by Ted Neill
She checked their course. They were drifting too far to the north. She swung the ship left, southwards. It was too abrupt, she realized. Soon they were heading directly towards the sea again, towards deep water.
No, no, no . . .
A cacophony of snaps at the starboard railing drew her attention. The ship lurched again.
Could nothing go right?
The rigging that held the starboard end of the wing was breaking, lines snapping like strings on a fiddle. The eye-bolts where the lines connected to the ship were coming loose and pulling wood free alongside them. Old, dried caulking fluttered up from the spreading planks and spun in the air like autumn leaves.
Please, just a bit further.
She eased the starboard pedal to bring them closer to land again. She winced as she did so, for she knew she was putting pressure on the crumbling side of the ship. She made sure the turn was slow and shallow, keeping them over the water longer than she would have liked. Soon the island was beneath them again. The ground was closer now. Houses passed below. She imagined they must have appeared to be a great dragon swooping over the tree tops to anyone on the ground. By the road and the barns below, she could tell they had already passed their own farm.
The town was just ahead. She sensed they were going to crash into the mass of buildings. She told herself that she was a fool to have aimed for the town. Unless she landed in the square, the place was a maze of walls and houses. There was no room for error. She pressed the port pedal. They soared over the harbor. It would buy her more time. The ship continued to descend. She was a bit high, but better that than too low. The air above the water was colder. Figures carried torches, and crowds of people filled the square. The whole town was out! It suddenly occurred to her that they could not see her coming. Why would they? Who expects a flying boat to drop out of the night sky?
“Watch out!” she screamed, but her voice was lost in the wind. She screeched again only to have her voice crack. Dameon covered his ears and beat his head against the back of his chair. Adamantus strained against his straps and lifted his head to the sky like a wolf howling at the moon. A deep baritone moan rose from deep within him, so deep that, like a large drum, its note reverberated in Gabriella’s breast.
Faces in the square turned their way. At first there was no reaction except the opposite of what was most urgently needed: people gathered at the harbor’s edge to see what the noise was. Adamantus howled louder. An arm pointed. A scream—a chorus of shouting, and the crowd surged apart. Gabriella tightened her grip on the levers.
“Thank the stars, you have a singing voice. They see us.”
“Good, now slow us!”
She tried. Their speed was tremendous. Every movement Gabriella made was too extreme—tilting the ship too far to port or too far to starboard. The landing called for finesse. They straightened but lost more altitude than she had intended. They were over the docks now. They were too low.
They smashed into the naked masts of moored ships. Crows nests crashed over the railings and splintered against treasure chests. The port wing ripped, the sound of the canvas splitting reverberating. Gabriella pushed both wings to full extension. The ship shuddered and trunks slid forward. The Elawn was going into a spin, but Gabriella clipped the wings, her own arms feeling heavy with the force of the rotation against her. The town square was just under the bowsprit.
The Elawn was skidding through the brightly lit square. No faces were visible now, only the retreating backs of people. The Elawn’s speed diminished. The sound of wood scraping on stone diminished. A building loomed up in their path. There was no stopping now. Gabriella braced herself.
Bricks and thatch fell down on the deck as the ship crashed into a building. The Elawn shifted once more, tilting over to the starboard side, rocked, then went still. Gabriella imagined the airship breathing her last. Gabriella patted one of the levers affectionately as Ghede had when landing in Nicomedes’ secret workshop, then leaned back coughing from the dust.
They were home.
Chapter 23
A Bargain
It took longer than Gabriella anticipated for the villagers to approach the ship. She expected a wall of faces peering over the railings, but only a few men, with swords drawn, came near.
“It is a girl!” one yelled. “And a boy. And a deer!”
She did not know any of the men. She wanted to think of some grand way of disembarking, but her mind was numb, her energy spent. She was relieved just to be alive.
The murmurs grew among the crowd. The armed men wove their way through the wreckage that the Elawn had left in her wake. Gabriella suddenly was aware that she was in the middle of town, and she had to protect Adamantus.
