The Plumeria: a new story set in the Uncanny Aviator universe
Three small notes here:
No spoilers for The Uncanny Aviator will be found herein.
Content warning: this is deeply silly.
It is also a love letter to fanfiction, a much-derided but wholesome and beautiful activity.
Lady Elia could scarcely breathe all the way home from Master Calaret’s music-party. The news of the mysterious hero called the Uncanny Aviator had struck her like a lance in her young heart. They said he rescued Chende prisoners from Muntegri and flew them over the mountains, right over the heads of the Muntegrise guarding the roadblocks.
Such a man - she cried inwardly - could such a man exist? A man who loved justice and adventure and cared not for his own safety?
If only she knew such a man, how devoted to him she would be!
Elia could not speak of her passionate feelings to her parents or, worse, to her brothers. Nor could she sleep. She demanded wine, a lantern, and solitude; and, in her bedroom, began to write.
***
The Uncanny Aviator, silent as a ghost, slipped through the portcullis into the interior of the dungeon of –
Lady Elia did not know what the Muntegrise work camp for Chende prisoners was called. But the capital of Muntegri was Turla; she rearranged the letters, and, proud of her cleverness, continued.
– the dungeon Alrut. He was seen by none but the stars in the midnight sky. His cloak and mask, charged with the same Principle of Invisibility that imbued his Flying Machine, ensured his undetected entrance into this bleak and noisome place. He could move through these corridors at will; but unfortunately, he could not pass through walls nor open doors, and so must deal with a man.
He sought the office of Captain Jon Eck, who during the nights had charge of Alrut and its keys.
The Aviator had befriended this officer some weeks hence, in the guise of a friendly young drunkard whose passion for gambling got the better of him whenever they were in company. For Jon Eck loved winning, and glorying in his imagined superiority over those who lost. He was a master of the weighted die and the notched card. In his small soul, to win coin was good, but to mock and belittle were better. In his new acquaintance he found his ideal companion: one too naive or tipsy to see the sleight of hand that led to loss after loss, and too insecure in his own worth to mind the sting of Eck’s laughter at his expense. With the Aviator buying round after round of drinks, and bemoaning his unlucky fortune at the tables, they had become fond friends.
The Uncanny Aviator paused outside the guardroom. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure that no one was about, he doffed his cloak and mask, and opened the creaking door. His entrance awakened Captain Eck from a doze.
“What? Oh! ‘Tis you.”
“I said I would come.”
The Aviator languidly tossed his cloak over a chair and sat in it.
“So you did,” grumbled Eck.
A few days before, drunker than usual, Eck had told him of his appointed role as night manager of Alrut. The Aviator, in his guise, had said he wanted the use of some prisoners as servants for a week, to help with the renovation of his house and gardens. Eck had explained to him the cost of such a service, and the Aviator had suggested a wager instead. And somehow, for once, the dice were his friends: he won the right to borrow some prisoners this night.
“You thought I’d forgotten?” he now asked.
“You could get me in trouble.”
“Ah my friend, I know you are too clever to be caught.” For the Aviator knew well that the guards and officers of this place were well familiar with graft and bribery, and the concealment of the same.
“True enough,” Captain Eck replied complacently.
The Aviator concealed a smile at the predictable result of his flattery. “I would like fifteen,” he said. “Take me to them at once, and I shall be away.”
At this, the good captain protested. “You had not said you wanted so many!”
“I’m sure I did.”
“You certainly did not.”
Here was the problem in dealing with scoundrels. They made for willing tools, but unreliable ones, prone to turning and cutting the hand that would wield them. “Surely you were not so drunk as all that.”
Eck scowled. “You never said how many, damn you. But I have a solution.” He produced his leather cup of dice and rattled it. “A die roll shall settle it. You shall have between one and six, depending upon Fortune’s cast.”
The Aviator narrowed his eyes. “Two dice, and I shall have between one and twelve.”
“Absurd.”
“I had not thought you so dishonorable as to renege upon a lost bet.”
This was a gamble in itself. For men with no honor may stand hard upon their honor, and defend it to the death; or they may shrug off such accusations, uncaring. In a situation such as this, when no witnesses stood by, it was even odds whether Captain Eck would even feel the sting.
