by Frank Tuttle
Mrs. Primsbite produced a pencil and her notepad. “You saw something in the clouds, and you went stiff as a statue,” she said. “What was it you saw? And why did it affect you so?”
Meralda lowered her cup. “I saw machines in the sky,” she said. “Flying machines. Hundreds of them. Thousands. I only thought I destroyed the black death. In truth, it seems I only helped it hatch.”
“Flying machines? Airships? What manner of crew do they carry?”
“They are not airships. No gas envelopes. No gas at all. And they carry no crew. They are not vehicles,” replied Meralda. “I can only assume they are weapons.”
Mrs. Primsbite’s pen scribbled. “There have been dozens of sightings by the crew,” she said. She held up her notepad and showed Meralda a sketch depicting a thick saucer-shaped thing, its surface covered with tubes and conduits and mechanical protuberances. “Is this what you mean?”
“That is an amazing likeness,” Meralda said.
Mrs. Primsbite nodded. “Is that what caused you to fall into your, shall we say, fugue state?”
Meralda sipped coffee. “No,” she said at last. “There was something else.” She put her cup down before her hand began to visibly shake. “I saw, quite clearly, a tall, thin man walking. A man so tall his head matched our altitude. This creature saw me, and called me unmaker, and I believe I unintentionally slowed time in my immediate vicinity nearly to a halt.”
“Nearly, indeed,” added Donchen.
Mrs. Primsbite wrote. “And when you slowed time, Mage, did you employ this unmagic you spoke of earlier to do so?”
“I did. I did it without thinking. The unmagic could easily have brought not just me but the universe to a halt.”
“And yet it did not,” said Donchen quickly.
“So it seems this unmagic can be used without ending the world,” Mug said.
“Donchen, what was the speed of light yesterday?” asked Meralda.
Donchen recited a figure.
“And today?” asked Meralda.
Donchen sighed, and rattled off a new set of numbers, ones slightly different from his first reply.
“I have no idea what kind of long-term effects this might present,” Meralda said. “No idea at all. But if my actions before could be expressed as tossing pebbles into a pond, I am now throwing millstones. We see not ripples, but waves. What comes next?”
“Baseless assumptions?” asked Mug.
Meralda sighed. “Surely you understand my concerns.”
Mrs. Primsbite smiled. “Mr. Kerns is the science editor,” she said. “But I am no stranger to the topic. Yes, I see why you are concerned. Though I hesitate to add to your burden, I must show you this.” She rifled through the pages of her notebook before finding the one she sought. “Is this the giant figure you saw?”
Meralda inhaled sharply. Drawn in Mrs. Primsbite’s flowing hand was the face Meralda had seen, its sunken eyes filled with rage, its toothless mouth open in preparation for a scream.
“That is what I saw,” Meralda said. “How did you know?”
Mrs. Primsbite closed her notebook. “Two of the telescope spotters saw the same figure,” she replied. “Both sightings were so brief they made no official log of it. Neither wanted to talk. But of course, beer is a potent relaxing agent,” she added. “You aren’t imagining things, Mage. However unlikely it may seem, that creature, or a facsimile thereof, is out there, stalking us. And there’s more–heavens, where did I put that drawing…”
While she thumbed through the pages in her notebook, Donchen perched on the corner of Meralda’s desk, and Mug came to hover above her right shoulder.
“Here it is,” said Mrs. Primsbite. “Does this look familiar?”
Meralda studied the drawing the penswift produced. It appeared to depict the sky, through a gap in the clouds. But instead of the Moon or the Sun, a portion of an impossibly large ring dominated the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon, its circumference unimaginably vast–so large, in fact, that only an arc of the circle showed.
“You mentioned beer earlier,” Mug said. “Did someone perhaps have quite a lot of it, before they described that?”
“He was perfectly sober,” said Mrs. Primsbite. “And of a certain elevated rank. He insists he saw this structure, and I for one am inclined to believe him.” She looked to Meralda. “Does it ring any magical bells, Mage?”
