by Frank Tuttle
Lighting flared, and Meralda saw her -- the faint outline of a woman, skirts flapping in the wind, clambering about on the Sammi's ruined gasbag, clinging to her tangled rigging.
"What is she doing?"
Meralda urged the Jenny carefully ahead, mindful of the capricious winds that buffeted her from both above and below.
"I see now -- she's going after a falling shroud. Look, one is caught in the rigging!"
Meralda didn't see, couldn't look at anything but the Jenny's nose and the Sammi's ruined silhouette.
"Going after it for the kids," she said, through gritted teeth. "Do you see more than one shroud?"
"No. Just the one." Mug kept his eyes on the Sammi. "Foolish, but brave. I think I like this woman. Did we by chance bring a trumpet?"
"What in heaven's name for, Mug?"
"She hasn't seen us. Now is probably not the time to just fly up alongside and shout hello. Don't want anyone falling off in sheer terror, do we?"
"We'll have to risk it. How much flight time is left?"
"Eight minutes."
Meralda smiled despite the cold. "More than I thought."
"That's eight minutes with you and I aboard. With you and I and the extra mass of the Ghotes -- well, Mistress, we may need that falling shroud after all."
Meralda glanced at her gauges.
"Shout, Mug, and loud as you can."
The Jenny closed on the stricken Sammi, and as it drew within a pair of yards, Meralda and Mug both began to shout.
Mrs. Ghote, intent on her climbing, didn't hear. But a pair of small pale faces appeared at the Sammi's shattered windscreen, and after a brief bout of waving and shrieking by the children Mrs. Ghote turned her face toward them.
When she saw the Jenny, she went wide-eyed, missed her footing, and fell back into the boiling dark.
Meralda shoved the coil levers to their stops. The Jenny fell too, banking and howling, fire streaking from her right coil, groans sounding from her every beam.
Meralda never saw the woman. Never caught a glimpse of her, never heard her scream.
Not until Mrs. Elise Ghote, still screaming, fell heavily into the Jenny's aft section, landing between two solid oak Palace chairs and atop a stack of blankets one of the carpenters had thoughtfully lashed to the hull.
"Welcome aboard the Lucky Jenny," sang Mug, when Mrs. Ghote sat up. "Mrs. Ghote, I presume?"
Mrs. Ghote struggled to stand. The Jenny pitched and swung.
"We're here to bring you home," said Meralda. She urged the Jenny up, brought it bumping gently against the bobbing wreck of the Sammi. "No time to explain. Get your children. Get your husband. Get them aboard, right now. Do you understand?"
Mrs. Ghote regarded Mug's waving bundle of eyes, the rowboat, the banks of dials, and Meralda's wild shock of ice-stiff hair.
"Of course," she said. "At once."
And she was off, shouting and grabbing, and pulling and hugging.
"We're nearly down to nothing," said Mug, with a nod of his eyes at the gauges. "But you did it, Mistress. Come what may, you did it, and no mistake."
He sent forth a vine and touched Meralda's cold, pale hand.
"You'd make a fine air pirate, after you do something about that hair."
The Jenny lurched. Meralda struggled to keep her pulled tight alongside the stricken Sammi. A boy and girl scrambled aboard, faces nearly blue, ice crusted around their noses and mouths.
"Grab a seat and strap yourselves in," said Mug, as the shivering children clambered into their chairs. Mrs. Ghote appeared, dragging the limp form of her husband behind her.
When she stepped aboard, the Jenny pitched down and the Sammi bobbed up, and for one awful moment Meralda was sure she'd lost the Ghotes. But Mrs. Ghote kept her footing long enough to pull her husband's knees over the Jenny's rail and ease him down safe.
Meralda didn't like the paleness of his skin, or the limp, boneless way his arms flopped and his head lolled. But her gauges fell steadily, and the right flying coil was dripping molten copper, and the sinking in her heart told her there was nothing she could do until the Jenny was safely landed. "Hold on," she said, working her levers. The Sammi vanished, caught up in the greedy storm, a few bits of debris floating down in her wake. "Mug, keep reading the dials."
"Four percent," said Mug. "Three."
"Thank you for the rescue," said Mrs. Ghote. "What manner of craft is this?"
"Two percent," said Mug.
"We're about to find out," said Meralda, and she turned the Jenny's bow downward and let her plunge toward the ground.
* * *
Clearing Tirlin's storm-ravaged streets required three full weeks of round-the-clock work by the Royal Engineers.
Uprooted oaks necessitated the replacement of several sidewalks amid the King Streets. And while new trees were planted to replace the fallen giants, it would be decades -- centuries, perhaps -- before the King Streets fully regained their end-to-end shade.
Meralda smiled and enjoyed the walk. I believe a bit of sun does the neighborhood some good, she decided, as she passed from shade to light. It was a bit gloomy in places, before.
Mug buzzed past, whistling as he piloted his new airborne bird-cage. Held aloft by a pair of small flying coils and a single battery and holdstone, Mug's initial aversion to flight was quickly giving way to a genuine flair for it.
"Ha!" cried Mug, as he chased a panicked crow from its perch atop a freshly-painted mailbox. Meralda could see Mug's delicate vine-like tendrils working his tiny brass steering levers, and she marveled as he flew a trio of quick orbits around the fleeing crow before returning to her side.
