CHAPTER 9
Vilified
The ship was empty, lifeless. Cold and quiet filled with a dread that emanated only from Maija who sat at the very top of one of its sails, just barely peeking above the layer of void cloud that marked the bottom of her world. The gray area between light and total death had quickly become a safe area to hide from her constant pursuers. And now she needed to find them.
So far, New Unity had yet to discover Maija again. Or at least chase after her. Kaius could be lurking around every corner and the only thing she could do to get his attention is to be as obvious as possible. Make herself known if she wasn't already. She doubted it would take long for Kaius to put a bounty on her head. For all she knew, all she had to do was walk into the nearest populated island and be put right into Kaius's hands.
But she didn't want that. If Maija was going to give herself over to Kaius for even just a second, it was to be on her own terms. She used the strip of red cloth torn off her clothes such a long time ago and wrapped it around the lower half of her face several times before pulling the hood over her hair which was wrapped back up into a flat bun at the back of her head.
The ship lifted, rugged stone becoming visible even through the fog of the void. Within moments of leaving the void, Maija was met by a platform for docking ships in front of a run down, old looking town made from dark wood, shacks barely standing on their foundations. The entire island was halfway sunken into the void giving it an eerie, almost dead look. Maija didn't bother to dock her ship, she wouldn't be away from it for long.
She hopped off the ship, the wooden dock now below her feet shaking from impact. There were a few people on the island working on different tasks, some lifting wooden crates, others pulling large thick ropes across the open space between the harbor and the rest of town. They all stopped to look at her, wide eyed and almost in shock.
"What's the problem here?" Maija shouted, her voice muffled by the mask but still echoing through town. "Never seen another person before?"
They quickly scurred back to their tasks, some tripping over ropes or ledges, attending to their chores as if eagerly wanting to be finished with them just to get away from her.
Why were these people so frantic? Sure, this island wasn't visited very often- any island that had sunken into the void was almost embargoed by other cities. Maija was surprised that these people even managed to survive down here. If anything, they should be welcoming her, trying their best to get any pigment they could from her. Maybe even a drop of water.
A man stepped out from the crown. His hair and beard were white and face old and wrinkly, but he moved towards Maija quickly and confidently. He smiled at her, his face emanating warmth and genuine reception.
"Welcome," he said in a gravely but soft voice. "Pardon my friends' lack of hospitality, they aren't used to visitors- in fact we haven't gotten one in years. Come, while our island Cloudtop is usually shunned by our neighboring islands, we've got some excellent cooks. And besides, it will give you time to explain to me why you're here."
"That won't be necessary," Maija said. She stood straighter, mustering her courage. "My name is Maija Rae."
The man's smiled turned. It didn't vanish but his face grew colder the longer her looked at her. "I know who you are."
"Then you already know why I'm here."
"You want safe harborage from Kaius and his army?"
She slowly shook her head, "I need to find him. And I know you can take me there."
The man put his hands behind his back and slowly stepped towards Maija, the people from before watching closely. Maija let her hands hang at her side, resisting the urge to grab her bow or even just an arrow for protection.
"Although isolated," the man started, "we've heard reports about islands being cast down into the void with nothing more than the power of light. Have you heard anything about this?"
"Yes. Kaius has the power to sink islands using some kind of ancient technology. He needs to be stopped. Tell me where he is, and I will make sure nothing else comes to the islands of Foundation."
He laughed a laugh devoid of humor. "Rumor has it, Kaius had nothing to do with these attacks. That a woman named 'Maija' with no family working with a group called Cliffside were behind these acts of terrorism. Know anything about that?"
"What?" Maija couldn't hide the surprise from her voice. She couldn't help but stutter. "No wait but, I was-."
The people around her had gotten closer, each one of them carrying different kinds of bladed weapons. One even with a spear. Maija drew her bow and pulled the string back but there were too many targets, each person with angry looks on their faces, all getting increasingly closer and closer to her.
"Kaius wants you alive," the man said in a loud, triumphant voice. "I don't plan on letting him. He will bring unity to this decrepit land with or without you. But all I know is that you will pay for those thousands of innocent lives you heartlessly took."
Maija released her bowstring, the arrow silently zipping through the air, striking the man in the shoulder. He cried out and fell backwards. There were three other men now shouting, running towards her. She had enough time to fire another killing shot at one of them before another man grabbed the bow from her hand and threw it to the ground.
The man closest had a knife clutched in his hands. He slashed it at her, grunting with each swing. Maija jumped back, dodging all but the tail end of his swing, the razor-sharp blade cutting through her shoulder.
Doing her best to ignore the pain, Maija focused on the man in front of her while still pay attention to the other's movements. The man behind stabbed with his spear, the blade barely missing. Maija grabbed to his wrist, pulled his body forwards and threw him at the man in front. He jumped to the side, heartlessly letting his companion fall to the ground behind him. He immediately lurched forwards, stabbing at Maija.
