A Voyage Through Air

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘Shut up,’ Sophie grunted through gritted teeth. The wind grew even stronger, pushing her down and away from the ship. She knew the captain should be hoisting her sails so they could tack their way sideways out of the terrible hurricane. It was a slender hope, but the only one the crew had. They couldn’t afford to waste a second.

  Then she saw the Angelhawk launch a harpoon. The metal shaft arched wide, then suddenly curved round as Lantic’s animation guided it towards her. It slowed, straining on the end of its cable an enticing metre away. Sophie lunged forward and grabbed it.

  Even through the howling wind she could hear the cheering above. The Angelhawk crew winched her in and she was hauled in through the harpoon launcher hatch just as the unbearable noise of the volpas inhaling reached the ship once more. The planks started vibrating as she lay there on the floor panting as if she’d been holding her breath for a week. Felix crawled away, his blood-matted fur leaving foul dark streaks on the wood. ‘I failed,’ he moaned. ‘I failed her.’

  Taggie arrived at Sophie’s side and hugged her hard.

  ‘I couldn’t get her,’ a distraught Sophie wailed through her near-hysterical tears. ‘I just couldn’t. The volpas breath carried her away. I’m so sorry.’

  Jemima fell through the Realm of Air.

  At first she’d screamed. But the deafening sound of the volpas inhaling meant she couldn’t even hear herself. She stopped screaming – there was simply no point, and it hurt her throat. A weird calmness claimed her. Lengths of ship’s planking spun and gyrated past. A mangled stove flipped end over end, its oven door flapping like an iron wing, spitting out glowing coals as it went.

  Then she saw a pair of olri-gi in the far distance as she rolled round and round in the wind. They were attacking one of the young volpas, dodging in past the gaudy halo of lightning to strike the soft pale body with their stingers. Whatever poison they had, it was clearly working. The volpas tentacles spasmed then slowed, and the gaudy band of lightning faded away. That made her smile.

  When she closed her eyes she saw a vast army marching across a frozen landscape, and knew she was sighting the War Emperor’s forces approaching Rothgarnal. Midway along the vast columns of troops the War Emperor himself rode on a splendid white horse. Clustered round him were other grand figures in impressive shining armour; Jemima recognized Lady Jessicara DiStantona whose black armour had been polished to a gleam. And there near the back of the procession was one woman in a fur coat, who suddenly looked round and up, staring straight back at Jemima. She smiled and winked.

  ‘Mummy,’ Jemima moaned.

  She opened her eyes just as the big volpas inhaled again, eager to get to the morsels it could feel in the air. Jemima saw she was barely a mile away from the gruesome front orifice now. The noise struck once more, and she jammed her hands in her ears – not that it made any real difference. It was hard to see any of the frigates now, nor the Angelhawk. The three ships she could make out far above her were tacking frantically across the hurricane, trying to escape its clutches before they reached the volpas itself. More cloud was clearing from the sky, sucked into the big rivers that poured down alongside her.

  Then Jemima saw the comet in the clear air above. Its warm rosy glow shone down on her, and she stared up at it, entranced. It was huge now, and moving fast. Its pale, insubstantial tail stretched out behind, surely reaching halfway back to the stars from where it had come. Darker, thicker gases boiled fitfully out of its bulk, creating unsettled spectral shapes around it.

  Jemima gazed, feeling bizarrely contented, at the strangely attractive patterns formed by the swirls, and gradually realized they were surging into the shape of a face. There was no doubt about it. The red-flare blemishes were congealing as a mouth and eyes, the tail was revealed as streaming hair.

  The angel.

  Jemima grinned in delight at the apparition, who was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. The angel grinned back. A finger of ephemeral gas beckoned.

  Jemima pointed at herself. ‘Me?’ she mouthed.

  The angel smiled and nodded.

  Suddenly, Canri slid across the face of the comet. Jemima was almost cross.

  ‘Found you,’ the olri-gi called. His powerful triangular wings rippled as he manoeuvred close, and Jemima was abruptly spread-eagle on the back of his head.

  ‘You’ll need to hold on,’ Canri yelled.

  ‘OK,’ she shouted back, and her hands discovered some knobbly ridges in the sleek black skin. Less than a mile beyond his nose, the volpas’s front orifice was starting to open again, its translucent body expanding. The hurricane force began to pick up.