"And to think just a month ago you couldn't stand to be carried," said Meralda. "Now look at you. Mugglesworth Ovis, Terror of the Skies."
"Oh, this is so much better than being hauled about by hand," said Mug, his eyes scanning the air for more crows to pester. "I don't feel the motion at all, now that you've improved your flapping coils."
"Flying coils," said Meralda, by rote. "But you really should leave the crows alone. One day they'll catch you napping."
"Bah. Look, a jaybird!"
Mug sailed aloft, hooting in glee.
A carriage rolled up behind Meralda, and amid the clop-clop of hooves she heard familiar voices.
"It's the flying lady!"
"Hush, she's a Mage!"
"You hush!"
A man laughed. "Both of you hush," said Otis Ghote, calling for his driver to stop. "Good morning, Mage Ovis. We were hoping we'd find you out strolling."
Meralda turned. His head still bandaged, and his eyes still black from bruises, Otis Ghote grinned at her through his half-open door. "May we offer you a ride to the Palace?"
The Ghote children, Marvis and Lenette, squealed with delight. Mrs. Ghote calmed them with an exasperated glare.
"That's very kind of you. Are you sure it's no imposition?"
Mr. Ghote nodded, winced, and grinned.
"Certainly not nearly as much an imposition as inventing a flying machine and soaring into a monster of a storm to rescue us," he said. "Children. Make room."
Mug's flying bird-cage dropped from the sky. "Hello, Ghotes," he said, waving his leaves. "No more adventures aloft, I hope?"
"The Ghotes have offered me a lift," said Meralda. "Would you care to join us?"
"Thanks all the same, but I know the way. Hah, it's that's despicable pigeon from two blocks north. I'll show you whose window to peck at!"
And Mug was soaring, banking, and gone, leaving terrified crows in his wake.
Mrs. Ghote smiled and motioned for Meralda to sit. "I see your friend has quite changed his mind on matters of flight. He certainly wasn't so enthused during our first meeting."
Meralda nodded, remembering Mug's running commentary on the folly of flying during the Jenny's desperate final descent. The batteries had gone flat at two hundred feet up, forcing Meralda to dump the whol
e remaining charge of her nearly-spent holdstones through the flying coils without any way to control the flow. She'd plunged through a driving rain, buffeted by powerful winds, down through a sky so dark she wasn't sure what was ground and what was sky.
In the end, she'd simply shoved the levers to their back stops and hoped for the best.
The Jenny struck a barn roof, careened off that and onto the top of a chicken coop, and from there she'd simply fallen onto the ground, four hundred miles from the Palace, on the farm of a butter-maker named, oddly enough, Falhen Boatsmage.
"I see you're all nearly recovered," said Meralda, winking at the children, who broke into fits of giggles. "It's wonderful to see you up and about, Mr. Ghote. I must admit I had my doubts."
"Call me Otis. And if it weren't for you, and my good wife too, we'd still be up there, lost and frozen."
"Frozen stiff!" chorused the children. "Frozen stiff as boards!"
"Shush." Mrs. Ghote sighed. "I trust you've seen the papers, Mage Ovis?"
Meralda's face went red. "Oh yes," she said. "All of them. I don't even own dresses like that. And I certainly wouldn't wear them in public."
"That's the press for you," agreed Mr. Ghote. "Penswifts. They'll say or draw anything to sell papers. Is the Captain speaking to you again? I did notice the papers left out your refusal to obey a Royal writ."
The Captain had still been furious upon his arrival at the Boatsmage farm. Meralda remembered the long coach ride back to Tirlin -- the man had barely spoken half a dozen words.
Mrs. Ghote elbowed her husband gently in his side. "Otis. We're in public."
Meralda laughed. "Ignoring the occasional Royal writ is a prerogative of my office," she said. "It's almost expected, as long as one doesn't do it too often, or too publicly. Yes, the Captain is speaking to me again. He knows I was right."
"Good. We're buying a new airship, by the way. A bigger one, with two screws, and a small salon. You'll have to go flying with us, one clear day." He grinned a bruised but impish grin. "We hear you're quite the pilot."
Mug's cage, its flying coils buzzing, dipped down level with Meralda's window. "She's not a bad flyer," he said, waggling his eyes at the Ghote children. "But for serious aerobatics, you'll want Mugglesworth Ovis, Terror of the Skies!"
The Ghote children squealed in delight. Mug shoved his levers forward, and his cage darted away, up and up, into the rising sun.
THE END
Afterword
I hope you enjoyed your time with Mug and Meralda. This novella is by no means the end of the adventure -- All the Paths of Shadow (a full length novel) is out now, and the author is hard at work on the sequel, All the Turns of Light, which should be out soon from my friends at Cool Well Press!
Speaking of the author, he welcomes your emails and comments, and his website www.franktuttle.com is always open! Feel free to also stop by the All the Paths of Shadow Facebook page, where Mug and Meralda may often be found posting!
A complete list of Frank's titles on Amazon is here.
Thanks for coming along. I hope you enjoyed the ride.
Frank Tuttle, August 2012
