The Complete Ferryman

VI | Explosion

VI | Explosion

“Now,” said Valdus.

And before there was even a sound, there was light. Not a light such as the kind created by a lantern, nor the green-white light—so harsh and so harmless—of a hologram, nor even the dazzling, yellow fire of a fully-functioning sun orb (of which so few remained); rather, this was a light that cancelled the world, a light so complete that it annihilated every color, line, and form, and for a fleeting moment matter itself seemed to cease to exist.

Then it quickly faded and the sound came—a sound like a thousand shields being activated all at once, a sound that crackled and vibrated and caused the glass in the lanterns and the porthole windows to rattle and clink into fine fractures—accompanied by a pulsing, flickering, ragged-edged blue beam, which didn’t narrow as it grazed the ferryman’s boat (first catching it on fire and then causing it to explode) but punched straight through into the opposite wall of the world, where it met enough resistance that most of its plasma fuel was depleted before something caused it to refract back, but at a fraction of its power, so that the sun engine was blown to pieces and the porthole windows shattered and Valdus and his men were thrown into the air.

They landed hard upon their backs, having been flipped like ragdolls by the blast, first Gurn, his head bloodied by shrapnel, then old Lector, who immediately curled into a ball, and finally Valdus, who was disoriented for mere seconds before he patted himself down to ensure he wasn’t wounded and sprung to his feet.

“Water!” he cried, shielding his face from the flames of the sun engine’s gutted wreckage. “All hands—quickly!”

He hurried to the bow gunwale as the others came running and quickly untangled his binoculars, then peered through them at the gondola’s burning ruins. There was no indication of survivors; indeed, there was no indication of anyone on board at all. “b****y hell,” he cursed. “Someone find General Hirth. Tell him—”

“Here, my lord.” He was standing in a skiff off the port bow, along with two other men. All of them were heavily armed.

“I shall accompany you,” said Valdus, but paused before vaulting over the gunwale, turning to look at Lector, who was still curled into a ball and trembling noticeably. He rushed to him.

“Lector, my old friend, how grave is it ...?” He rolled him over. And, although he appeared to have sustained only minor injuries, cuts and bruises by the look of it, the elderly man’s eyes were vacant and shell-shocked. No, it was more than that, they were the eyes of a man who had lost faith in the very ground beneath him, indeed, reality itself. They were the eyes of a man who had suffered a thousand cuts and bruises over the course of a long life, and survived them all, only to have been broken all in an instant.

“Someone see to him,” said Valdus, then stood and hurried to the gunwale. “The Revolution cannot succeed without him.”

And they shoved off toward the wreckage.