Ryn collapsed on the grass, and lay on his back, panting deeply, looking up at the canopy above him, though he barely took it in.

The others hit the ground too and breathed hard like they’d just come up for air from having almost drowned.

They all lay there for Ryn did not know how long, breathing and looking up at the trees.

At some point Sagar passed round a flask from somewhere about his person. It stang Ryn’s throat, and he guessed it was rum, but he didn’t care about the pain--it was good just to drink something.

After a long time, their breathing slowed. One by one they got to their feet, with difficulty. Elrann. Sagar. Nuthea. And Ryn.

In the distance, they could still hear the faint sounds of explosions and people crying out in distress.

They looked at each other without saying anything, holding silent counsel. Elrann’s bottom lip was wobbling slightly. Sagar’s face was red and his exposed eye had a manic, bloodshot look. Nuthea was still white as a sheet.

Cannonball-shocked, Ryn supposed. She had stayed so calm when the airship they had been imprisoned on had been attacked. But she had thought that her ‘countrywomen’ were coming to rescue her then. And this time, it wasn’t just an airship that had been attacked, but a whole city. And she had lost her means of transportation back to her homeland.

“Come with me,” said Sagar, breaking the silence at last. “There’s a clearing further up this hill, not far from here, with good views of the city. Not many people know about it.”

He turned and left. Ryn looked at the women for a moment, and then they followed Sagar.

Now they were safe, or at least they hoped they were safe, they were able to take the walk up the wooded hill much more slowly. Ryn’s breath still came in ragged gasps, and his legs ached something awful, not to mention his lungs, his chest and his head. But at least he was able to walk.

In time, the thin, gangly trees parted and, sure enough, revealed a sloped clearing. Sagar had led them well. How does he know this place? Ryn wondered. A short trek up, and they were able to sit and look down on the leafy wood they had just hiked through, and beyond it at the slums, the industrial quarter, the airfield and the burning city of Ast, wreathed in black smoke, with no less than twelve black airships hovering over her. People moved about it or streamed away from it like ants fleeing a flaming anthill. Beyond that, the grey soil faded into a sandy crescent, and beyond that the blue of the Leviathan’s Channel could still be glimpsed glittering in the morning sunshine, a beautiful backdrop to the scene of terror and destruction before it.

“What do we do now?” Ryn said to all the others, but while looking at Sagar, him being the former owner of their most recent means of travel.

Sagar didn’t respond. He sat still as a statue on the grass, staring at something. Ryn followed his gaze.

Through the smoke coming from the airfield, unmistakable from its size and brown timber, Wanderlust had begun to ascend to join the Imperial airships.

Sagar’s ship.

Sagar’s former ship.

Soldiers in black plate armour were moving around on the deck.

Sagar’s cheek had begun to twitch.

“I’ll…” said Sagar. “I’ll...KILL THEM!”

He jumped up from where they lay on the grass and made as if to dash back down the hill towards the rising ship, but Nuthea grabbed one of his arms and held him back. Catching on, Ryn followed suit and grabbed the other. Together they wrestled him to the grass and held him down as he wriggled and kicked.

“Don’t be foolish, Captain Sagar,” chided Nuthea. “They’ve taken off! You can’t possibly get back on board now, even with your gift. Anyway, there’s a whole legion of them up there. You might dispatch one or two more soldiers but they would soon overwhelm you. Do not throw your life away.”

Sagar went still again buried his face in the grass. Ryn shared an anxious glance with Nuthea.

After a moment, the skypirate’s shoulders began to convulse. They tremored gently at first, then shook with violence. A gasp escaped his lips.

“My ship…” Sagar breathed where they held him. “My home… My crew… They’ve taken all of it… They’ve taken everything…”

Now you know how I feel, thought Ryn, but he held himself back from saying it. Mother. Father. Hometown.

Sagar went still again. Ryn and Nuthea released their grip and knelt next to him, judging he was not about to try to run off again.

For a long moment there was only the sound of the wind tickling their ears, the brightness of the warm afternoon sunshine, and the mess of smoke and shapes in the city below them.