“I have no idea what that might be,” Meralda said. “An optical illusion of some sort, perhaps.”
“It’s not just giants and sky-rings, either,” Mug said. “The crew reports seeing flying things in the storm. I wasn’t inclined to believe they were seeing anything but nerves and boredom until I saw one myself.”
Meralda’s eyes suddenly shone like coals. “It was black, approximately circular or saucer-shaped, perhaps ten feet in diameter,” she said.
“How did you know?” asked Mug.
Meralda moved to stand before the porthole. “Because there are two such objects pacing us now, some two hundred feet out,” she replied. Her crimson eyes brightened. “They are not living things.”
“Vonat?” asked Donchen.
Meralda shook her head. “I suspect so.”
Mug exchanged a worried six-eyed glance with Donchen. “Mistress? How can you be so sure?”
“Unmagic,” said Mrs. Primsbite, in a near whisper. “I don’t mean you’re using it. But it has changed your senses, has it not? Allowing you to see things we cannot?”
A raccoon landed in Mrs. Primsbite’s lap before scurrying off to find refuge within the stacks of debris. The penswift rose, her demeanor unfazed as she slipped her pencil behind her ear.
“It seems the interview is over,” she said, smiling. “Thank you for your time, Mage. I have tea every afternoon at three o’clock sharp. You are invited, and I will not touch a pencil nor remember a single word spoken. Good day, all.”
Mug and Donchen offered goodbyes. Meralda’s eyes shone, and she frowned, deep in thought, while Donchen coaxed the raccoon into a laundry basket.
“Nameless,” Meralda said, at last. “Faceless. Come here.”
The two crows appeared, squawking and flapping.
“Do you see the flying machines which follow us?” asked Meralda.
Aye, replied a crow. We have no love for them.
Ugly things, said the other. Shall we smite any that draw too near?
“You shall not,” Meralda said. “I only want them watched.”
The crows hopped, shifting from claw to claw in unison.
They sometimes fly alone, said a crow.
Perhaps if we slew a few, the rest would keep a distance.
“Or perhaps they would move against us by the thousands,” Meralda said. “Have you observed the direction from whence they came, or to which they depart?”
They fly to and fro, aimless as zephyrs, said a crow.
Let us smite them, and be done, suggested the other.
“Absolutely not,” Meralda said. “If you have nothing helpful to add please just return to your patrol.”
The crows vanished in mid-squawk.
A bright flash of reddish light bathed the cabin briefly in a fiery glow. Meralda felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, and then she felt her heart race and her face flush.
I’m angry, she realized. Furious.
Memories came racing back, and Meralda put her hands on her hips.
“We’ve never had a fight before,” she said to Donchen. “Never a cross word.”
Donchen’s brow furrowed in confusion. “We still haven’t,” he said.
“No. We just did. You stormed out. I let you go. I was glad to see you go.”
Donchen stepped closer. “Meralda. No. This did not happen.”
“It did,” Meralda said. “It will.”
“I tell you it will not,” said Donchen. He reached out to take her hand, and she opened her eyes, which were ablaze.
“You left me,” she said. “For an Alon librarian. How dare yo
u.”
Mug flew in close. “Meralda,” he said. “I don’t know where you are, or what you think is happening, but Donchen hasn’t left you and we’re aboard the Intrepid and you aren’t making sense. So calm down, focus on the here and the now, and stop this nonsense.”
Donchen took Meralda’s hand, and squeezed it.
The light in her eyes faded, and she swayed, and Donchen caught her.
“What—” she began.
A sudden rain of coffee cups, each full and accompanied by a saucer, a lump of sugar, and a stirring fork, dropped into the cabin.
“Never mind,” said Donchen. “Stay here. Stay now.”
“I was furious with you,” Meralda said. “But I can’t remember why.”
Donchen smiled. “Let us hope we never know,” he said. He led Meralda to the berth, and sat down with her. “Deep breaths,” he said. “Try to relax.”
Meralda squeezed her eyes shut. “They called me Mad Meralda,” she said. “Even the papers.”
