contacts.

The entire spectacle lasted only a few seconds. All eight guards stationed at the hold's entrance ended up pinned to the floor, the walls, or to one another by that dense, rubbery darkness. As they struggled, it only tightened further around their flailing bodies, muffling their cries.

"I wonder if I could get extra credit in Applied Star Biology and Alchemy for this," Ardan muttered under his breath, carefully stepping over the men who were keeping up their futile attempts to break free.

Professor Kovertsky probably wouldn't approve such a thing, mostly because Ardi himself wasn't certain of the formulas behind "Night Ink's Breath" and "Tears of the Weeping Stone." He'd picked them up from ancient Aean'Hane knowledge, and for all he knew, modern Star mages had come up with more efficient equivalents centuries ago. Still, those were the tools he'd just used.

He turned a wheel like the one on the generator bay door and slipped into the hold.

Things could have gone worse, he supposed…

Specifically, he might not have dodged the gigantic wrench that nearly cracked him on the skull.

Ardan sprang back, seized the man's wrist the way Guta had taught him, and twisted his arm behind his back — though not so far as to tear his shoulder from its socket.

"I'm not with them!" Ardan shouted, spotting several more air sailors approaching in the gloom of the hold. "I'm a passenger! A Star Mage."

As if to prove it, he shifted his torso, showing them the staff strapped to his back.

The sailors didn't look convinced, but they did pause for a moment.

"Look," someone said from the darkness that was only faintly illuminated by the few portholes that lined the hold. "He took out those bastards."

Ardan decided not to clarify that the "bastards" were still alive, only thoroughly immobilized. No military-grade saber, not even Star-forged steel, could cut through that inky binding. Not even vampiric strength, or the brawn of an orc or mutant, would be able to tear it apart. It was probably better to keep that to himself.

"Let go," growled the air sailor whose arm Ardan still had pinned. "You're hurting me."

"Apologies," Ardan said, letting his arm loosen and stepping back.

The sailor edged away from him, still gripping his makeshift weapon. He clearly didn't trust this new arrival.

Ardan couldn't blame him. Had their roles been reversed, he wouldn't have welcomed a strange newcomer either.

"Where's the first mate?" Ardan asked loudly.

"Here," came an answer from the shadows.

Ardan turned toward the sound and narrowed his eyes. Little by little, the gloom yielded its secrets to his heightened vision.

The air sailors had put up a fight. One man was cradling a blood-soaked, bandaged stump where his arm should have been. Others lay curled up, bruised and bleeding from various empty sockets and missing teeth. Their comrades, who'd been luckier than them or were simply less injured, had propped their heads up to keep them from choking on their own blood. Several had crude splints on their open fractures, with tourniquets cinched tightly around their limbs.

At the sight of dozens of maimed sailors, Ardan felt his own sense of shame and griminess diminish — at least somewhat. No, he still didn't relish how he'd twisted the gifts of his forest friends and the art of the Aean'Hane into something so violent. But compared to the atrocities the mercenaries had committed…

Those accursed mercenaries… They'd done all of this just for money?

The first mate, a man of about forty with a solid build and a square jaw, was pressing a pad of gauze to his battered face. Drying blood stained his hands and uniform, trickling under his collar.

Ardan drew closer. Judging by the wound, the first mate had lost his right eye.

"How many of them were there?" Ardan asked.

"Nearly half the crew," the man rasped. "Around forty in total."

Forty infiltrators had been posing as sailors on one of the nation's first airships. It was hard to imagine the scale of corruption and forged paperwork required to make that possible.

There was no point in guessing or making up theories right now. The Spiders could never have orchestrated such a massive deception on their own. They simply didn't have the resources.

"What happened to the generators?"

"They were completely destroyed," Ardan answered with a shake of his head.

The first mate swore under his breath. Given the circumstances, no one could blame him for it.

"Listen closely, boy," the man groaned, trying to get up and failing — his swollen left leg was likely fractured. "Those bastards don't even know that the bloodsucker is planning-"

"To crash the airship into the capital," Ardan interjected, then apologized quickly. "Sorry, I figured that out already. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered killing the captain."

The first mate looked Ardan in the eye.

"Second Chancery?"

Ardi gave him a curt nod.

"Damn it… Where were you Cloaks earlier? Why isn't there a single one of your people here?"

A fair question, one Ardi tried not to think about, because the answer didn't just frighten him — it disgusted him. Especially when it came to one particular individual…

"Doesn't matter," the first mate muttered, waving a hand weakly. "If we can't land this thing, it'll be a disaster. If you came through the corridor, you won't make it back the same way."

Ardan knew that. If the mercenaries blocked that route, reaching the bridge would become impossible.

"Is there some-"

"No," the first mate cut him off. "The hold was meant to stay dry, so there are no ventilation shafts here."

"Then how-"

"Mister Budimir, please show the mage," the first mate said.

A sailor — likely the same Budimir who'd been debating politics with the "consumptive sailor" from earlier — nodded to the officer. Together with another able-bodied man, he approached a porthole. Straining, they pried out not just the triple-layered, hardened glass, but also the section of paneling that held it in place.

A gust of wind howled into the hold.

"We'll bar the door and hold them back in case those swine try to break in," the first mate said through gritted teeth. "But the only way to the bridge now is… outside."

Ardan gazed at the approaching lights of the night-shrouded city, listening to the wind's furious howl, and feeling the chill air graze his sweat-streaked face.

One should never forget this simple truth: things can always get worse.