He did. “Two dice, then,” he growled. He dumped the contents of the cup onto the table - the ivory cubes all showed with small numbers - and quickly swept two back into the cup, concealing the rest in his hand.
The Aviator beamed at him. “Good fellow!” he said. “Now that is fair! But what is gaming without drink?” He produced a flask of brandy. As the good captain threw his head back to drink, the Aviator adroitly replaced the dice in the cup with the ones he carried in his sleeve. Then he drank in turn, toasting his companion’s good health, and threw the dice.
Captain Jon Eck laughed, his good humor entirely restored. “That is fair! You said it yourself!”
The Uncanny Aviator stared at the dice, and at the pips displayed on their faces: a one and a three.
He ought to have procured dice that were weighted to roll high.
The lady paused in her writing. Would the Uncanny Aviator seem a fool, at this point? But no, she decided. While he was capable of trickery and disguise, his innately honorable nature would rebel at deliberate cheating. She took up her pen again.
It had simply not occurred to him (she wrote) not to use fair dice.
But he could not have come all this way, and done so much, to rescue only four prisoners.
“One more die,” he suggested.
“Ah ah ah,” replied Eck, smugly. “We agreed upon two.”
“I need more. One more die, sir, I beg you.”
“And what will you give me, for one more?” Eck was delighted to find himself in this position of power over his friend. “That is a pretty ring.”
The Aviator looked at the ring indicated: a simple shining gold band on his third finger. Pretty, yes; but more than its beauty, he loved it because its twin was on the finger of the one who owned his heart. How often had he kissed the hand that bore that twin ring! How often had he gazed at it, symbol of his union with the purest soul he had ever known!
Surely he could not sully it with this sordid business.
But. His love would understand. And he must have more than four.
He slipped the ring from his finger - it released him from its embrace only reluctantly - and, silently promising to buy a new one, held it up. It shone in the lamplight, rich and bright.
“One more cast.”
“Go on, then.”
He placed the ring on the table between them, took up one of his fair dice, cast a prayer to any god that might be listening, and tossed it.
A one. His soul sank.
Eck snorted with amusement, picked up the Aviator’s ring, and shoved it onto his dirty smallest finger. “Come along,” he said, rising. “Bring the light. I’ll take you to a cell, and you may pick out your five new servants.”
Choked with rage, the Aviator gathered his cloak and the lantern and trailed after him.
He longed to slit the man’s throat and rip his ring from his hand. To throw the doors of this place wide, allowing all within it to run to freedom. To burn it, once it was empty, so that only blackened stone and bitter memories remained.
He must not. The place was crawling with guards, even at the darkest hour. Jon Eck was a tool that could be used again and again; and he himself must not be caught, for he would be hanged, and his beloved would never know what had happened to him. He must allow this pitiful cockroach of a man to live, and to take his five prisoners and go.
He would return for more; and someday, he vowed, he would make Eck pay.
“Here you are,” said Eck, unlocking a door. “I shall shut you in while you pick the ones you want; have no fear, they are not dangerous. Rap when you’re ready, and I’ll open it again.”
The Aviator passed into the cell, and, when the door shut behind him, held up the lantern and swept his gaze over the prisoners within, who all leaped to their feet when they saw him.
There were … he counted … twenty-nine Chende, women and men, packed into a cell little larger than his garden. The cell stank of excrement from the trench along one wall, and sweat, and despair. They were desperately thin, these wretches, but also young and strong, for no one who was not strong - no children, no old people - could survive in Alrut.
Here the lady paused. She knew nothing of the Chende, save that they were imprisoned by the Muntegrise in work camps such as the one she had imagined, and that they had distinctive and colorful hair. Her mother said they were inveterate thieves and liars. But, she reasoned, they must be worthy of rescue, if a man as noble as The Uncanny Aviator thought them so.
She bent again to her task.
The Chende prisoners knew who he was, for he had been here before, in other guises. They stared at him with hope, smiles dawning upon their faces, whispering to one another. “He has come! He has come to take us away!”
His voice husky with regret, the Aviator said, “I am sorry. I can only take five.”
