Episode 3: Skypirates Ahoy!

PREVIOUSLY ON SAGA OF THE JEWELS:

Seventeen-year-old Ryn’s hometown is attacked by the Empire and everyone he has ever known is killed. Just before he dies, Ryn’s father gives him a ruby, which causes him to project fire. Ryn is captured by the Empire and meets another captive, Princess Nuthea, who has the ability to project lightning, since she has touched the so-called ‘Lightning Crystal’. Nuthea explains to him that the Empire have learned of the existence of twelve Primeval Jewels which grant the ability to manipulate different elements, and are searching for them. Something blows a hole in the cell wall of the airship where they are being held and they fall into the sky together.

---

Episode 3: Skypirates Ahoy!

Ryn plummeted through the air.

Clouds rushed by him and he had left his stomach somewhere far above. Over the noise of the rushing wind he was aware of Nuthea screaming.

Images of his recent past moved in rapid succession across his mind again. Mum dying. Dad dying. Roofs on fire.

Wind seemed to gust into him all of a sudden, diverting his course.

He slammed flat onto something hard with a loud thump. His face and limbs stung from the impact. The ache in his head, temporarily forgotten in the tumble, returned with force.

This couldn’t be the ground. They had stopped falling much more quickly than he had expected. Plus, he was still alive.

Ryn pushed himself up onto his elbows with effort, wincing.

Nuthea had landed nearby. Men stood around them, some brandishing swords, many of them gathered together at a rail at one end of the wooden platform Ryn and Nuthea had landed on. Cannons sounded, but below them now, from within this ship.

“What in all the seventeen hells was that?” yelled a voice from somewhere behind them.

One man stood a few paces away, staring wide-eyed like Ryn was an Imperial invader come to kill him. He had a shaved head, wore leathers, and there was a cutlass at his side.

“Boy ’n a girl, Cap’n!” the sailor called. “I think they just fell out of the Imperial ship!”

“Well, what are you waiting for, fool?” shouted the first voice. “Tie them up and stow them below! We don’t have time for this right now!”

“Y-yes, Cap’n!”

The man hesitated, but then took a step towards them, drawing his sword from the sheath that hung on his belt with a sliding of steel. The point wobbled a little as he held it out towards them.

“You two!” said the sky sailor. “With me!”

“Not again…” mumbled Ryn.

He looked sidewards, wondering why Nuthea hadn’t said anything yet. She lay sprawled on her front on the wooden deck. Her eyes were shut. Fear lanced through him.

The sky sailor moved towards them.

“Please!” said Ryn, scrambling up, “I think she might be hurt! She needs a healer!”

“Cap’n says you’re to be stowed below, so stowed below is what you will be!”

To Ryn’s own amazement, he put up his fists. “You’re not taking us anywhere! She needs help!”

The ship banked harshly to one side and Ryn lost his footing, stumbled, and put his hand out to steady himself.

The sailor barely wobbled. Taking advantage of Ryn’s stumble, he stepped forwards and hit him hard in the gut with the hilt of his sword.

“Oof!” Ryn doubled over as the wind was knocked out of him. The sky sailor grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up, and before Ryn knew it, a rope was wrapped around his arms and chest, so tight he could barely breathe.

Then he was being shoved and kicked with barks of “Get in there! Hurry up!” He staggered across the deck in bewilderment, battle cries and cannon fire sounding all around him. When he glanced back, he saw the sailor with the prone form of Nuthea slung over one shoulder, her hair and hands hanging down limply, swaying with his steps.

Beyond them, a huge Imperial airship filled the sky, descending rapidly, fire and smoke billowing from its hull, a series of huge holes blown in its side.

He was pushed down some steps, through a door, and along a corridor before being shoved into a room not much bigger than a broom cupboard, with only a small circular hole for light.

“Stay in here!”  the sky sailor said.

He kicked Ryn’s legs from underneath him, forcing him to land on his backside with a groan.

More pain. The fight went out of him. This was too much. This was the second time he had been taken captive in as many days. And his family… his hometown…

He felt something being propped up against his back. Nuthea. Another cord of rope joined the first that encircled him. The sailor tied her to him so that they sat back-to-back.

Ryn tried one last time. “Please… I think she needs to see a healer...”

