by Frank Tuttle
The ramp jerked as the crew locked it into place. Meralda walked all the way to the lowest point, stood at the end, and waited for the crane to lower the pump assembly toward the sea.
The airship slowed, turning in a wide arc, flying coils disengaged, running on four of her fans. Even on the moonless night Meralda could see the waves rising up below, could see the sheen of primal forces that rippled and moved with the water.
“Two hundred feet,” called a pumper. “Mark for fifty.”
Meralda turned her eyes from the sea to the horizon.
The storm in which they’d hidden was dispersing. Stars peeked through it, and the air smelled of salt, but not rain. It was cool out, deliciously so, and for a moment Meralda recalled fall evenings in Tirlin, and drinking hot tea on her apartment stoop while reading the evening paper by the light of a streetlamp.
I won’t need streetlamps anymore, she thought. Her eye-lights illuminated the ramp and the descending bulk of the pump.
I shall never return to Tirlin.
The thought came from nowhere and struck her like a blow. It had the weight of truth, the familiar sense of a fact remembered, not conjecture just conceived. It’s not suspicion, Meralda realized–it’s more akin to prophecy.
Mug buzzed near. “Mistress?” he asked. “Something wrong?”
“My eyes have turned into magelamps, I fly when I’m not paying attention to my feet, and earlier today I experienced a brief shower of doorknobs,” Meralda said. “What could possibly be wrong?”
“One hundred feet,” cried the pumper. “Mark for fifty.”
Below the waves rose and fell, calming after the storm, but still choppy enough to fill the air with spray.
Meralda recalled sitting in the Laboratory in her dream, being surrounded again by all the familiar things she’d come to love.
None of you will return.
Meralda gasped, turning to hide her face from Mug. For the briefest of instants, she heard screams, smelled smoke, saw the Intrepid in flames, hurtling down toward the Great Sea, lost and doomed and dying.
“No,” Meralda said, in a whisper. “Stop it. I do not accept these things.”
“Mark at fifty!” cried the pumper. “Mark and hold! Mark and hold!”
The cry to mark and hold was repeated, and the airship slowed, swung, and came to rest.
“Mind the pump,” Mug said, his voice soft by Meralda’s ear. She moved aside as the ponderous bulk eased over the rail and began its careful descent into the Sea.
“I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through, Mistress,” Mug said. “All I can do is tell you I love you, and promise I’ll stay by your side, come what may.” Mug swung eyes toward Meralda. “I just wish I knew what to do, Mistress. How to help.”
“All we can do is watch,” she said. “You take the Sea. I’ll watch the sky.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Mug said. He flew so close his cage came to rest against Meralda’s shoulder. “I’ll watch forever, if that’s what it takes.”
Meralda nodded, and they both fell silent as the pump splashed down into the eager waves.
* * *
“The sun will be up soon,” Mug said. His eyes swept the waves below. “Let’s hope our sea serpents aren’t early risers.”
Meralda nodded. The long night was nearly spent. A wide ribbon of dawn already lay above the eastern horizon, and overhead the stars were winking out, one by one.
“We won’t cast a shadow for quite some time yet,” Meralda said. As soon as she spoke the words, she saw a way to move the Intrepid’s shadow, with a simple twist of will.
“How much water have we taken aboard, do you think?” asked Mug.
“A little over five hours’ worth,” Meralda said. “Enough to replenish our gas bags, at least for now.”
“That’s good. Beastie should have the Number 18 release valve linkage fixed by now. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m ready to get back inside some clouds. It’s too open down here.” Mug paused, his eyes swiveling about wildly. “Mistress, what’s the awful smell?”
Meralda sniffed at the air.
Smoke.
The speaking tube mounted at the top of the ramp buzzed. “Loading bay. The aft telescope spotter reports movement due west. Be advised. Prepare for pump retrieval and emergency ascent.”
“Oh no,” Mug said. He turned his eyes west, and all twenty-nine of them scanned the dawn sky.
Meralda looked as well, clenching her jaw and her fists as she struggled to keep her Sight from extending too far. For a moment, she saw only blurred, moving vistas of pink sky and the sun’s wide arcane aura.
She heard crows’ wings flap close beside her.
It approaches, said Nameless.
One hundred miles, but running, added Faceless.
‘Twill be here in mere moments.
The pumpers shouted and cursed. Water fell from the massive hose, gurgling as it fell, and the crane began to whine as it hoisted the pump from the Sea.
“Forward spotters report sighting,” said the Captain from the voice tube. “All hands, make secure. Ascent and acceleration imminent. Chief Engineer, signal when the pump is stowed.”
“Mistress,” Mug said, his leaves wilting. “I see it, and I still don’t believe it.”
Meralda twisted Donchen’s gold ring. A moment of calm fell over her, and her Sight became crystal clear.
On the westward horizon, an impossibly tall man surged toward the airship, moving through the Sea in great awkward strides. The Sea was halfway up his thighs, but the Gaunt forced his way through the deep waters. His arms were outstretched, and as he neared his mouth worked, as though speaking.
Below the Intrepid, the waves grew, surging out from the giant, growing as he approached.
It isn’t real, thought Meralda. It cannot be real. I am awake.
The Gaunt seemed to hear, for it lowered a bony forefinger toward her, and began to howl in earnest.
“Stow the pump!” shouted Mug. His cage buzzed, straining as he wrapped his vines around Meralda’s wrist and tried to drag her up the ramp. “Mistress, let’s go, hurry!”