Pushing her leg forwards, Maija wrapped the toe end of her foot around the back of the man's leg and pulled back. He stumbled but caught himself, lowering the knife and instead jabbing with his fist. The punch landed against Maija's jaw. She felt something crack as stars shot across her vision.
She tripped back, stunned as she gingerly touched the side of her face. Makhai had taught her how to defend herself in almost every way. Never could he have shown her was it felt like to take a punch. She had been smacked in the face several times by mostly inanimate things. Large tree branches, loose pieces of metal, sometimes stone. There was nothing like the pinpoint accuracy of a human fist.
The man tackled her to the ground, now bringing the knife to her throat. Maija grabbed to his wrist and pushed away both against his arm and with her body, trying her best to lift her back from the ground. She shouted as his strength overwhelmed her. He was far stronger than she was and with each second, the silver knife got closer and closer to her throat.
Then the second man appeared in her peripheral vision. He rounded back, readying his spear to stab. Maija was pinned down, there was little she could do. The man yelled as he pushed the spear forwards. Maija screamed and let her body fall, her back slamming against the ground as the sound of metal through flesh ripped through her ears. She cringed, bile climbing its way up her throat.
But she felt no pain, the man above her screamed and went limp. Maija pushed him off and jumped up at the man who was still in shock having accidently stabbed his friend. She grabbed an arrow from her quiver and quickly stuck it through his stomach. He stepped back, his blood coating Maija's hand with a disgusting warmth. Taking her arrow with him, he fell back landing with a thud on the ground.
Maija panted, slowly and stiffly picking the man's spear from the ground. The adrenaline exhausted her, but she couldn't rest. She didn't think she could rest ever again. She ripped the mask from her face, letting the red cloth hanging down across her chest, finally able to breathe again. So, Kaius had framed her for his own crimes. She shouldn't have been surprised but it made as much sense as anything else.
But the old man was still alive. Groaning from the ground, the first man was struggling to pull the arrow Maija had shot at him from his shoulder. She stepped up to him, looking down now with a bow and spear attached to her back, a bleeding wound across her shoulder and a hand covered in someone else's blood. Maija grabbed the feather end of the arrow and slowly pushed it farther and farther into the man's flesh.
"Where is Kaius."
His face was frozen, pain in his eyes but he forced everything to keep it hidden. "I won't tell you."
"Tell me where he is! Why are you trying to protect him?" Maija screamed, pulling the arrow clean out. This time the man whimpered.
"You can run from Kaius," the man said, struggling to speak. "You can run right to him, but you will never kill him. He will bring this world to peace, and nothing will stand in his way, not even you."
His head fell back, and calm settled over his face as the life left him. Maija stood, throwing the arrow down to the ground. She couldn't go anywhere now. Within a few days, she had gone from the least important person in the world to the most hated one. Word spread fast and now every sunken island would be blamed on her and not Kaius who now roamed free, able to do whatever he pleased with no repercussions.
Maija screamed, falling to her knees, pounding her fists against the stone ground. The metal of her grappling hook snapped, sending a sharp spark of incredible pain through her wrist. She yelped, fell back, tears now freely streaming from her eyes. How could everything go so bad so quickly? Why couldn't she just be a nobody again?
Maija curled up into a ball, wrapping her arms around the back of her head and cried until her eyes were dry.
Maija stood at the edge of the dock, looking out into the void. Her eyes were shot, and face stained with dirt, sweat, and tears, dark bags hanging beneath them. Blood covered her hands and arms. She looked as if she was dead already, her face devoid of life.
She had grown to be afraid of the void through her life. Like the weather walls that separated the sections in her world, the void was a barrier but unlike the walls, it was an uncrossable one. The pressure and electrical forces that worked throughout it prevented no living thing to ever cross below it. But that didn't mean the void was empty. It was a mystery. A veil of darkness and of death.
But within the past week, the void had become a shelter for her. It was a safe haven when she needed to run from Kaius and now everyone. Rather than a cold and dark void, it had become a blanket of guaranteed safety. Maybe it was still a mystery. The way it worked and what lay below was still a secret the world kept to itself, but at least it provided absolute protection.
Maija stood above the void with her grappling hook in hand. She remembered the moment she had found this hook. Maybe it hadn't been the same one, but it felt like it either way. She had found it in an old shipwreck crushed into the side of an island covered in sand.
She had been looked for one for months before that, each island before only hinting at where a grappling hook might be. It had been frustrating, but she kept going, wanting the freedom the hook would bring. She had imagined herself leaping off the side of an island, letting herself freefall before the grappling hook caught her, the wind pulling at her hair as she slowly swayed to a stop, watching the sunset from the underside of an island.
