Rising by Patrick Sean Lee (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📖

We are descending through a thick layer of clouds. I am seated in the cockpit less than a foot away from Darra, my knife still firmly in hand. Despite his presence, the feeling inside me is light. The view through the windows takes my breath away. It’s incredible! Almost spiritual. For as far as I can see along the horizon through the broken whiteness, there is land running in a jagged line. It meanders in and out, and I am truly in awe. A month ago on my trip to Folly in a ship very like this one, I was blindfolded, bound, and gagged—saw nothing from that last moment inside the prison cell on Polit until I scraped the blindfold off my head when I landed in the net on the island shore. Despite the dangers lying ahead, hope rises. Below, my home approaches. Polit’s Black ghetto is down there.

To my left, the vista is broken by Darra’s head, but Skyscrapers are visible, stretching high into the sky just beyond a ribbon of wide roadway. Skirters—I think a few of the vehicles are—race north and south along it. Scads of smaller vehicles move in Polit orderliness in front of and behind them. Here and there a long freight hauler lumbers along at a slower pace.

Darra’s eyes are focused. His fingers push keys on the array of instrument panels. One after another. They light up red, but I have no idea what any of them does. Now he places one hand on the stubby T-handle poking up out of the console between us, pulls it backward a little. I feel a slowing sensation. We begin to slide downward.

He speaks. “Darra. Approaching Port 4. Clear all traffic immediately.”

Port 4? Our destination deep inside Polit? Oh no. We aren’t going there.

“Who are you talking to? Land in Black,” I say.

He doesn’t answer. He must be listening to some private voice coming through the headphone gadget he’s just attached over his head.

“No. Just me. Clear 4.”

He’s ignoring me!

I yank the headphones off him, raise the knife, and put it onto the side of his neck.

“I said Black.”

He turns his head to me. “We can’t land there. This craft requires a pad dedicated…” Matter-of-fact. Emotionless.

“Then you’ll crash land this craft. Get us into Black.”

Darra glares at me, his neatly trimmed silver eyebrows lowering. “You really want to die, don’t you Alana Bendrece?”

No, and I don’t intend to. Not yet, anyway. I turn the blade a tiny bit upward so that it forces the skin of his neck in, ready to break through it. He pulls backward to relieve the pressure, but I follow with the blade.

“Turn this thing. Bring us down in the dump if you have to. There’s enough room there. We’re not landing in the city.”

His gray eyes remain locked on mine. He says nothing, makes no move for longer than I am comfortable with, but finally he looks forward again, taps two keys, and then eases the handle forward. We begin to rise quickly.

“Sant!” I say without taking my eyes off Darra, “come up here.”

The Helicere responds to the controls semi-encircling this leader of Polit. The craft tips left. I see the city, the buildings, the roadways lolling slowly by beneath us through the window. I imagine his cronies down there are staring up, wondering what on earth is going on. The moment they figure it out, Black will be surrounded, and the gates blasted open for an invasion.

Sant arrives. His eyes are red at the corners, and he looks like he’s just been awakened.

“What?”

“We’re somewhere over Polit, headed for my home. How are my parents and Faerborn?”

“Asleep. They were, anyway. Faerborn is still throwing up.”

Poor Faerborn. He crawled into the Helicere frightened to death by the cramped interior, I remember. For Alana, I know he was thinking. If he could somehow squeeze his monstrous body in here and see the ground crawling by thousands of feet below us, I’m sure he’d pass out. Probably after throwing up anything left in his stomach.

Sant places a hand on my shoulder, cranes forward and looks out the window at the city down there crawling by us. “Wow. This is where you came from? It’s...it’s…” His voice trails off.

Darra, in the meantime, has been quietly pulling a harness around his body. It locks him in from the waist up to his shoulders in an intricate criss-cross. I hear the snap of a lock. Is he scared he’ll fall out of his cushiony seat because the ship is leaning so far sideways? That wouldn’t surprise me—they’re all bullies, but underneath everything they’re cowards.

“So many buildings!” Sant exclaims. “Where in that mess did you live? You said Black was walled in. I don’t see anyplace like that.”

“I think it’s that way,” I say pointing over Darra’s head. South, far away, I guess. And suddenly it hits me. Darra is playing for time. More gunships are probably taking off right now to escort us down to Port 4. Or slaughter us if we land inside Black…but how could they know we’re even on board? Did I go groggy in the past hours and let him send Polit a message? I don’t remember him talking at all over the past hours.