“No, they did not,” said Donchen. He lifted her chin so that she met his eyes. “These things are not true.”
“Is it possible to be awake and have bad dreams?” asked Mug.
“My people believe so,” said Donchen. “Meralda. Look at me. Can you see the truth in my words, that none of these terrible events took place?”
Meralda studied Donchen’s face. Donchen is sitting beside me looking worried, she thought. He believes we did not quarrel, that he did not marry that awful Alon woman, that I am not known as Mad Meralda, the red-eyed Witch of Tirlin.
But even as she looked at Donchen she saw faint motion at the edges of his face. There, somehow occupying nearly the same space, was another Donchen, and another, until the line of them stretched off into an eternity of nearly identical Donchens.
Nearly identical. But there were differences. That one really did marry an Alon librarian. And that one there took to drink.
“Focus,” she whispered, closing her eyes. She remembered her first days of training her Sight, as Fromarch admonished her to ground herself before she attempted to See.
“Sight can be tricky,” the old wizard had said. “If you’re not careful, you might See things that aren’t, that never were. Or you might See the future, which is even worse. Go in calm. Focus only on what you need to See. Ignore the rest, or you’ll waste all your time chasing will-o-the-wisps. Or you might get lost. Don’t do that. I’m too old to train another apprentice.”
“Here and now,” Meralda said. “Only the here, only the now.”
She opened her eyes. Donchen stared back, but only one Donchen, and she caught him up in a sudden fierce hug.
“Forgive me,” she said. “You too, Mug.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” said Donchen.
A single crow appeared on Meralda’s desk.
‘Tis done, it said. A pair of feathers fell from its rain-soaked body.
“What is?” asked Meralda.
The flying disc. We brought the wreckage here. Nameless bears it, near the end of the loading ramp, said Faceless.
“I told you to leave the discs alone!” Meralda said.
“You did,” Mug said. “They just didn’t listen.” His leaves visibly curled and wilted. “I don’t suppose the flying machine came quietly, did it?” he asked.
Nay, said Faceless. It fought, but we vanquished it. I would not love to fight two at once, he added. They are sturdy, these metal fiends.
Nameless is tiring, said Faceless. The ramp, if ye please?
Meralda rose, her hands clenched into fists.
“You acknowledge I told you to leave the discs alone?” she asked.
Better to know an enemy before he strikes, said Faceless. You are not yourself, Mage, it added. We did what is best.
Meralda’s eyes blazed. The temperature in the room plummeted. Ice rimmed the porthole and the surface of Goboy’s Glass.
“I am not to be ignored,” Meralda said, her voice hard and as cold as the chill in the air. “I will not have your pity, or your suspicion.”
We only –
“Silence,” Meralda said, and the cabin shook. “Do not speak unless you are spoken to.”
Mug made frantic shushing motions. Donchen laid his hand gently on Meralda’s shoulder. “What’s done is done,” he said. “We might as well have a look. I’ll send a Bellringer ahead, have the deck officer lower the ramp a few feet.”
Meralda fixed the crow in her furious gaze.
“Assist Nameless,” she said. “Depart from me.”
Faceless hopped and vanished.
The cabin spun. Meralda reached out to steady herself, and Donchen grabbed her hand.
“Mistress, I’m worried,” Mug said. “Donchen was right. For a moment there, you weren’t yourself. I’m not sure who was scarier, you or the staves of dread Otrinvion.”
“I’m worried too,” Meralda said. She searched the debris on her desk for her dark glasses. “But I still have a job to do.”
She found the glasses and put them on, hoping they would hide some of the glow, knowing they probably wouldn’t.
She took a few hesitant steps toward her door. Donchen remained at her side, holding her hand until they entered the passageway.
Meralda steadied herself. The bulkheads, the portholes, the deck–all shone like ice in daylight, lit from within by primal forces Meralda couldn’t begin to name.
How long before I lose my mind? How long before I can no longer see the ordinary?
Meralda felt her heart begin to pound, felt her face flush hot.