“Are both of you all right?” she asked.
The elk nodded. He had gone silent as the men approached.
Dameon was covered in dust and barely recognizable. Gabriella was seized with a crazy desire to tousle his hair. She stayed her hand but smiled affectionately at him. “Dameon, jump out first. You will be our emissary.”
He followed her bidding, unlocking his straps and carefully sliding down the deck. He used an overturned trunk to step over the railing. Although Gabriella could not see them, she heard the surrounding crowd gasp. She leaned against Adamantus.
“I will protect you my friend,” she said.
“I trust you with my life. Especially after that landing. Ghede would be proud.”
“I don’t know if the Elawn liked it much,” she said, but their discreet conversation was cut short by the crowd below. Expressions of shock still plastered the townspeople’s faces, and the men grasping swords seemed ready to use them.
“It is safe,” she called down to the crowd, gesturing to the elk. “He is tame.”
Then Gabriella heard a voice that made her heart leap: her mother, Marissa, calling Dameon’s name. Gabriella heard her father’s gruff voice as well. With Adamantus beside her, she crossed what was left of the Elawn’s deck and went to the railing.
“Mother! Pa!” Gabriella cried.
Her parents came running out of the crowd. They wrapped Dameon in their arms. With the first sight of her mother’s face, she knew there would be no scolding. Gabriella wanted to run directly to her parents, but she did not forget Adamantus. She held herself back and waited for the elk. By the time he had extricated his long legs and antlers from the wreck, Gabriella’s parents were at her side. She felt she would never breathe again from the force of their embraces. Her mother kissed her face, and soon they were both powdered in the white dust that covered Gabriella.
“What’s going on?” Gabriella asked when they released her. “Why is everyone gathered in the square?
Her mother was in no state to answer. Looking at Adamantus, her father only said, “It is Omanuju’s elk, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Gabriella said.
“Where is Omanuju?”
A lump caught in Gabriella’s throat. “He did not survive.”
Her father hugged her closer, but her mind was already moving to other things. For the first time, she assessed the crowd. The familiar smells of the village and harbor struck her—salted fish, boat tar, cooking fires, the unctuous smell of lard lanterns, and, of course, the sour hint of garbage floating below the docks. All the scents, fair and foul, were welcome, reminders that she was home. But the people surrounding the Elawn were on edge, ready to fight, their fists clenched, their expressions fixed in a spirit of resistance.
The crowd had split in two—a few swarthy and unpopular men on one side, and the rest of the island on the other. Gabriella guessed that the thugs were Mab Miller supporters, threatening the rest of the village.
So this was the night, the last night to pay Miller’s price.
Gabriella was aware that everyone was staring at her and her family now. She released her father from her embrace, straightened her hair, and stepped towards Adamantus to protect him. The crowd was silent. She asked her parents once more: “What is happening here
?”
“The Servior have come to buy the land around the tower,” her father said. “The village raised enough money, but Mab has tripled his price. We don’t have that amount of gold on the entire island, but the Servior do. Those on this side of the square are voting to strip Mab of his rights to his land. The ones behind Mab say that would set a dangerous precedent. The whole island is up in arms.”
“We are in turmoil.” Her mother wiped the tears from her eyes. “But at least you are back.”
Gabriella looked at the crowd. She was pleased that more people were assembled against Mab than for him, but there was still a sizable group standing at his side. Taking a second look, she was surprised. Some of his supporters were good people she would not have expected to back him.
Rights to land were sacrosanct on Harkness. Even Gabriella understood the gravity of stripping a family of their rights to land. Everyone’s rights would be undermined. Who would feel safe anymore? Mab Miller, dressed in velvet robes, seemed to know this and wore a face of arrogant self-satisfaction. He had not worn his medallions—perhaps it would have seemed ostentatious to wear them while he asked for even more money.
