by Terry Brooks
But she hadn’t needed or sought that sort of validation of late, sufficiently grown up to be comfortable in her own skin and satisfied with who she was. She had worked hard ever since not to give either one the wrong impression about how she felt, while at the same time making sure they all stayed friends.
Even so, things hadn’t worked out quite as she wished. While they accepted her friendship they continued to believe strongly that eventually there would be something more. They were so eager and awkward and funny about it. Each tried to outdo the other. Each made a special effort to lift his profile above the other’s so that he would be seen differently in her eyes.
She gave a mental shake of her head. Hopeless. One day soon, she would have to do something about it.
A shadow moved in the darkness to one side and Austrum appeared, moving over to her. She was surprised and immediately irritated, but she resisted the urge to get up and leave. He sat down and for a moment said nothing.
“Why is it you dislike me so?” he asked finally.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t dislike you.”
“You work hard enough at making it seem like you do.”
She sighed wearily and faced him. “I just don’t like it that you taunt me all the time. I don’t need you trying to prove you’re better than I am at everything. And if you’re so worried about me not liking you, then don’t call me terrible names.”
He nodded, looking at her sideways for just a second. “I was wrong to call you that. I lost my temper. I thought you were trying to make me look foolish about the contest when you demanded we continue and then said we couldn’t. I reacted without thinking. I didn’t mean it. Any of it.”
“But it hurt.”
He shifted slightly in the dark. It was difficult to see his face. “I won’t do it again. I promise. I’ll tell everyone I was wrong to do it this time. Will that help?”
“Just don’t do it again.”
“I said I wouldn’t.”
“Maybe you should just stay away from me for a while.”
The silence was longer this time. He seemed to be mulling over the idea, giving it weight. Finally, he locked his hands and pulled his knees up to his chest like a little boy caught out.
“I like you. I think you’re beautiful. You’re funny and smart. I feel good just being around you. I wanted you to notice me. So I teased you and did stupid things so that you would. I’m not very good at this courting business. I don’t really have any practice.” He finished abruptly and kept his eyes averted.
“You’re courting me?” she asked in amazement.
He nodded wordlessly.
She was stunned. “Why would you court me? You don’t even like me! Look how you behave around me!”
“I said I wasn’t very good at it.”
She stared at him. Big, strong, and handsome, he was someone she might be attracted to under different circumstances—although she couldn’t think what those circumstances would be. Maybe if she didn’t think him so hopelessly idiotic and dense. Maybe if they were in a different setting and not wandering the wilderness of the deep Westland. She was almost willing to concede that she had been wrong about his self-absorption, given the self-effacing way he had tried to explain his behavior, but she couldn’t think of any reason why telling him this or otherwise encouraging him would be a good idea.
“I’m not interested in being courted by you or anyone else, Austrum,” she said. “I just want you to leave me alone. I appreciate the apology. Now do what you said and don’t keep after me all the time.”
He looked confused. “What about those twins? You seem to want them to court you.”
“Redden and Railing are friends from way back. That’s all.”
He shook his head. “They don’t look at you like they’re just friends.”
She’d had enough. She put a finger into his chest. “I want you to go sit somewhere else. Right now.”
He hesitated, looked down at her finger, then looked up again and smiled. He got to his feet without a word and walked off.
That had been entirely too easy, she thought, looking after him, and wondered why it bothered her.
Daybreak brought an unexpected change in the weather. Mirai woke to the feeling of cool wind and dampness on her face and rose to find dark clouds moving in from the west. Huge, tumbling black thunderheads filled the sky from horizon to horizon, and it was immediately clear that rain was on the way. Most of the others were already awake and sliding into cloaks and rain slicks, and she was quick to join them.
Austrum walked by, grim-faced and aloof, and did not bother even to look at her. Edras was in the pilot box, unlocking the gears and levers and readying the airship controls. She joined Chance Boy and Rideout, who were trimming the rigging in expectation of the blow, reducing light sheaths to a bare minimum. The rest were lashing down everything that might shift in flight. This was not the sort of day she had envisioned after so many dry and windless ones. Today would be something altogether different, and she did not like to think of what that would mean to their efforts to find the Ard Rhys.
They took time to eat in shifts, their meals quickly prepared and eaten. There was a decided sense of urgency. If they could get moving quickly enough, they might be able to reach their unknown destination before the storm hit. What it had taken the Ard Rhys and company days to reach on foot they could expect to reach in a couple of hours. No one thought this would happen, given the speed and look of the approaching storm, but at least they could make significant progress before they had to anchor and wait it out.
The wind was blowing harder but the rain was still holding off as they hauled in the anchor and lifted away from their mooring site. Mirai stood with Edras in the pilot box, the pieces of the broken coin clutched in one hand, reading the brightening and dimming of their glow to determine the direction the Walker Boh should take. She had not known before what she would have to do in order to find the way. But as soon as the airship had begun to fly, the coins had responded, and it had immediately become clear what was needed. Still, knowing and acting on that knowledge were two different things. The high winds buffeted the Walker Boh like a toy, and she was continually knocked off course. Edras fought the wheel until he was exhausted and suddenly Austrum was there to take his place, seizing the wheel and holding it steady. Mirai glanced at him, but he refused to look back.