“You’d better be heading for Black…” I begin to raise the blade again to his throat, the sneaky louse. He reacts by pitching himself sideways as far as the harness will allow, as though he’s trying to get away from the razor-sharp edge. And then the ship tumbles in the same direction. My body slams into Sant’s. Both of us hit the low ceiling, then bang into the side windows. The back of my seat. Into Darra. Back to the ceiling. The ship is rolling over and over on itself!

I hear the deep, rumbling wail of Faerborn back in the cargo hold. The sound of Mother’s pained voice breaking into Faerborn’s. Sant is trying to find something to hold onto as we spin. I feel blood trickling down from my forehead. What did I hit?

I’ve lost the knife. I think I see Darra grinning, reaching behind him for something, but nothing is clear.

 He has it. Darra found the knife! He has brought the craft upright once again, and I think we’ve banked right, heading back in the direction we were headed a moment ago. I am sprawled out on my back behind the seat, half of Sant beneath me. I think he’s out cold. He's not moving, anyway.

Darra is struggling to get free of the harness while still maintaining control of the knife. Talking out loud into the tiny dot of a microphone attached to the headset he somehow managed to get back on as we spun. More shouts and cries from the hold. It takes every drop of effort I can squeeze to get to my feet so that I can wrestle the knife from Darra. I’d use my palms, but the image of him and the sidewall of the cabin blowing out make me stuff that thought.

He sees me ratcheting myself up, and responds by using the hand not on the control things to jab it outward at me, the blade catching a glint of sunlight.

Oh Sant, wake up! Help me! 

He doesn’t move.

Now Darra is looking back and forth frantically from the instrument keypads stretched out on the cluster in front of him, over to me, using five fingers of his left hand to hurriedly type something on one of them whenever his eyes and head flash to it.

“Sit down, Benedrece, or I swear I’ll put the ship into a nosedive,” Darra says.

I hesitate. Wonder if I should leap across the space dividing us onto him and…what? Take the knife into my stomach? But no. He’s bluffing. He doesn’t have the courage to commit suicide, and neither do I. Somehow I have to think of another way to stop him. Think. Think.

Act!

I lurch forward and slam my hands onto the keys of the instrument panel. In an instant a dozen red lights pop to life. The ship once again begins to rock and spin. Darra screams a curse.

“You IDIOT!”

He instinctively lets loose of the knife. Uses all ten fingers to try to undo the damage I’ve done. I’m hanging onto his neck with both arms for all I’m worth, trying to keep hold of the anchor that will prevent me from banging into the ceiling and everything else in here.

We’re headed straight down. Only for a matter of seconds, though. Darra’s fingers race across the keys desperately. Now he yanks the T-handle and pushes it forward. The Helicere responds. It stabilizes. We begin to climb once again. My chance.

The knife has landed in his lap, miraculously, and before he can react, I let go of his neck, grab hold of it, and wrench it up onto his jugular.

“One more time. Black.” I am shaking. My words sound anemic to me. I am tired of killing, but I want to relieve my fear and tension by slitting his throat.

Not an option.

Faerborn has come to life again back there. A constant roar of confusion and fear. I wish I could rip the knife sideways. I wish I could leave for just a minute and go to him. But I know he can’t be hurt. For the sake of the gods, he fell out of a tree on Folly from thirty feet up, and then just shook his head clear and stood up!

I glance over my shoulder. Sant has landed, this time back against the wall, almost in a sitting position, and his eyes are open!

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Whaaa?”

I keep the knife firmly on Darra’s throat, the fingers of my other hand buried in his hair, pulling his head backward.

“Try to get into the chair. Put the harness on. Darra’s going to get us to Black,” I say. “Aren’t you, Darra.”

“Go to the demons, you little bitch. Your sisters are dead.”

“Then so are you.” I slide the knife sideways an inch; enjoy the feel of it breaking skin.

“All right, all right! Damn you!”

And I thought Marcus was scum.

                                    ***

Sant has crawled into the other padded seat and locked himself in. We seem to be heading away from the city toward Black, but I can’t be absolutely sure. We’re cruising pretty much level. That’s a relief anyway. I try to orient our direction by the sun. Yes, I think south. Through the windows I see two Heliceres rise slowly up beside us on our right. Two more on our left. We’re going to have company when we land.

I hand the knife to Sant.

“Keep an eye on this snake. If he does anything other than fly straight forward, stick him.”

Don’t kill him, though. Just hurt him.

I need to go back and find out how badly Mother and Father have been injured. More important—forgive me gods—see how rattled dear Faerborn is. I can only imagine.

It smells terrible. Faerborn is sitting against one wall, his head drooping onto his furry knees, his mighty arms clasping them. He’s whimpering. There is vomit all over him and