“Shut up,” spat the sailor. “We’re in the middle of an assault. You’ll stay in here till we’re finished. The cap’n will deal with you after that.”

He slammed the door shut.

“Nuthea?” Ryn said at once. “Nuthea, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

He craned his neck round to try to look at her. He couldn’t see much, but he could see that the silhouette of her head was lolled forward.

He turned back round to ease the strain on his neck. “Nuthea, wake up!”

Nothing.

He hoped to Enwit she wasn’t dead. Actually, he didn’t hope it to anyone. What use had Enwit been to him these last two days, after his lifetime of devotion and obedience?

The girl felt warm against his bound arms and back. Ryn tried to slow his rapid breathing and concentrate on the feeling of her pressed against him to work out if she was still alive.

Yes—it was very gentle, but if he focused and tried to shut out the noise of battle, he could feel the slow rise and fall of her body.

That’s a relief. Although… why do I care whether this girl lives or dies? All she’s done so far is lecture me.

But she was still a human being. And there had been something in the patronising and the lecturing… a sort of antagonistic kindness, which Ryn realised he had found strangely endearing.

“And you are very beautiful.”

Ryn sat for what felt like a long time, just listening to the sounds around him and thinking, and willing for Nuthea to wake up.

The ship continued to bank this way and that, shuddering and vibrating from time to time. Outside the room, he could hear men shouting, cannons firing, and the occasional snapping of wood. His head still throbbed. And his arms. And his legs. And his stomach. His throat was dry. He hadn’t had a drink in a long time. At least he didn’t need to pee. That was a mercy. How long that would last he didn’t know. The ropes were tight on his arms—it felt like they were cutting into his skin. He was hungry. He could barely think straight.

I need to get out of here somehow. I need to get out of here and get my head together and work out what I’m going to do now that…

His mother. His father. The houses of his hometown. Dead, murdered, destroyed.

“Mmmmurggghh...?” said Nuthea.

“Oh, you’re awake!” He felt her stir and lift her head behind him. “I’m glad you’re still alive!”

“Barely,” grumbled Nuthea. “Tell me…”

“Yes?”

“Tell me again about how very beautiful I am.”

Oh poodoo. “You heard that?”

Nuthea laughed softly. “Where are we?” she asked after another quiet moan of discomfort.

“On an airship,” Ryn said quickly, keen to change the subject. “A different airship. We landed on it somehow. I think they’re—”

A loud cheer from outside interrupted him. The cannon-fire ceased. The cheering did not.

“I think they’re fighting the Imperials,” Ryn said. “I think they may have just won…”

Beneath the cheering the sound of the ship’s engine grew deeper. Ryn’s stomach lurched again. The ship was descending.

“Listen,” Nuthea said. “When they interrogate us, just follow my lead.”

“Your lead? Er, alright then…”

Eventually they felt a jolt go through the ship, and the sound of the engine stopped. They had landed.

The sky sailor who had shoved them into the room reappeared.

“Right, you two.” His eyes were bright and he seemed unable to stop himself from smiling. “Cap’n wants to talk to you now.”

He wrenched them to their feet, before pushing them, stumbling and tripping, back up on deck, where he plonked them down on their backsides.

The ship had landed in a grassy plain. In the distance, Ryn thought he glimpsed the wreckage of the Imperial airship lying crashed on the ground.

They must all be dead. Nobody could have survived a crash like that. Including that officer who killed my mother.

What must have been the whole crew stood around them in a semicircle, regarding them. They largely wore brown leather jackets and baggy beige trousers with black boots. Some had goggles on their heads. Most had sheathed cutlasses at their sides. Ryn spotted one or two blunderbusses too. Some were fat, some were thin, some tall, some short. Some had shaved heads, some thick beards and braids. All were men. All looked at them with a leering curiosity.

In the middle of them stood a young man with a leather patch strapped over one eye, brown hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a deep brown, long leather jacket with a ridiculously high collar. His unexposed eye glinted mischievously as he grinned with one side of his mouth, baring stained teeth. One of his teeth was gold.

When he spoke, Ryn recognised the voice of the young man as belonging to the ‘Cap’n’ from earlier.

“Who are you?” said the man, not bothering with any formalities. “Why were the Empire holding you captive?”