All it had brought her was pain. If her entire life had been documented (which it probably had been with both Kaius and Cliffside tracking her every move) finding this grappling hook would have marked the beginning, giving a point where the rest of this hell she now lives in could be written. And now here she was, holding the thing that could save her life in so many occasions above the void which could crush it in a second, not even noticing its presence in its extensive ocean of pressure. And what if she-
What if she stepped off with it? Would it hurt? Probably. Would it hurt as much as what she had fought through to get here? Would it hurt as much as the pain she might have to endure in the future? Probably.
She scoffed, tossing the grappling hook over to her ship which hung a few feet to her left. "When it looks impossible, look deeper." She had heard that quote somewhere. Maija always liked it but never had found a time where it could be applied. Never in her short, memorable life, had things felt hopeless. Maybe now was that time.
Maija followed the grappling hook over and after securing it back on her forearm, pulled the ship up away from the island and into open air. It took a bit but after a few minutes, she had left the island far behind and now hung hundreds of miles from the protection of the void.
She needed to find Kaius. He hadn't found her yet, but Maija wasn't stupid enough to chalk that up to coincidence. He was playing with her, and she did not like it. And he had spread lies about her, pinning his own actions on her back. Maija couldn't show her face anywhere and with blood painted all over her arms, she would be spotted in a second.
For now, the islands were mostly empty giving Maija some time to collect herself. But not too long, the lack of action had already allowed thoughts and unwanted emotions to rise inside her, breaking through her grip on them. She needed to find an island with water.
Maija had never seen an island with water collected on it in her entire life, but she knew they existed somewhere. This place- the Remnants- was drenched in moister, Maija could taste it in the air. Rain poured everywhere and the walls that surrounded this area dumped water down constantly. Stormwalls were practically made of water. All that liquid must have collected somewhere.
In fact, Maija could spot an island closer to the void than the rest. It was a safe distance unlike the island she had just come from, and it was almost bowl shaped. One side dipped downwards allowing for water to collect inside. The other rose upwards and curved over the cup which a structure made from metal sat on top. Clearly abandoned, Maija picked it out and directed her ship towards it, feeling anxious to get this blood off her skin, a constant reminder of the lives she had taken.
She put the engines on full blast. They kicked the ship forwards and within seconds, Maija's ship was heading full speed towards the island with a plane that reflected sunlight like the surface of a crystal-clear lake. She was about a few hundred feet away and a mile above the island when her engines sputtered out smoke and shut down completely.
Maija had been sitting atop the ship's cabin, legs crossed, when it happened. A memory she had pushed away slipped into mind. Her old ship, their ship. It seemed Makhai and Maija never had a moments rest when maintaining their ship. Everything broke all the time, even things with no mechanical parts. Their ship had been in a permanent state of decay and no matter how long they spent fixing it, it would never stay fixed. Hearing the engines sputter to a stop almost gave Maija a burst of much needed nostalgia.
Until she realized what that had meant. She was stranded in the middle of the air with no defense and her engines were completely shot. Maija jumped off the top of the cabin, missing the top deck. She spun around in the air and grabbed ahold to the ship's side, slipping down to the level of the two different types of engines, there were one of each on both sides of the ship.
Nothing looked damaged visually. After the smoke from burning fuel subsided, the engines just looked inactive. Off. The metal of their casings was warm to the touch but that was to be expected.
She pulled a panel off her most powerful engines, the Stallion Hurricanes, and tucked it under her arm. None of the engine's internals were damaged. Nothing looked wrong, every part was in pristine condition, only the stains of grease marking that they had ever been used.
The realization hit Maija so hard that she almost laughed. Actually laughed- which would have been a first for her. At least anytime recently. She was out of fuel. It had been ingrained in Maija's mind so deeply that whenever an engine would shut down, she would need to stop everything and find a way to repair it, sometimes being stranded in open air for days as a time. It never had occurred to her that the solution would be as simple as an empty fuel tank. Thankfully, that was a far easier fix.
Maija climbed back up the side of her ship, remembering the grappling hook on her arm as she pulled herself back aboard. It would have made the climb a lot easier, but she still hadn't gotten used to the utility it provided. She could have been down and up the side of her ship in seconds while also preventing the dull exhaustion throughout the joints in her fingers.
She made from the back of the ship's cabin and descended below deck. It was far warmer down there since heat buildup from the engines vented back into the ship while running. The skycore also produced a lot of heat itself although it looked as if her core had a cooling system connected to it. Wasn't doing the best job.
Maija circled around to the back of the deck, behind the fuel tank and pulled open several lockers, looking for those containers of fuel she had recalled seeing when Ladia had first offered her this ship. Every single locker was completely empty.