When the rains came, they had still not reached their destination. With sheets of rain whipping over them, the light sheaths reduced to tatters, and the ship caught in the grip of a north wind shaking her like a cat would a rat, there was every reason to believe they might go down.
“We have to get out of this!” Mirai yelled at Austrum.
The Rover shouted something back that was lost in the wind’s piercing scream. But his hands flew over the airship’s controls, and the airship began to descend toward the layers of mist and the stone spears they concealed.
Forward, Chance Boy on the starboard railing and Pursett on the port shouted back and gestured for them to not go any lower. It was clear they had caught at least a glimpse of the wicked tips of the Fangs right under them.
Austrum reached over and pulled Mirai close. “We have to get down farther if we don’t want to be shaken to pieces,” he shouted in her ear.
“Watch for my signals!” she responded. And without waiting for his response, she rushed forward.
Positioning herself next to Chance Boy, who was barely out of his teens, she peered into the shifting haze of the mist and rain, searching for an opening. She pulled the pieces of the coin from her pocket and took a quick peek through her fingers. The glow was sharp and clear; the Ard Rhys was not far away. Putting the pieces away again, she braced herself against the railing and peered over the side. She could just make out the dark spear points of the Fangs below. She held up her hands where Austrum could see them through the darkness and downpour, motioning him left and then right, guiding him toward a place where a landing might be possible. All t
hey needed to do was to descend far enough to secure mooring lines and ride out the rest of the storm.
Worried that she might be thrown overboard by the turbulence, Chance Boy had secured a safety line about her waist—something she had failed to do herself. She was balanced against the railing, her boots hooked into the struts to help hold her in place. She was being knocked about, but she was holding on and the safety line assured she would not fall even if she was dislodged.
But then she missed seeing a cluster of the spikes materialize right underneath the hull as she signaled Austrum to maneuver toward a hole in the mist. The jagged stone ripped through the planking, knocking the Walker Boh askew and tearing out the hull far enough up on the bow that it took out the railing to which she was tethered.
With a startled gasp, she went over the side and tumbled away.
10
Pain.
It ratcheted through Mirai’s body as she woke and tried to move. It flooded her senses and made her go instantly still.
Something is wrong.
She was hanging upside down, she realized, suspended by the safety line fastened about her waist, swinging slowly back and forth through a shroud of haze and grayness and damp. Rain was lashing her face, blown by storm winds that had not abated in their fury.
How long have I been unconscious?
She tried moving again, and this time realized that she was wrapped up in the safety line in a way that pinned her left arm to her side and tangled her legs. The pain seemed to be generated as much by this as by any injury, although on looking up to where the broken piece of the ship’s rail anchored her to the branches she had tumbled through, she wasn’t so sure.
But at least she was alive.
All was rain and howling wind, so she knew she was still in the thick of the storm and not much time could have elapsed. Maybe hardly any at all. Her head ached fiercely, and she supposed she had struck it hard enough falling through the tree branches to black out.
Then she looked down.
She was hanging over a line of jagged rocks forming part of the lip of a broad ravine. The ravine itself was little more than a black gash in the mix of rain and mist, and she couldn’t tell how deep it went. Huge trees ringed everything, some of them shredded of all foliage, all of them old and gnarled, their limbs twisted together in knots. The ravine zigzagged its way right through their center, in some places exposing huge roots that hung into the deep split like the arms of dead men in an open grave.
She looked away quickly. If her safety line had not caught in the trees, she would have fallen into the ravine.
And she would probably never have been found.
Her thick blond hair had come loose from its bandanna and was plastered against her face, obscuring her vision and causing her further discomfort. Using her free hand, she brushed it away, being careful to move slowly. She couldn’t tell how securely she was fastened to the trees, and she didn’t want to do anything that would cause her to shake loose. Bound up as she was by the safety line, she wouldn’t stand a chance of saving herself.
Peering upward for a long moment, she searched the grayness for some sign of the Walker Boh, but there was no hint of her. In a storm like this one, the airship had probably been blown away from where she had fallen overboard, and the Rovers had no idea how to get back to her. Especially not while the storm was still raging.
She was going to have to get out of this by herself.
The wind caught her in a sharp gust, and she found herself swinging in wide arcs over the chasm—out into the void and back over the rocks—a pendulum out of control. She gritted her teeth and tried to will herself to stop, to make her body be still.
Then the rope that suspended her gave way, and she dropped several feet before it caught again.
She closed her eyes against the wave of fear that coursed through her.
What can I do to save myself?