“We’re not telling you anything,” said Nuthea. “You’re just a filthy skypirate!”

The captain’s boots resounded over the deck. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryn could see him crouch down in front of Nuthea.

“You’ve got a mouth on you, haven't’ you?”

Nuthea spat.

Ryn heard the sound of a leather glove against skin and felt Nuthea’s head turn abruptly to one side behind him.

To her credit, she barely moaned.

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she, lads? That’ll make it even more fun to break her!”

A deep, lecherous jeer went up from the crew.

“Leave her alone!” Ryn found himself yelling. “She hasn’t done anything to you!”

The pirate captain turned on Ryn. “Let’s see if you’re any more obliging, pup. Well? Who are you?”

Ryn didn’t see any point in lying about himself. If Nuthea wanted to keep her identity to herself, that was her business. “I’m nobody,” he said, more bitterly than he meant to. “A no one. I’m the only son of a landowning family in the town of Cleasor. You have no reason to hurt me—or her.”

“Well, Nobody of Cleasor, if you’re so unimportant, why did the Empire have you captive on one of their airships, hey? Answer me that!”

“The Empire burned down my village. They killed everyone I know. They only spared me because—ow!”

Even though they were tied back-to-back, somehow Nuthea had been able to elbow him in the ribs. “Don’t!” she hissed.

“‘Don’t what?” said the captain. He drew one of the twin swords that hung on either side of his belt, producing a long, slightly curved blade. He grinned wickedly, then moved the point of it slowly in front of Ryn’s nose, making him flinch. Then he stepped around him and crouched down next to Nuthea, whose body suddenly went very stiff and still against Ryn’s back. 

“Tell me why, or I slit the lady’s throat.”

“Don’t tell him, Ryn!” Nuthea cried out. “He’s bluffing! He won’t do it! He could get far more money by ransoming me!”

Ryn thought that was a reckless thing to say. He didn’t think he could take the chance. He had already seen that the captain wasn’t afraid of causing pain.

“I have fire powers!” Ryn blurted out. “I got them all of a sudden when the Empire attacked my village. I think that’s why they captured me. Nuthea thinks it’s something to do with these magical Jewels. They captured her because she has lightning powers. Don’t you try anything with her or me, or I’ll scorch you! I’ve done it before, and I can do it again!”

“By the One…” Nuthea said behind him with a sigh.

“You should be grateful.” Ryn couldn’t help himself whispering back, twisting his head to look behind him. “I may have just saved your life.”

He looked up at the assembled crew.

A pause.

They burst out laughing. They threw their heads back and guffawed, held their bellies while they shook, and slapped each other on their backs. Some of them wiped tears of mirth from their eyes.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough, lads,” said the captain. He stepped back round to Ryn’s side and held up his hand for silence, that devilish grin still stuck on his face, though Ryn wondered if he saw it crack just for a moment.

Eventually the laughter petered out.

“Fire and lightning powers?” said the captain, mockery lacing every syllable. “Magical jewels? Do you expect me to swallow this, runt? If you’re going to play games with me, I will toy with you in turn!”

He bent down and moved his sword towards Ryn again, making him wince, but instead of skewering him, he reached past him and cut the cords tying Ryn and Nuthea together.

“On your feet! Nobody mocks Captain Sagar Edbini! If you have fire powers then show us, boy!”

Ryn stood up and rubbed the sides of his arms where the rope had bound him. He didn’t know why this guy was calling him ‘boy’ when he didn’t look that old himself. He must be in about his early twenties.

“Er, well,” said Ryn, “the thing is, it’s all quite new to me and I haven’t been able to summon the flames again since the incident at my village. I can’t produce them on demand. But I do really have them, I’m being honest. Also, I wouldn’t really want to hurt you, or any of your crew, unless I had to in self-defence.”

The pirates laughed again, Captain Sagar too. 

A bolt of bright white lightning shot out from behind Ryn with and lanced into the rail of the ship with a flash and a crack. It left a charred, black mark where it hit, a thin ribbon of smoke rising from it.

The pirates stopped laughing.

“Tie her back up again, quick!” shouted Sagar, spittle flying from his mouth.

Nobody moved to do so.

