“You’re the…” Lina’s recognition coalesced into words. “From the rave.”
“Yes, Your Highness, I am,” the woman responded with quick, clipped words. “And now we’ve got to go. Right now.”
“Why do you keep calling me—?” But Lina’s words were lost as her mentor and the other diploid women sandwiched Lina between their bodies and hustled her to an exit that had not yet been cordoned off by the ever increasing number of soldiers flooding the scene.
“Where’s Arabel?” Lina asked.
“Safe,” was the only answer she got.
Lina’s head pounded, either from the mixture of intoxicants still whirling around her system, or the concussive force of the explosion that was enough to blow a hole in the palace roof, or both. She decided to take the women at their word, not having the strength to mount an argument. She dragged herself along. Limping and stumbling, she followed her mentor and this mysterious whirling woman from the area as quickly as she could.
After tripping three times in the first set of tunnels, Lina found herself wrapped in the arms of the diploid raver woman, nestled in among her dangling bracelets—the woman Lina had last seen twirling and carefree—who was now clutching Lina to her breast and rushing headlong through tunnels leading to the surface. Mentor was still there, keeping pace and shouting at people to make way for an injured child.
Lina smirked just a little. The injured child was supposed to be her. It was one of the few times that Lina was thankful for her diminutive size. She did her best to look injured, letting her head loll about just a little and making her eyes go unfocused. It worked. People stepped aside, and the trio was not impeded on their way. Not even the soldiers questioned them, though they seemed to be busy looking for someone in the crowd. The rebels who blew a gaping hole in the Queen’s Gala, no doubt.
Lina’s thoughts paused for a moment. She looked up at the diploid woman carrying her and then to the face of her own mentor, the woman she had known for years. Or thought she had. “Mentor, are you with the—?”
“Questions later,” Mentor hissed. “Right now, we need to get you to safety.”
The trio bounded through the last tunnel and into the open air of the docks before Lina was allowed to stand on her own two feet again. She spied Arabel, standing by Mentor’s cloud skimmer, furiously working the bellows. The skimmer’s air bladders were just beginning to float on their own and Arabel’s sweat-soaked face was already glowing bright red.
“Get in!” Lina’s mentor shouted. Her words were directed at Arabel.
“You, too” she said to Lina, as she threw her arms around Lina’s shoulders, randomly scenting love, courage, sadness, defiance. “Go.” She held Lina at arm’s length and turned her to face the cloud skimmer.
“But Mentor,” Lina said. “It’s only designed for one, two at the most, but only because I’m small. With you and Arabel and…”
Lina let her voice trail off. She heard the thudding of boots and stared wide-eyed at the squad of approaching soldiers, their truncheons unsheathed. She understood. With a final shove from her mentor, and a shrill beckoning from Arabel, Lina stumbled toward the waiting cloud skimmer, tripping over the side plank and tumbling in head first. By the time she had herself righted again, kneeling on the deck, Arabel had already pushed them away from the pier and into the clouds.
Lina screamed helplessly as the events on shore began to unfold before her eyes. The advancing squad of soldiers never stopped, even though the cloud skimmer was now catching the wind and hopelessly out of range of any projectile thrown by any but the strongest arm. Lina winced at the echoing sound of boot heels as she watched her mentor and the diploid woman turn, their hands clenched into fists and raised high in the air, standing alone against the oncoming attack.
Lina screamed again as the first truncheon was swung and found its target on Mentor’s right temple. The entire scene took place in slow motion. The blood splatter appeared to Lina as individual droplets, organizing themselves in a pattern of concentric circles, flowing ever outward until they painted the face of the raver woman at Mentor’s side.
A second truncheon was swung.
Lina was on her feet now, screaming for the soldiers to stop.
The sickening sound of crunching bone traveled over the air, and with it the image of Mentor’s crumpled body collapsing on the pier, and the thud of her head against stone.
The raver woman’s body, now oozing life from a gash across her face, fell on top of Mentor’s.
Lina screamed again, this time vaguely aware of Arabel’s arms around her waist, urging her to sit down. Lina collapsed to her knees in an ungraceful maneuver that shook the old craft to its very core. She hung her head over the side, and promptly vomited into the clouds.
* * * *
“How long have I been out?” Lina asked.
“A while.”
“Mentor and the twirling woman?”
Arabel said nothing. For a long time neither did Lina.
“Since when do you know how to sail?” Lina asked.
“Since just now. Your mentor said to keep the sun at my back and go until we came to the next land mass. She showed me how to work the main sails to steer, but with the wind at our backs, it’s mostly been for minor corrections. I was hoping maybe you knew more.” Arabel sighed. She put a hand on Lina’s forearm. “I’m sorry about your mentor.”
Lina sat up and rested her head against Arabel’s shoulder for a brief moment of comfort. She then turned herself toward the side deck and promptly vomited into the clouds.
Arabel pulled a bota bag of water from the small storage compartment. “Remember which one is yours,” she said. “I don’t think I want to share with you after that.”
Lina tried to laugh, but nothing came out.
“There’s some kind of fruit in