She looked down again, searching for something that might offer a way out. But there was nothing within reach she might grab on to and nowhere to attempt to swing herself and land safely.
Even if she managed somehow to free herself from the safety line.
Then she remembered her throwing knife. She had tucked it into her belt when the coin had broken and the throwing competition had ended. It should still be there.
She reached back, fumbling for the handle, grasping at hope.
But the knife was gone.
She felt all the air go out of her. No surprise, she told herself. She must have lost it in the fall. And she had no other blade. No other weapon at all.
She heard something beneath her, a kind of hissing sound. She glanced down and saw a lizard looking up. Or something like a lizard, only much more unpleasant. It was big, fully eight feet long. Its mouth opened as it lifted its head toward her, perhaps thinking she might fall into it like a piece of fruit. Except she didn’t think this creature ate fruit. Not with so many sharp teeth and such strong jaws for snapping bones and chewing flesh. No, this was a meat eater, and it was hoping to make a meal out of her.
Her eyes shifted.
A second lizard had appeared off to one side, even bigger than the first.
Mirai took a moment to catch her breath. She had imagined this expedition would be dangerous, and she had prepared herself for what she might encounter. But she had not prepared for this, and suddenly all she could think about was how foolish she had been to come. How foolish all of them had been. She should have refused to accompany Redden and Railing, and then perhaps they wouldn’t be here, either. Now all of them were caught up in a world of monsters and bleakness and rapidly vanishing possibilities.
Or that was how she saw it as she dangled helplessly over a chasm with a pair of hungry lizards waiting for her to drop.
But Mirai Leah was not the kind to give way to either despair or fear, so she gathered up the shreds of her courage and resolve and tried anew to find a way to save herself.
Then a shriek sounded off in the darkness to one side, piercing even the sounds of the wind and rain. The lizards turned at once, hesitated only a moment, then skittered off into the brush, leaving the clearing empty.
Mirai waited, searching the gloom. A stout figure wrapped in the black robes of the Druids stepped into view, moving toward her.
“Mirai?”
She exhaled sharply. “Seersha!”
“Are you all right?”
“As all right as I can be, trussed up like this. Can you help me?”
The Dwarf moved over to the edge of the chasm, glanced down, and stepped back again. “Close your eyes and keep them closed. Hold tight to yourself. Don’t move, no matter what you feel. Not until I tell you to. Ready?”
Mirai closed her eyes, hugged herself as best she could, and grunted affirmatively. Almost instantly she felt herself being lifted away, and then she was floating weightlessly. The wind and rain still buffeted her, but she was no longer swinging in midair. Mirai wanted desperately to see what was happening, but she had been told not to try and she wouldn’t have been told that if there wasn’t a good reason.
She felt herself moving, and then the rain-soaked earth was pressing up from beneath her, and she was lying on the ground.
Seersha was next to her at once, cutting away the remnants of the tangled safety line, tossing the pieces aside. “Must be a good story behind all this,” she said.
Mirai finally opened her eyes. “Not if you’re me.” She stretched her arms and legs as the rope fell away. “How did you find me?”
The bluff face wrinkled with her smile. “The pieces of the coin. It works both ways. When they started to glow brightly enough, I knew you were close.”
“We got caught in the storm, and the Walker Boh struck a cluster of stone spikes. I was tied to the railing, but it tore away and took me with it.”
“Not a good time to be looking for anyone,” Seersha observed as she helped the Highland girl to her feet. “For either of us. We have to get out of here. This whole p
lace is crawling with things that want to kill us.”
Although Mirai could stand, she could barely walk, her legs numb from being trussed up. Seersha had to support her, an arm wrapped around her waist as she helped her move away.
“Is the ship still flying? Or did it go down, too?”
“Still flying, so far as I know.” Mirai hobbled along as swiftly as she could, casting anxious glances over her shoulder in the direction the lizards had taken. “What’s happened?”
“Good question. I only know a little of it. Let’s save that for when we’re safe. Was it the coin breaking that brought you?”
Mirai nodded.
“Not very quickly, though.”
“The Rovers and I decided not to risk it at night. Too dangerous to try to maneuver a big airship. So we waited until this morning to set out.”
Seersha snorted. “Which didn’t turn out to be of much help, did it?”
“No. The storm just made things worse. I’m sorry.”
The Dwarf tightened her arm about Mirai’s waist in a brief hug. “Don’t be. I’m just glad you came at all.”
The hissing sound was back, suddenly right behind them. Without releasing her grip on Mirai, Seersha wheeled about, stretched out her free arm, fingers extended, and sent an explosion of blue fire into the creature that was reaching for them with open jaws. The lizard flew backward into the dark and disappeared.
“And that’s not even the worst of what’s here,” the Druid said, exhaling sharply.
They moved ahead as swiftly as they could, and slowly Mirai regained the feeling in her legs and her strength began to return. Twice more the lizards came at them, and each time Seersha used quick bursts of her Druid Fire to fling them away.