  ‘I didn’t want to die alone,’ Jemima shouted. ‘I’m sorry you’re here, but I’m glad, too.’

  ‘For a seer you make a bad optimist, young Princess,’ Canri roared.

  The noise of the volpas inhaling began, making Jemima’s bones tremble. She knew they couldn’t escape, not now; they were too close to the orifice. Not even an olri-gi could fight its way across the formidable hurricane in time.

  ‘Grip tight now.’

  Jemima did as she was told, pressing her face against his lovely silky black skin. It was almost a bedtime comfort hug, the kind Mum and Dad used to give her. And the angel’s smile lingered warmly in her mind. Jemima was curiously content.

  Canri the olri-gi expelled his flame.

  Jemima yelled in shock as their speed quadrupled in seconds. She risked a glance back, to see a splendid blue-white flame searing out between the olri-gi’s two stingers. And she was abruptly weeping as she laughed uncontrollably. ‘You were never dragons, you’re rockets!’ The words were lost in the hurricane and flame roar. Maybe I’m not going to die after all, she thought.

  Canri rode his flame with impeccable skill, powering sideways across the hurricane, rolling to slice neatly through the waving gaps between the tentacles and emerging into the churning air outside the main plume of the wind.

  ‘That was incredible!’ Jemima cried as the blue flame shrank away. ‘Even better than rainbow surfing.’

  ‘After we’ve stung the volpas we have to elude their tentacles somehow,’ Canri explained modestly. ‘They thrash about afterwards. Even we aren’t always quick enough.’

  ‘Can you kill this one?’

  ‘I could, but even if I sting it now, something this size would take a month to die. And we need to get you back to the Angelhawk.’

  Jemima nodded in understanding, and held on tight as Canri soared away from the volpas, turning round on to what seemed a collision course with the comet.

  As soon as her crew hauled Sophie and Felix on board, Captain Rebecca ordered the half tipsails to be rigged on the lower arms of the remaining two masts.

  ‘And hurry,’ she told Jualius, ‘Else we’ll be joining our ancestors before the hour’s out.’

  Sure enough, the Angelhawk responded immediately to the small triangles of canvas, straining their rigging hard. Captain Rebecca tacked them at a precarious angle, fighting against tipping the ship over.

  Three times the volpas inhaled while the Angelhawk careered sideways across the hurricane. There was nothing anybody could do except wait and see if the ship would shoot them free before they reached the tops of the tentacles. Taggie even got everyone to gather round her, ready to use her gate if they didn’t make it. All the while, the comet grew and grew in the opposite side of the sky from the volpas.

  Then finally the Angelhawk passed half a mile over the glaring, fizzing tips of the tentacles and the wind lessened to a mere gale.

  ‘Prepare to rig the midsails,’ the captain ordered. She gave the radiant crimson comet a fearful glance as it loomed frighteningly large darkwards of the Angelhawk. It seemed as if half of the sky was now obscured by its rampaging crimson gas fountains. What a terrible irony it would be to escape an inhaling volpas – which so few captains managed – only to be swatted by a comet.

  Sophie’s arm suddenly shot out. ‘Look! That’s Canri!’

  S
ure enough, the olri-gi rose from sunwards to fly level with the ship, then he slowly rolled over. Delighted cheers rose above the sound of the volpas as everyone saw Jemima clinging to his back.

  Even as the olri-gi manoeuvred close enough for Jemima to scramble over, Captain Rebecca had tipped her head back to call out in the realm’s airsong language, imploring Canri to push them clear.

  Taggie ran to her little sister and hugged her so tight the athrodene armour was on the verge of stiffening up protectively. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she said through her sniffles.

  Felix bounded along and just flung himself at Jemima, clinging to her chest, his tail rigid. ‘You’re alive,’ he said in a voice that was close to cracking. ‘I was so afraid you’d gone. I failed to protect you, I failed so badly.’

  ‘Dearest Felix,’ Jemima said, stroking the short soft fur on the top of his head. ‘Without you, that rathwai would still be holding me as we were sucked into the volpas together. You saved me.’