Then Sagar said “What do we do now?” into the grass, echoing Ryn’s question. Ryn noticed that he said ‘we’, not ‘I’.

“What we do now,” said Nuthea, entirely confidently, “is we carry on traveling to Manolia. I need to return to my homeland as soon as possible in order to tell my people what the Empire is seeking.”

Sagar raised his face. His eye was red and his cheeks puffy; his mouth set in a canine-bearing snarl. “No. What we do now is put together a new crew, go and get revenge on those murderous bastards and win back my ship.”

“It’s an admirable idea,” granted Nuthea, with a condescending nod of her head, “but you’ve got to look at the bigger picture, Captain. I know it’s difficult for you to comprehend this right now, I fully understand,”--Ryn did not think that she fully understood Sagar’s emotional state, or that her tone conveyed that she did--“but my mission is even more important than you avenging your fallen comrades and getting your ship back. Where do you think you will be able to find a whole new crew all of a sudden? What will you pay them with? Doing all that would waste valuable time, time that we don’t have. The future of Imfis, the future even of the whole of Mid, is at stake.”

“The whole of Mid?” said Elrann, puzzlement contorting her face. “Why would that be?”

Ryn, Nuthea and Sagar all stared at her.

“What are you still even doing with us, woman?” said Sagar. “You don’t need to be here. You can go your own way now.”

The purple-haired engineer bit her lip and looked at the ground. “I… I was making my living by working in Roldo’s airfield. I had other contacts, and contracts, in Ast, but I don’t think that they’re going to be available any more…” She looked up. Her face looked younger. “What’s happening? Why did the Morekemians attack the city? And what’s this about the whole of Mid being in danger?”

All eyes fell on Nuthea.

“Talk,” said Sagar.

“I just need you to escort me to Manolia as quickly as possible--”

“Talk,” said Sagar.

Ryn felt a little defensive of her at that, but he wanted to hear more from Nuthea too. A faint idea of what was going on was forming in his mind, but she would confirm it…

Nuthea sighed. “Fine. You skypirates really are a most impatient bunch. If you must know--”

“We must,” said Sagar.

“If you must know, I have reason to believe that the Emperor of Morekemia has become aware of the existence of the twelve Primeval Jewels and has begun searching for them in order to gain the power to extend his Empire and to conquer the whole of Mid. I would not be surprised if this attack on Ast in Imfis is the beginning of an invasion of the whole of Dokan. Now that he knows about them, he will stop at nothing until he finds all of them. I must return to Manolia to warn my people, since they hold the Lightning Crystal, and are the stewards of much lore about the Jewels. I imagine that the Emperor will turn his attention to them soon, if not next.”

“Huh?” said Elrann, confusion twisting up her features. “What’s this? Twelve Jewels?”

“Yes. Twelve Primeval Jewels that bestow powers of elemental projection on people who touch them. Ryn here is Ruby-touched, like I explained to you in the inn we stayed at last night. I am Crystal-touched, which is why I can project lightning. I apologise for not revealing this to you earlier. I only wanted to reveal it if I absolutely had to… Although, it seems I am not the only one who has been concealing their powers of elemental projection…” She gave Sagar a pointed look.

Something itched at Ryn’s memory. Now that they were out of Ast and safe, they hoped, for the time being at least, recent events were catching up to him. “That’s right!” he said when he remembered. “Where did that gust of wind that saved me from Vorr’s sword come from?” He turned to Sagar. “How did you do that?”

The captain folded his arms and looked away into the distance, towards his former airship, which had joined the Imperial fleet and was now moving east.

“I assume,” Nuthea said to Sagar, “that you are Shell-touched. You have touched the Wind Shell. You have powers of air projection. And I don’t just mean the hot air that comes out of your mouth…” she added more quietly. Ryn’s eyebrows raised. A rare joke from Nuthea.

“So what if I am…” mumbled Sagar, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.