Gabriella noticed Chief Salinger stood in the center of the square and his wife Mellanye was close by. The village elders, including Tarmec, the former chief, were also nearby. The elders had aligned their support behind Chief Salinger. Gabriella’s heart lurched as she spied the dark cloaks of the Servior. They were gathered at the harbor’s edge, the rest of the crowd standing off from them. It was easy to pick out their leader, Sade, in his crimson cloak amid the other black-clad Servior. As they clustered around him, he was a red iris in a black eye. At his feet sat a heavy sack of gold coins.
But the Serviors’ attention was not on the gold at their feet, rather, it was focused on Adamantus. Every one, to a man, stared at him the way a butcher looked upon a prized sow.
Adamantus stepped backwards. Gabriella knew she had little time to waste. She was a single girl, but she had the drama of the moment on her side.
“Papa,” she said. “Please watch over Ada—the elk. Do not leave his side.”
Her father was dumbstruck. Like the Servior, he stared at Adamantus, but his eyes were a mix of wonderment, fear, and remorse. Gabriella could not understand why her father would look shamed and guilty with one sight of the elk.
“I will,” he said.
“Papa, promise me!”
Now he turned to her. “Gabriella, of course I promise. I will guard his life as if it were your own.”
Since she had just dropped out of the sky, Gabriella calculated that her powers of persuasion were still strong. She grabbed Dameon, her mother releasing him reluctantly, as if he might not return, and went to the shattered bow of the Elawn. Dameon bounced alongside, eager to be free of their mother’s tight embrace.
With his help, Gabriella lifted one of the trunks and lowered it over the side of the ship. A handle in each hand, they lugged it across the square, the crowd parting before them. Normally, such a load would have exhausted both of them, but she could tell that Dameon shared her sense of purpose. His eyes darted about nervously, and his lips moved with unintelligible words, but his head was down, the crown of his head pointing forward like a bull would point its horns. It was the pose Dameon struck at his most stubborn. Her heart could have burst with love for him at that moment. Never had they shared such a cause as they did just then.
They stopped before Mab Miller, his family gathered around him. They looked upon Dameon with discomfort as he lifted his head to briefly let his eyes roll past them. It was aggressive for her brother.
Gabriella counted a few beats, letting the Miller family’s discomfort grow. Then she looked Mab Miller in the face. For once, she knew she could address an adult as an equal.
“The terms of Mr. Miller’s price were three pounds of gold?”
No one answered. The crowd was still stunned into silence. She spoke again. “Has every cat in the village got every tongue?”
No one laughed. Miller mumbled, “Yes, those were the terms, but the price has now tripled.” His voice cracked as he spoke.
“Yes, the price is now nine pounds.” A steady voice, laced with resentment. It was Chief Salinger. He raised his voice for all to hear as he approached Gabriella and Mab Miller.
“That was the arrangement, but Mr. Miller has raised his price. Only the Servior are able to pay. We are asking for more time, but there is a motion to strip Mab Miller of this right to his land.”
“Which is out of the question,” Miller said.
“You have changed the original agreement without notice—” Salinger answered back.
“You are also acting against the best interests of this island,” the old chief Tarmec spoke up. This was the same argument they were having before the ship crashed into their midst.
“How dare you! I have only the best interests of this island in mind,” Miller bellowed, his hands flapping at his sides.
“Your false beneficence is not fooling anyone!” the old chief shouted back. Salinger tried to calm them both, but Gabriella, flush with impatience, interrupted them all.
“Let him raise the price. We will see it and double it, if he agrees to it now.”
Gabriella kicked over the chest. Gold and jewels spilled onto the ground. Dameon hopped up and down.
Miller fell to his knees before the hoard of riches. Shocked, Chief Salinger stared with his mouth hanging open. Even Tarmec and the other elders could only move their mouths as if chewing the words they wished to speak. The crowd surged closer and erupted in murmurs that threatened to drown out any discussion.