How could he select those whom he would save? Should he take the youngest - for surely that lad in the corner was no more than seventeen? Should he take the weakest, as they were least likely to survive here? Or the strongest, as they were most likely to thrive when released to Lucenequa’s green and welcoming embrace? How dared he think to make such a decision?
Ah, this expedition was a disaster, from the loss of his cherished ring to this impossible decision. Overcome, he fell to one knee, tears stinging his eyes. “I am sorry,” he repeated. “I know not how to choose.”
The lady blew her nose.
He heard them murmuring. Then he felt the gentle touch of a work-callused hand on his face. He looked up and saw that a woman knelt with him, motherly, though she was no older than himself. She lifted his face; her eyes were kind. “Do not be ashamed,” she said. “We have already spoken; we know who must go.”
She rose imperiously, and, one by one, pointed to five: the lad in the corner, a girl not much older, and two men and one woman in their prime. None argued or complained; but they talked among themselves in their own language, and embraced, and wept. Who knew whether they would ever see one another again? Those left behind might well die in this place, of fever, or work, or murder by the Muntegrise. The Aviator knelt where he was, scarcely able to watch.
Jon Eck, curse him, hammered on the door. “Hurry up!” he shouted. “I haven’t all night to dally here.”
They assembled before him, and he stood. “Come,” he said to them, and they nodded, all five grim and dry-eyed except the girl, who kept her chin up, defying her own tears. He cast a glance back at the remainder. They were not so stoic, those who remained, at seeing the others go. Salty moisture streaked their grieving faces. But as one, they raised their hands in salute to him.
He nodded. And then they were gone.
The lady paused for a long while, chewing her pen, wondering how the six people would get from the prison to the Aviator’s ship: where it was, by what means they would pass, and how long it would take to get there.
Then, with a shrug, she dismissed the matter.
Hours later, as the half-moon rose and illuminated the horizon with pure silver light, the Uncanny Aviator stood at the prow of his invisible Flying Ship, Plumeria. There was no sound but the rush of wind in the sails and the creak of the rigging. For his doughty crew recognized that their captain was in low spirits, and went about their work, trimming the sails so that Plumeria sailed towards the mountains and home.
None who knew him would have dared approach him in this mood, but the Chende lad knew him not, and he timidly came to him across the deck and, when he noticed him not, placed a hand on his arm.
The Aviator turned and beheld him. He was older than the Aviator had at first thought, but so slender he seemed younger. His body in its ragged shirt was small-waisted but manly.
“I wanted - we all wanted - to thank you,” the Chende lad said, his hand clasping the Aviator’s arm with unexpected strength.
“How can you?” he replied bitterly, “when so many are left behind in that hellish place?”
“But will you not go back for them?” asked the young Chende innocently.
“As many as I can. I vow it, upon my heart and honor.”
The young man smiled. He swayed closer, his hand running up the Aviator’s arm to his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said again, breathless. “And thank you. Indeed, there is little I would not do to thank you, again and again.”
He was a pretty fellow, with warm lips and tumbled hair, and his eyes shone with worship, as though the Uncanny Aviator were a god, and not a man. The Aviator smiled. “You are kind, but my body and heart cleave ever to another.”
“Ah,” cried the lad, removing his hand, and casting his eyes down. “How lucky they are, that one.”
“Lucky? No. I think you and I, my friend, are lucky.”
The Aviator’s eyes turned toward the south, where, concealed by the mountains they now oversailed, the city of Valletta waited.
“It is she who bids me come north,” he explained, “to release as many of the Chende as I can; for her heart is made of diamond where mine is but poor flesh. She hates cruelty and loves justice as I love her. She sends me away, commanding me to bring you and your kin out of durance; and so I go; but as often as I go away, I must always fly back to her. Do you suppose the oceans know they are drawn by the moon, or why? So I am, to her - I can only go where she is, and do as she bids, for all my life.”
The boy nodded, stepping respectfully away, and allowing the other man to return to his thoughts. As he watched, in the moonlight, the Uncanny Aviator brought his hand to his lips, and kissed his own finger, just where a ring might lie.
The lady put down her pen with a sigh, then hugged herself with happiness at the tale she had imagined.
To love! she thought. Ah, to love!