“But how did you come to be?” asked Nuthea. “Ryn’s town were secretly harbouring the Fire Ruby, unbeknownst to him. I have touched the Lightning Crystal because I am Manolian royalty.” She held her head up a little higher. “But you...how did you come into contact with the Wind Shell of Imfis?”

Sagar’s head whipped round. “That’s my business!” he snapped, spraying spittle. “You stay out of my affairs, princess! What does it mean to you?”

Nuthea held out her hand, and some sparks fizzed at her fingertips. Ryn couldn’t tell if she was being angry or just passionate.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “It means everything! Ryn and I ended up on the same Imperial skyship, both of us Jewel-touched, and then we met you! And it turns out you’re Jewel-touched too! The One must have brought us together as part of His purpose! Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if our engineer here had elemental projection powers too…”

Elrann stuck her tongue in her cheek and frowned deeply.

Sagar shook his head at Nuthea. “You’re not a follower of that ridiculous religion of Oneism, are you?”

“All Manolian royalty are. And it’s not ridiculous.”

“Yes it is,” said Sagar. “There ain’t no ‘One’, princess, or any god that’s real. We haven’t been brought together for any kind of ‘purpose’. We were brought together by random chance. Dumb luck. There’s plenty of people with elemental projection out there, if you look hard enough.”

“No, there aren’t,” said Nuthea. “Believe me; I’ve looked. This is the work of the One.”

“Oh don’t give me that b--”

“Wait,” Ryn interrupted. He had remembered something else. “When Nuthea and I fell out of the Imperial airship we were imprisoned on...a sudden gust of wind pushed us on to your ship. That was you as well, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe,” said Sagar defensively.

“Of course it was him,” said Nuthea, eyes flashing. “How else could it have happened? Why did you do it?” she challenged the captain.

“You didn’t look like Imperial soldiers,” said Sagar, “and I wanted to find out who you were. And how partial to skypirates you were.” He grinned lasciviously. “What of it?”

“You saved us, without realising it, at the prompting of The One.”

“It wasn’t no ‘One’, lady!” said Sagar, dropping the ‘princess’. “I’m telling you was just dumb luck!”

“Ah, well that’s a double negative,” said Nuthea. “If it wasn’t ‘no One’ it must have been Some One. The One.”

“Rrrr.” Sagar put a hand over his face.

“Er, ’scuse me,” said Elrann. She had put up a hand.

“What?” said Nuthea and Sagar at the same time.

“Who is this ‘One’ you’re talking about? I’ve always worshiped Yntrik, the god of metal. I’ve never heard of a ‘One’ god. And where did these ‘Jewels’ you’re talking about come from, anyhow? I don’t think you mentioned that last night.”

Nuthea slipped easily back into lecture mode. “The One is the One True God. He is not the god of anything in particular, but of everything in general. He made the whole world--the whole of Mid. He doesn’t live in human walls or temples, but beyond the world. One day it is prophesied he will enter it, at its greatest hour of need. At the beginning of time, when The One made Mid, he made the twelve Primeval Jewels, as a gift for us, to bless the world with. But we humans sought to use them for our own power, to dominate others, so The One scattered them to the twelve corners of the nations. The prophecy, held to by my people and by all followers of the One, says that if someone were to gather all twelve of the Jewels together, they would be granted unlimited, unfathomable power. That is why we must warn my people that the Emperor has learned of the Jewels, and is seeking them.”

At last she finished. Ryn had heard most of it before. He looked at Elrann to check her reaction.

Elrann’s mouth hung slightly open. “And you really believe that, do you?” she said.

“Of course she doesn’t!” said Sagar. “It’s just a fairytale Manolians tell their whelps to get them to go to sleep! The Jewels are just part of the world. They’re just there, and that’s all there’s to it. In fact, there’s probably not more than three, anyway. We’ve only got proof of three: Fire, Lightning and Wind. There probably aren’t even any more, and there’s definitely no ‘One’. Or any ‘real’ god.”

Ryn pondered Sagar’s words in the silence they left as Nuthea bowed her head, evidently disappointed in the captain’s atheism. He had always been dutiful in paying tribute to Imkala, the frog-god of his hometown, which was built near some marshes, but the Empire destroying his hometown had blown Imkala out of the water. He hadn’t thought of him once since that day. He had seen no reason to.