“Sir Pirate,” said Nuthea, “if you think for one moment that I am going to allow myself to be detained once more, least of all by a common sky pirate such as yourself, you had best think again, or your life may be forfeit.” Ryn took a couple of steps backwards so that he was in line with her. “As you can see, I’m a little more experienced with my own elemental powers than my… associate here.” Associate? “If any of you lays so much as a finger on me again, I will turn my lightning on you. Is that quite clear?”

Sagar opened his mouth, then shut it again. His grin was replaced by a deep scowl. After a moment he said, “There’s a lot of us, lady, and only one of you. Do you think you can use your little trick on all of us at once?”

“Do you want to find out?” said Nuthea icily. Ryn guessed that she had not enjoyed being slapped.

“Tie them up again, boys!” yelled Sagar.

None of his crew moved.

He looked round at them.

One man, slightly taller and stockier than the rest, who Ryn recognised as the one who had tied them up originally, turned to Sagar and said, “But Cap’n… you saw what she just did.”

“Yeah,” piped up another, “she must be some kinda witch or something.”

“Bad luck to kidnap a witch,” said another.

“’s’what I heard too.”

“And, Cap’n, you’re the one who just cut their bonds!”

“Yeah! If you want to tie them up again, you do it!”

The captain’s face turned purple as a plum. He jumped up and down on the spot like a petulant child.

“How dare you disobey me!” he yelled. “You just took down an Imperial ship under my command! So what if their lifeboat got away? The Imfisi government will pay us handsomely for this! You owe me! This is mutiny! Tie them up again right now or I’ll throw the lot of you overboard!”

“Well, we’re docked at the moment, Captain, so we’d just land on the ground.”

“It’s not that far to the ground.”

“So it’s not much of a threat at all, to be honest.”

Lifeboat, Ryn thought, noticing something the captain had said. So General Vorr might still be alive…

“It seems that we have reached something of an impasse, Captain,” said Nuthea, holding her head high. “Perhaps there is somewhere we could go to negotiate in private?”

“Ah, you hear that, boys? She wants to negotiate in ‘private’.” His grin was back. What was with this guy? He had gone from throwing a tantrum to making lewd suggestions on the turn of a gold piece.

One of the pirates wolf-whistled.

Another brief fork of lightning flashed out and singed the deck just in front of the captain’s foot.

“Alright, alright!” he said at once, leaping back a step. He clenched his jaw and said more quietly, through gritted teeth, “Stop doing that in front of my crew!” He returned his voice to its previous volume. “Fine. By mutual consent, I will speak to you privately inside my cabin. Come with me.” He spun on his heel and walked off. “The rest of you, get back to work!”

“Aye aye, Captain!”

As the crew dispersed to attend to various duties, all of them still unashamedly staring at Ryn and Nuthea, the two of them followed the captain through a door in the ship’s stern.

“Alright, stop playing around,” Captain Sagar said once he had shut the door and they were inside a room with a table and charts. “Where did the two of you really come from?”

“We told you,” said Nuthea. “The Empire captured us because we have elemental powers.”

“Yes, I can see that in your case. But what about you, Nobody?” He jabbed a finger at Ryn’s face.

“He’s just a bit newer to his powers,” said Nuthea. “But from what he reports, he definitely has them. It makes sense. The Empire wouldn’t have spared his life otherwise.”

“And you’re really just a nobody from some backwater village?” the captain continued,.

Ryn nodded.

“Fine then, but what about you?” said the captain, switching back to Nuthea. “You don’t look like a nobody from nowhere.” He eyed the golden band that encircled Nuthea’s head. “Where did you come from?”

For a while Nuthea did not reply and her bottom lip disappeared underneath her upper. Then, eventually, she said, “My name is Princess Nutheanna Kaleutheanna of the Matriarchy of Manolia.”

A princess! “And you are very beautiful,” Ryn remembered himself saying, and grimaced.

The captain’s eyebrows rose. “A princess, you say? The boys will be pleased. What are you doing all the way out here, then? We’re miles away from Manolia!”

Nuthea frowned. “I was on an undercover diplomatic mission in Imfis when the Empire discovered my abilities and captured me.”

“A diplomatic mission? What kind of diplomatic mission?”

“An undercover one.”

“Yeah, but who to? About what?”