Salinger came to his senses and cried out to his men at arms, “Hold back the crowd! Please, everyone we must have silence.”
Reasserting his role as broker, Salinger stepped between Miller and the gold.
“It is not yours, unless you agree.”
“I agree,” Miller said, spreading his short fingers out on the ground and reaching for the nearest coin by Salinger’s foot. Miller’s wife recoiled as her husband scampered after the gold on all fours, like a slovenly dog.
“It is done then,” Salinger said. He could not repress the smile of relief that crossed his face. He turned to the Servior, but Sade rushed up and stood nearly nose to nose with the chief. Gabriella felt a sliver of fear. She searched the crowd for Adamantus, relieved to see her father standing sentinel beside him on the ship.
Sade was just as Gabriella remembered him from the town meeting before: his unnaturally smooth skin, his eyes narrow, his cheek bones and nose that made him look like a snake. Gabriella was reminded of Falik standing amid the rubble of the treasure house, his hood spread wide.
Sade pretended to ignore Gabriella, but she felt his rage. She had the sense of being in grave danger, as if a battery of arrows was aimed at her and Adamantus. She had to find a way to get the elk out of the village.
“Chief Salinger,” Sade said in a plying voice, his groveling tone announcing that he was angling for something. Whatever he wants it can’t be good, Gabriella thought. “Considering that we have sailed all this way for a deal we have now lost, perhaps there is something you could offer in recompense?”
“Why would I offer you and your kind anything, after all the worry and dissention you have caused me and my fellow people?” Salinger’s clear disgust rallied Gabriella. “I’d give you a strong breeze to blow you back to your home, never to return, never to trouble us again, if it were in my power.”
Trouble Harkness no more, the dead’s own prophecy echoed in Gabriella’s head like a bell. Her heart skipped a beat.
Sade was unfazed by Salinger’s affront. His fingers twisted the broken ring that hung around his neck. “Then a trade. We will make you an offer. We will give you just what you request. We will never return. We will never sow dissention into the people of Harkness again.”
It was an offer even Gabriella would have entertained. Could it be true? Would the prophecy unfold right
before her eyes? She felt dizzy with power. Salinger turned to Sade. Now that the Sevior had the chief’s attention, Sade’s lips curled with pleasure. “Give us that elk.”
It was a burning spear, driven through Gabriella’s heart down through her entire body. She shouted, “No! You can’t. He does not belong to you!”
Sade ignored her. He was looking directly into Salinger’s eyes, focused like a warlock chanting an incantation. Gabriella did not like the way Salinger was hesitating to respond. The chief put his hand up to quiet Gabriella. She held her tongue. He was the chief after all. He would not betray her now.
“You Servior and your requests,” Salinger said. “What is your fascination with this elk?”
The Servior commander was looking directly at her now. The pleasure in his face was obscene.
“What is one animal in return for an island of harmony?” Sade asked the chief.
“Where is Omanuju?” Salinger asked her.
Gabriella swallowed before answering. “He’s dead.”
Salinger placed a hand over his heart. “How?”
She did not want to implicate Mortimer or explain the entire journey when Adamantus’ life hung in the balance. Instead she said, “You know he would not want this.”
“Even for the promise of peace,” Sade offered. “Even for the promise that we would never return?”
Never return. Gabriella felt as if the ground was moving beneath her, as if she stood on the slanting deck of the Elawn in a storm. This could not be happening.
“It is dear to the girl though,” Salinger said.
The girl. She was just “the girl” now. Gabriella balled her fists, and she heard her knuckles crack. The air was rushing out of her. She saw Salinger in a new light, revealed for what he was—provincial, limited. He had never sailed beyond the archipelago. He had not faced demons, dragons, nor set eyes upon the towers and tombs of civilizations greater than their own. He had not encountered magic or spirits, or entire islands of cursed people, or people with beliefs different from those of Harkness. Gabriella was amazed, ashamed she had ever been so enamored of him. What did Salinger truly know of the world?