Taking a very deep breath through her nose, Maija tried to remain calm. Of course. Why would they? Cliffside had removed every scrap of resource off her ship. Luke had known exactly what she would do and prepared for it. God damn them.
What was she going to do now? There was nothing on this ship she could burn for fuel, everything was metal. If indecency hadn't been a thing, Maija might have considered burning her own clothes for fuel. As if that would've been enough to get her ship to the island.
She ran up the stairs and back to face the island. There was no way she could jump. Even if she could, landing anywhere would kill her instantly… unless.
Maija glanced down at the grappling hook gripping tightly to her arm. It defied every instinct she always relied on, but she had just been thinking about its utility. She couldn't make that jump, couldn't she? Even with the grappling hook, the island was still a good hundred feet away. But it was also about a mile below her. If she could get the arch of her swing just right…
But there was still the fall. Based on everything she knew about this grappling hook, it relied somehow on atlas technology to completely absorb the impact of falls if it was attached to an object. That meant, if Maija contacted the island quickly enough with her grappling hook, it wouldn't rip her arm clean off as it instantly removed her momentum.
The sound of engines filled Maija's ears as she readied herself to jump. She spun around to see a ship positioning itself above hers. A man was standing on the end, looking down at her. It was Luke. This was all set up from the beginning.
Maija ignored them, turning herself back to the island below her. It was covered in trees and caves; she could hide from them if she got there safely. She started running.
"No, Maija wait!" Luke yelled out at her, but she ignored him, pumping her arms as she darted to the edge of her ship and launched herself off it. Before she was out of range, Maija spun herself around and grappled the bottom of her ship. Her downward momentum transferred into backwards, sending her body back up towards her ship. She planted her feet along the metal bottom deck and pushed off with all her strength. Then swung, releasing the grappling hook from the ship.
For a moment, her body felt weightless, floating horizontally through the air before gravity took ahold and pulled her downwards. Her stomach shot to her throat and her heart felt as if it was ready to leap out her chest and Maija couldn't keep the scream in as she fell, the island coming closer and closer to her, gaining speed with each passing moment. Within seconds, it felt as if Maija couldn't fall faster. She couldn't, she had reached terminal velocity. If she couldn't catch herself, it was over.
The island grew until it filled her entire vision, wind puttered in her ears so loud it felt as if they were about to pop. Then, right before it was too late, Maija reached out and fired her grappling hook, aiming for anything. It made contact and her momentum immediately switched direction, swinging forwards now rather than falling. She had contacted the part of island that stuck up and was now underneath the stone that held up that ruined structure. But momentum was still an issue, an impact with that stone wall at this speed would still be fatal.
Maija released her grappling hook and felt the strangest force push her head downwards, spinning her body away from the curve of the islands side. She let herself fall once more and was met with an ice-cold surface of water. At first, Maija panicked. She'd never been fully submerged in water before, and the shock threatened to force her lungs to suck in air. Except she could only breath in liquid.
Maija may have never seen a body of water larger than a canteen which she had drank out of, but she still knew how it worked. She pushed with her legs and pulled with cupped hands and swam deeper into the water. She opened her eyes; everything was blurry and far darker than above the surface, but she could see well enough to spot a dark hole at the lake's bottom.
She reached towards it, kept pushing as the muffled sound of engines grew closer and louder. Maija grabbed to the side of the hole and pulled herself through it. Another force took hold of her from the water itself. It pulled her down the hole and along it, into a tunnel. It twisted and turned, the flow of the water throwing Maija's body around corners, each impact forcing more air from her puffed out cheeks.
Her lungs started to burn. Maija hadn't had the chance to get a large enough breath. Instincts told her to open her mouth and breathe but her mind knew that if she did, nothing but water would fill her lungs. A death filled with unimaginable pain. She forced her mouth shut and let the current take her.
Her vision blurred even more and black spots clouded over what little she could see in the darkness. Water surrounded her pulling and pushing, forcing her deeper into the island's rocky body.
Her lungs burned; her consciousness was fading. Regret threatened to take over Maija's last few moments of life before she was thrown out of the water, landing hard against her shoulder. She gasped in a breath of stagnant, damp air and coughed up water, throwing it up on rocky gravel.
The coughs ripped up through Maija's throat, burning as they came out. Even as she was back out from the water, she still struggled to get a full breath of air in until finally, she managed, sucking in the still air, and pushing it back out. Sucking in and pushing out until she had regained her breath.
Everything was dark. Maija couldn't see a thing. She blinked, waved her hand in front of her eyes but couldn't tell whether her eyes were closed or open. Panic engulfed her, took control of her breathing, and wouldn't let it go. Tears pooled in her eyes and Maija couldn't control them. It was as if everything was spinning around her, leaving her crying, sweating bullets that dripped into wide open eyes and stung. Her whimpers echoed off the cold stone and completely invisible walls.