“That is my business.”

“Tell me! Tell me or I’ll run you through!”

There was a quiet crackling sound and sparks of electricity played across Nuthea’s fingers. The hairs on the back of Ryn’s neck stood up.

The captain held up his hands. “Alright, alright! This is going to get tedious quickly… Fine. Well, whatever you were doing, whoever you are, the pair of you sure as hells can’t stay on my ship. I can’t be having you undermining my authority all the time with this lightning nonsense. You can get off here, or as soon as we put into the next port.”

Ryn breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t like how tensely things had been playing out, and he would be very glad to get back onto solid ground. He had no idea what he would do there of course, but he knew that he preferred solid ground to sky travel.

“I thought you might say that,” said Nuthea. “But I have a different proposition for you.”

“You do?” said the captain.

“You do?” said Ryn.

“I have learned things on my journey that I need to report at home. I demand that you fly me to Manolia as quickly as possible.”

This time the captain actually drew his sword with a ring of steel as his temper flared. Ryn and Nuthea both hopped back. “Look lady, I’m the one who does the demanding around here! I am the captain of this ship and I won’t be bossed around by some arrogant girl, princess or not!”

Electricity crackled around Nuthea again.

“Nuthea…” Ryn said, looking back and forth between them, “please, be careful.” He was tired of violence.

“You can’t rely on your party trick forever, wench!” the captain spat. “I have a few tricks of my own up my sleeve! Even if you kill me before I kill you, my crew will overwhelm you. They’re the fiercest band of cutthroats that you ever laid eyes on. They’ll gang up on you all at once. They’ll overpower you. They’ll murder you in your sleep. And I’ll bet you don’t know how to sail an airship!” he said finally, presumably as a last-ditch attempt to intimidate her into backing down.

Nuthea let out a deep breath and the sparks that had started to crackle around her disappeared.

“I know… That is why I am offering you a proposition: My homeland is very wealthy, and the royal family are wealthiest of all. Fly me back to Manolia, and I am sure you will be rewarded handsomely. With gold.”

Captain Sagar lowered his sword. “Gold, you say?”

“And gemstones.”

“Gemstones, you say?”

“Gemstones galore.”

“Beautiful women, you say?”

“There are many beautiful women in Manolia.”

I find it hard to believe they’re half as beautiful as you, Ryn thought, but he wasn’t stupid enough to say it out loud this time, to a princess.

 “I am sure,” Nuthea continued, “that my mother, the queen, will be very grateful to whoever rescues and returns their lost princess to her.”

The captain’s eyes had gone somewhere else. “Gold… gemstones… beautiful women…” He shook his head and his eyes refocused. “How can I be sure of all of this? What guarantee can you give me?”

“An understandable concern,” said Nuthea. “My power is a guarantee of my word, in more ways than one: Only Manolian royalty are Crystal-touched. But I appreciate that this is not common knowledge.”

At this, Nuthea tugged the collar of her faded-white dress, and reached down inside it with her other hand. Ryn felt himself blush and managed to look away. When he looked back, she had produced a very large golden coin—more of a medallion than a coin. Ryn had never seen such a valuable piece of currency before.

“Here,” she said, holding it out to the captain, “take this as a down payment and a guarantee of my good will. There will be much more like this, when you return me safely to Manolia.”

Sagar stepped towards her and took the coin, holding it up to his face and then biting it.

“Gold… gemstones… beautiful women…”

He looked at them again.

“Alright. You make a persuasive offer. I’ll do it. I’ll fly you to Manolia.”

“You’ve made the right decision.”

“I know. Could… could you please just do me one favour?”

“What would that be?” Nuthea asked.

“Could you tell the crew that I fought you and tortured you into surrendering to me, then ravished you?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve never heard anything so base and ridiculous in my life. And Ryn’s been here this whole time too.”

“You could say that I beat him unconscious?”

“Out of the question.”

“How about that I tied him up in the corner and made him watch?”

“No.”

“He cowered in the corner?”

“Look, said Nuthea. “Fine. If only to shut you up, I’ll tell them that you threatened me and that I gave in and offered you a reward if you took me back to Manolia. That’s sort of true, I suppose.”

“Done!” said the captain. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he added as they made their way back out onto the deck.