Now Nuthea and Sagar were presenting with him two new, very different options: So Nuthea believed in this “One” god, a god who made the whole of Mid, and didn’t just belong to one part of it, but to all of it, a god of all the other gods. But Sagar didn’t seem to believe in any god at all. Who was right? To be honest, at the moment Sagar’s beliefs seemed a lot more...realistic. They seemed more likely to be true. That said, Ryn would prefer it if Nuthea’s ideas were true and there really was a ‘One God’ who was looking out for them and orchestrating everything behind the scenes… But just because he would prefer them to be true didn’t mean they were true, did it? And there couldn’t really be a god of gods, could there?

“If there’s a One God,” Ryn spoke up into the silence, “why doesn’t he just come down here right now and stop the Emperor from getting all these Jewels himself?”

“The One works in mysterious ways,” said Nuthea straight away like she was repeating a memorised phrase. “He prefers to work through his followers than to intervene directly. But it is prophesied that one day he will come down to Mid himself to save it, in its greatest hour of need.”

“Poodoo,” said Sagar.

Nuthea held her jaw shut and sighed through her nose. “You are being very rude, Captain Sagar. If you wish to part ways at this point because of our different beliefs, I will not oppose you.”

Sagar’s face suddenly switched from smirkish derision to open-mouthed protest. “Now hold on, princess, I didn’t say that! All I was saying was that your god was a load of nonsense! I didn’t say anything about parting ways.” His eyes ranged over the rapidly burning buildings of Ast and the airships, now growing smaller, making their way across the sky further east and inland. “My wings are clipped without my ship...and my crew……. But if I still succeed in escorting you back to Manolia, will your ‘people’ or whatever still reward me?”

“I am sure.”

“With enough gold to buy a new airship, or have one built?”

“With enough gold to have several new airships built, I imagine.”

“And with beautiful women?”

“I’ve told you. There are many beautiful women in Manolia.”

“Then I’m taking you to Manolia.”

Nuthea’s eyelids fluttered, but she allowed him this choice of phrase without correcting him.

“Ryn?” Nuthea turned to him.

“I want to find that Imperial Officer again and kill him.” Ryn said it as a bare fact, simply voicing his thoughts aloud.

“Well,” said Nuthea, nodding at the airships, “they are heading east, and Manolia is in that direction anyway. If the Emperor of Morekemia knows what I think he does, I imagine he will be despatching his very best officers to Manolia very soon, if he hasn’t already. Vorr may be among them. I need to beat them back to my homeland, however possible. We may need to...commandeer another vehicle somehow, but that is the direction that I am heading too. At least we will get a head start on Vorr when he soon discovers that the ship he has stolen is damaged and has to stop to repair it.”

As if prompted by Nuthea’s words, at that moment Wanderlust began to descend, breaking away from the fleet of black Imperial airships. It was still moving east, and moving to land far away, out of sight, but it was clearly descending.

“I will come with you until I find him, or find a way to find him again,” said Ryn, his eyes boring hatred into the shrinking shape of Wanderlust. He also wanted to stay at Nuthea’s side, but he didn’t say that part out loud. Mother, he thought. Father. Hometown. Find Vorr. Get Vorr. Kill Vorr. And now his mind also added, Stay with Nuthea?

“Er,” said Elrann. Ryn started. He had forgotten she was still with them too. “Do you mind if I tag along for a while as well? I was lodging in Ast but I’m not from Imfis originally, ya see, so I’m at a bit of loose end… I’ve never been in a country when it’s been invaded before, and I’m not really sure what to do…” She smiled, closing her eyes.

“Of course, my good lady,” said Nuthea. “If we ever succeed in commandeering another airship or some other kind of steam-vehicle, the services of an engineer will be most valuable to us. Boys?”

“No problem with me,” said Ryn.

“Whatever,” said Sagar, and spat. “The woman can come, I suppose.”

“Then let us set out,” said Nuthea, and they did.