The Gospel According to Verdu (a Steampunk Novel) (The Brofman Series) by Emilie P. Bush Page B
Authors: Emilie P. Bush
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all she could think was, Some savior I am . As best she could figure, she had freed exactly no one from the yoke of the empire. In fact ,she thought , it’s my fault that Verdu is now captive there. How many in the resistance have forfeited their lives because of me? So many heads on pikes . . .
She looked back on all that she had seen and all that, she felt in her heart, she had caused, and she could not count the atrocities. For the people who’d waited for her, she led them only from hope to suffering. Why didn’t they realize she was a fraud?
It seemed only like moments to her, but when she opened her eyes and pulled herself from the in-between place, all was dark. The shock of the change was almost as sharp as the bite of the cold water as she dropped back into the sea. She gasped as her thoughts scattered and her muscles seized with cold.
She heard what sounded like a child calling, “Papa! Papa!” and some other indistinguishable words very close behind her. She jerked herself around and saw a long metal boat slicing silently through the water. There was a small boy, perhaps six years old, maybe a little older, shouting from the rail to someone she could not see.
“Help!” she called. Her voice cracked with dryness, she coughed and tried again. “Help!”
Others appeared on the deck of the fast ship. The men were first, followed quickly by a number of children of various ages and a few women. The boy who had called for his papa gesticulated wildly in Chenda’s direction. She could see the men squinting into the darkness, looking for what the boy was trying to point out. She could tell from their faces that they did not see her, and could not hear her weak shouts. Splashing around, she hoped she might get their attention, but the darkness was too thick, swallowing the sounds. She thought about reaching out with her power and pulling the ship to her, but it was a big boat, and rather far away, and she was not sure she could do it while shivering in spasms.
Then it hit her: if she could not push the boat closer to her . . .
She grabbed at the water around her with her power and imagined a geyser. A second later she shot into the air in a froth of seawater. She landed just short of the ship. The sound of that giant splash, and the subsequent swish of the displaced water against the hull, would be hard to dismiss. She called again as her momentum carried her under the surface of the sea, her voice gurgling up in bubbles from below the surface. Bobbing back up, she saw the ship drop its sails and come about. Chatter in a language she did not understand filled the air as a rope with a ball float on the end splashed into the water just past her. She thrashed closer to the rope, feeling through the water with both hands and her mind. When her fingers touched it, she clutched it for all she was worth.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” she yelled over and over until she finally felt tension on the line and her body being pulled toward the ship. She cackled with relief as several hands grasped her and pulled her from the sea.
Martyr was a word that Verdu particularly liked. It flowed off the tongue, he thought. He liked it in all three languages in which he was fluent. In the hours and days following his writing binge, he felt fairly certain that martyrdom was his destiny, and he was remarkably comfortable with that. The punishment for his crime against the empire, preaching the return of the Pramuc, was predictable to the point of being passé. A few times he even wondered how his head would look on the pike, thinking once that he hoped the cut from the executioner’s blade would be nice and high; he hated the thought of his head flopping askew on a too-long stub of neck.
He marveled at his own morbid thinking. For a while, he considered how easy it was to give up his whole life now that it felt so complete. It hardly mattered to him, locked away as he was in a cell with his body broken and no hope of a
She looked back on all that she had seen and all that, she felt in her heart, she had caused, and she could not count the atrocities. For the people who’d waited for her, she led them only from hope to suffering. Why didn’t they realize she was a fraud?
It seemed only like moments to her, but when she opened her eyes and pulled herself from the in-between place, all was dark. The shock of the change was almost as sharp as the bite of the cold water as she dropped back into the sea. She gasped as her thoughts scattered and her muscles seized with cold.
She heard what sounded like a child calling, “Papa! Papa!” and some other indistinguishable words very close behind her. She jerked herself around and saw a long metal boat slicing silently through the water. There was a small boy, perhaps six years old, maybe a little older, shouting from the rail to someone she could not see.
“Help!” she called. Her voice cracked with dryness, she coughed and tried again. “Help!”
Others appeared on the deck of the fast ship. The men were first, followed quickly by a number of children of various ages and a few women. The boy who had called for his papa gesticulated wildly in Chenda’s direction. She could see the men squinting into the darkness, looking for what the boy was trying to point out. She could tell from their faces that they did not see her, and could not hear her weak shouts. Splashing around, she hoped she might get their attention, but the darkness was too thick, swallowing the sounds. She thought about reaching out with her power and pulling the ship to her, but it was a big boat, and rather far away, and she was not sure she could do it while shivering in spasms.
Then it hit her: if she could not push the boat closer to her . . .
She grabbed at the water around her with her power and imagined a geyser. A second later she shot into the air in a froth of seawater. She landed just short of the ship. The sound of that giant splash, and the subsequent swish of the displaced water against the hull, would be hard to dismiss. She called again as her momentum carried her under the surface of the sea, her voice gurgling up in bubbles from below the surface. Bobbing back up, she saw the ship drop its sails and come about. Chatter in a language she did not understand filled the air as a rope with a ball float on the end splashed into the water just past her. She thrashed closer to the rope, feeling through the water with both hands and her mind. When her fingers touched it, she clutched it for all she was worth.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” she yelled over and over until she finally felt tension on the line and her body being pulled toward the ship. She cackled with relief as several hands grasped her and pulled her from the sea.
Martyr was a word that Verdu particularly liked. It flowed off the tongue, he thought. He liked it in all three languages in which he was fluent. In the hours and days following his writing binge, he felt fairly certain that martyrdom was his destiny, and he was remarkably comfortable with that. The punishment for his crime against the empire, preaching the return of the Pramuc, was predictable to the point of being passé. A few times he even wondered how his head would look on the pike, thinking once that he hoped the cut from the executioner’s blade would be nice and high; he hated the thought of his head flopping askew on a too-long stub of neck.
He marveled at his own morbid thinking. For a while, he considered how easy it was to give up his whole life now that it felt so complete. It hardly mattered to him, locked away as he was in a cell with his body broken and no hope of a
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