  A beaming Sophie gave Jemima a hug and ruffled her hair. Lantic actually kissed her, then turned bright red. Even Lord Colgath said: ‘I was worried. Welcome back, Blossom Princess.’

  It was as though the very air itself was turning scarlet, the comet was so close, when Jemima disentangled herself from her friends and went over to Captain Rebecca. ‘We have to follow the comet,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ the captain snarled.

  ‘Follow it. The comet will take us to Wynate.’

  ‘Blossom Princess you might be, young lady, but that is insanity. We’ll do no such thing.’

  ‘Taggie!’ Jemima implored.

  ‘But, the Angelhawk . . .’ Taggie said weakly. ‘She’s broken, Jem. We’ll regroup and come straight back to Wynate, I promise.’

  ‘No!’ Jemima said. ‘It has to be now. I’ve sighted the War Emperor’s army, he’s almost at Rothgarnal. We have to save all those poor soldiers, Taggie, and Mum’s there, too. The Angelhawk will be fine, I know it.’ She tipped her face to one side and smiled at the vast ball of seething red light that was consuming the sky. ‘The angel will take care of us. I saw her, Taggie, and – oh – she was so beautiful. She’s going to take us to Wynate. She wants us to follow her.’

  ‘The angel told you that?’ Taggie asked sceptically.

  ‘She showed me, yes.’

  If it had been anyone else –anyone – Taggie would have just walked away. But it was Jem. Her very own sister, who was blessed and cursed to see things others never could.

  Everybody was holding their breath, waiting for the Queen of Dreams to speak.

  ‘Captain,’ Taggie said slowly. ‘Set a course that’ll take us after that comet, please.’

  Captain Rebecca let out a groan that was almost a wail of dismay. ‘Never again will I take a royal charter! Do you understand? Never! Shipsmage, write that in the log.’

  ‘Aye, Captain.’

  ‘All hands,’ the captain shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Brace yourselves.’ And she spun the helm wheel round fast.

  Crew and passengers alike tied themselves to the mid-deck hull, with rope and anamage spider gossamer and harpoon cable. Whatever they could lay their desperate hands on.

  Canri nosed up gently into the shattered planks and twisted hull ribs of the stern, and began to push the Angelhawk round, slowly increasing speed until the captain yelled to hold.

  The comet’s sheath of glowing vapour spewed out great cascades of gas in all directions as it ploughed its way through the sky. Seconds after it passed the sea globe, it ripped through the volpas hurricane, and smashed into the monster itself, incinerating it instantly. Onward it fell, deeper and deeper into the Realm of Air towards the sun.

  In its wake, a tiny wooden ship pushed by a labouring olri-gi slipped into the howling turmoil of its wake. Long tongues of steam and smog licked round her hull like infernal chains, and drew the ship in. The olri-gi backed away, and the Angelhawk was pulled along in the comet’s mighty slipstream, heading wherever fate and the angels decided.

  WHERE NOBODY WANTS TO BE

  Silence was the king of Rothgarnal now.

  Since the cataclysmic battle which razed the city to the ground, ten centuries of cold had soaked into the rocks. The rows of the burial mounds, as high as houses, were the only structures remaining, where the dead of both armies were entombed in frozen earth, lying side by side and unmarked. Despite being granted the Fourth Realm, the Karraks had spurned the broken desolate land where the city ruins crumbled beneath the ice and even the frost fungus grew poorly.

  As his nervous horse rode over the last crest, and the site of the ancient city was exposed to his view, the new War Emperor shivered at the dereliction revealed to him. It was almost enough to send him turning round to go back through Olatha where the welcome heat and life of Morath’ki awaited. But for one thing.

  On the other side of the ancient battlefield, the army of the Grand Lord was encamped. Fires spluttered in great braziers amid the gloomy lodges. Many kinds of creatures marched across the squares within the camp, while in the dead grey sky above, rathwai wheeled about crying to each other in forlorn voices. Tall cages containing angry snuffling Zanatuth were lined up along the front of the camp.

  The War Emperor regarded his enemy with cold contempt. Along the ridge on either side of him, his own massive invasion force was starting to dig in. Axes not shovels were being used to excavate pits and defensive embankments; swung by giants, their sharp points made little impression in the unyielding ground.