Donchen offered his elbow. He’d scooped up a ridiculous gentleman’s hat from somewhere in the heap of materialized objects, and he placed it on his head at a rakish angle, making a show of adjusting the long red ribbons that adorned the crown.
“Shall we go, my lady?” he asked, smiling.
Meralda could barely see Donchen’s face beneath the bright golden aura that surrounded him. But she made out his smile, and it was familiar. She took his proffered elbow and she put one foot in front of the other all the way to the loading bay.
The wind howled as the gangway ramp was lowered. Dust and bits of debris rose up and were quickly drawn outside, and Meralda’s ears popped as the pressure in the loading bay dropped.
Clouds and darkness lay beyond the end of the gangway as it inched ponderously down. A crewman called for lights, and the spark lamps at the end of the gangway flared to life.
All those present in the bay took a step forward, peering out into the whipping rain for a better look. Mug buzzed past Meralda, flying three-quarters down the gangway until the force of the wind forced him to halt.
“Well, it’s an ugly beast,” he called, his voice barely audible. “But it seems dead enough.”
Meralda followed, Donchen at her side.
At first glance, it seemed that a heap of rain-soaked blankets was hovering three feet from the head-high gap afforded by the lowered gangway. Two flapping shadows flanked the heap, holding it aloft.
May we enter? asked one shadow.
Meralda nodded, and the shadows carried the metallic hulk inside.
The flying machine was black, dripping with rain, and trailing steam from half a dozen places. There was no solid surface; it seemed to Meralda as though the object was composed entirely of bones and oily, rubbery hide from which fat stumps of stunted limbs and tufts of ragged fur erupted at random.
“I swear I’d gag if I had a throat,” Mug said, buzzing about the body. “It’s got to be the ugliest thing that ever lived.”
Meralda frowned. There, amid a jumble of limp fingerless limbs, a trio of shiny steel plates emerged from the skin.
For cooling, Meralda decided, as she watched steam rise from each plate.
The shadows rested the disc on the gangway, and the Captain called for the ramp to be raised and sealed.
“Is it safe?” called down King Yvin, after the wind’s keening howl died.
“Stay back, Your Majest
y,” she said. “Just a few more moments.”
Meralda circled the thing, wary, a silent, watchful Donchen at her side.
Whereas even the gangway’s rough surface was shot through with tracings of magic, the disc was absent of any trace. Meralda’s Sight revealed that, aside from the usual binding energies, the device was nothing more than dead flesh covering an intricate metal skeleton.
“It has no magic,” Meralda said softly. “Not the least bit.”
“It flew,” whispered Donchen.
Meralda pointed to the bulbous, rounded mass in front of her boot. “That is very much like a flying coil, save that it works without arcane current. It uses only electricity.” She looked to the tumor-like growth at the disc’s center, and saw the faint traceries of electric currents, now discharged, but still visible to her Sight. “The source lies there, in the center of the craft.”
“The craft?”
“Yes. Craft. It was built to fly.” Another assembly at the center of the craft caught her eye. It was still active, though faintly, and obviously failing.
She looked quickly away when she felt her Sight begin to extend itself down into the realm of the primal, but what she saw left her stunned.
“It was thinking,” she said aloud. “It was conscious. Conscious and terrified. It did not want to die.”
“Is that possible?” asked Donchen.
“They killed a thinking being,” Meralda said. She knelt and touched the wet hide. “I am so sorry. So very sorry.”
Mug appeared at her side, half his eyes on Meralda, the other half turned imploring to Donchen.
“Maybe we’ve seen enough,” Mug said quickly.
As Mug watched in horror, Meralda’s eyes began to blaze.
“I will not become a murderess, even indirectly,” she said. “It is my fault this–construct, this creation, is dead. I will not become Death. I tell you I will not.”
It only took an instant. Meralda looked upon the broken cables, the ruptured hoses, the charred electrical components. She moved her Sight back in time, to a point before the staves inflicted the damage, and it
all
became
so
easy.
Meralda concentrated. She felt a brief, not unpleasant tingle wash over her, as she loosed the tiniest, most minute surge of unmagic.