  General Welch’s command tents had been set up some way back. When the War Emperor and the other Kings and Queens arrived, detailed maps of Rothgarnal were already drawn up and spread out over the tables.

  The War Emperor looked down on the two camps, separated by the long parallel lines of burial mounds.

  ‘It would seem we will be fighting amid the dead,’ General Welch said, coming up next to him.

  ‘Nothing is sacred to those monsters,’ the War Emperor replied dismissively. A finger tapped the markings of the Grand Lord’s camp. ‘Is this his full force?’

  ‘Scouts and olri-gi have reported stragglers amid the foothills, some outlying sentries, no doubt alert for any attempt on our part to outflank him. But essentially yes, that is his full strength.’

  ‘Then we outnumber him?’

  ‘Yes, sire,’ Lady Jessicara DiStantona said. ‘A third of our forces have still to arrive, but the numbers are already on our side.’

  ‘When will we be up to full strength?’

  ‘By midnight, sire. Another six hours.’

  ‘He will expect us to test his defences, gain an understanding of his warriors’ strengths. I think we should deny him that expectation, my lady. What say you, General?’

  General Welch pulled at his beard as he stared thoughtfully down at the map. ‘Nobody wants to prolong this. That will lead to even more casualties. A full frontal assault is probably our best option, there isn’t even that much risk attached providing we can break those forward embankments. They’ll be well shielded.’

  ‘I will leave the nature of our formations to you, General. But we attack at dawn. With the blessing of the Heavens, this will all be over by tomorrow night.’

  The Angelhawk’s two remaining masts snapped off within minutes of the ship entering the comet’s slipstream. The crew had already furled the sails. All they had left to hold them steady now were the sailtails, and the indomitable captain’s skill.

  Fumes plagued them, making everybody sick and listless. The noise was appalling. The buffeting intolerable. Weakened planks were worried loose and swallowed by the hostile pink spume. Plumes of brimstone smog swirled round crew and passengers alike, making their stinging eyes weep. No one dared loosen the ropes that fastened them to the ship, or the slipstream would tear them off in an instant.

  Taggie lost track of time. But it felt like hours before the Angelhawk started to shake in a different fashion. She saw an immense plume of gas swelling out of the comet,
heading for them. It hit the Angelhawk, which reeled badly from the blow. But the repugnant red maelstrom began to thin out, and the nauseating shaking lessened.

  Ten minutes later the ship was in clear skies, with the comet’s tail rushing along beside them, emitting a continuous thunder grumble that gradually diminished as they glided further and further away from it. Taggie made sure she was holding on to the warped deck railing as she cautiously untied herself. Every limb ached, and she was sure she’d never lose the acrid taste of the comet from her throat. But they’d all survived, and the skies were empty and didn’t seem to contain monsters or frigates or rathwai. Right now, that was good enough for her.

  ‘Wow,’ Lantic croaked. ‘We made it.’

  ‘Made it where?’ Sophie asked sullenly. Her hair was unmoving, crusted with filth from the comet, and she looked like she was going to be sick.

  ‘Mr Marcus,’ Captain Rebecca said. ‘Let’s have a drink and something to eat. I think we deserve it.’

  Taggie thought she was about to witness her first mutiny. But the Jannermol, who had spent the whole time they were being pulled along by the comet withdrawn inside his shell, finally said: ‘Aye, Captain.’

  Favian and Maklepine went into the smashed-up galley to help him.

  ‘Now what?’ Lantic asked.

  ‘We find out where we are,’ Captain Rebecca said. She took off and flew across the decks to the jumble of snapped and charred timbers that used to be her cabin. After a few minutes and some hot curses she came back out with a telescope. Hovering above the prow, she slowly turned full circle, scouring the sky.

  Somehow, Mr Marcus had worked his own brand of magic, and boiled water for tea, which was now handed round. Taggie took a cold sausage roll from Jualius along with a squeeze mug of tea. She couldn’t remember a meal so good.

  ‘The Angelhawk can never sail again, can she?’ Jemima asked.

  ‘No,’ Lantic said. ‘Even if we could find a forest and cut some trees down to replace the masts, there’s too much damage to the hull.’

  ‘The only way back is through the gate,’ Felix said.