Meralda shook him off. “Get inside,” she said. “Staves. Can you slow it down?”
The crows exchanged a look, flapping and cawing.
“Well can you or can’t you?” Mug said.
We have decided, lady Mage, said one.
We will fight for you, said the other.
Doomed we may be, they said, as one. Grant us this boon. Allow us to assume our true forms.
The Gaunt drew near, each step a journey of miles. Meralda nodded.
“Do what you will,” she said. “Fare thee both well.”
The crows flew from the rail, plummeting toward the Sea. Each grew as it fell, elongating, thickening, crow’s wings becoming enormous wings of leather and claws, beaks and crow’s feet changing to scaled dragon heads and massive dragon claws. Still each dragon grew, until they were half the length of the Intrepid, and still growing.
The transformation completed, two black dragons skimmed the waves, roaring in exultation before flapping toward the Gaunt.
Mug followed their flight with all of his eyes.
“I called them chickens,” he said.
Meralda fixed her eyes upon the pump, which still hung ten feet below the ramp.
Her eyes blazed. The pump leaped up, swung over the rail, and floated back into its place. The pump crew scattered at first, but rushed back to secure the machine before Meralda could order them to action.
“Ascend,” Meralda said, in a voice as loud as thunder. “Pump secured.”
The Intrepid lurched skyward, fans and coils driving her as best they could.
“It won’t be enough,” Meralda said. Creating a mental model of the Gaunt’s approach and the airship’s reduced lift and speed was the work of only a split second. She saw the Gaunt take the airship in its hand and crush her in half, spilling passengers and crew into the Sea, where it simply flailed a
t them until no one was left.
Meralda lifted her hand.
For a moment, she resisted. Perhaps the Gaunt will stumble. Perhaps the coils were sufficiently cool to allow for slightly more speed than I estimated. Is attacking the Gaunt and endangering the world worth the risk?
The Gaunt howled, its black eyes turned full upon Meralda, its face twisted in a hateful grimace.
Meralda released the tiniest fraction of the unmagic she felt welling up behind her eyes.
The Sea exploded into mountains of rising foam. There was a sound, too loud to be thunder. The sky lit up, and the Gaunt faltered, clawing at its face as the waters boiled and heaved around it.
Meralda exulted, and raised her hand again–but then she saw the Sea begin to change.
The waters grew thick, and began to sink. Thousands of fish erupted from the deep, flopping and wiggling, until they too grew still and began to change, melting together like hot wax.
As the Sea sank, more water rushed in, but it too thickened, flowing like syrup and sinking. More seawater roared in, and the process repeated.
Meralda watched in horror as the Sea beneath her solidified into a column of waxy mass, and the creatures within it died. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she leaned over the rail and was sick.
“What have I done?”
The circle of dying Sea expanded as she watched, reaching the Gaunt, which roared but did not fall.
“Mistress?” cried Mug.
“I’ve broken the world,” she replied. “Oh Mug. I didn’t mean to.”
Mug’s eyes all went wide. “We need to get off the ramp,” he said, as the wind howled around them. “We need to get inside.”
Meralda turned and watched the Sea die.
She raised her hand again. Unmagic swelled inside her, eager to be released–but to what end? How do I fix this?
She stared out at the subtle energies that changed even as she watched them. The water affected by her first angry release continued to shrink and harden, as did the seawater that poured in to replace the diminished volume.
She pushed her Sight down deep, watched as the binding energies that held the water together continued to change, corrupting all they came in contact with.
“Stop!” cried Meralda, holding back the magic. “Please stop!”
“Donchen, grab her,” Mug said.
Meralda felt arms wrap around her waist, and she was lifted off her feet.
The Gaunt leaped. It surged ahead, legs scissoring through the thickened Sea, finally emerging to stand upon the hardening mass of corrupt sea water and sprint toward the airship.
“Hang on!” cried Mug.
The Intrepid’s coils howled and arced as they were pushed well past saturation. The airship shot forward, sending Meralda sprawling, and Donchen with her.
Donchen spoke, but she did not hear. She watched as the Gaunt gathered its bony limbs and leaped, and she saw the skeletal hand reach for her, and then the airship lurched and spun and for a single awful instant she was flung out past the rail, suspended by her wrists over the Gaunt’s chalk-white face and dead black eyes.
Donchen lunged and caught her right hand. She strained and caught the rails and pulled herself back through them.
The Gaunt roared and reached forth again. Twin black-winged shapes hurtled down from the heavens and slammed into its face, ripping and tearing, roaring like gleeful thunder.
The Intrepid rose, listing from the Gaunt’s blow but quickly righting herself. Below, the Gaunt swatted at the dragons, which struck like snakes as they wheeled above it.
The Gaunt stood in the center of the dying Sea. The circular area of changing water slowed its increase, and finally halted.
Meralda’s last sight of the Gaunt was of its upturned black eyes boring into hers as it howled in fury. Then the airship pierced a scrap of a cloud and the Sea and the giant and the dragons were lost to sight.
“Raise the ramp,” shouted Meralda. “Hurry!”
Motors whined. The ramp began to retract, sealing off the rush of the wind as it rose.
“I see my report concerning the Gaunt is a bit late,” he said. “You’ve already met.”
Meralda could barely make out Donchen’s features through the brightness of his aura.
“It won’t stop,” she said. “Nameless and Faceless might slow it down, but they won’t be able to stop it.”
“Captain to Chief Engineer,” said the speaking tube. Meralda rose and hurried to the tube, Donchen and Mug at her sides.
“I am here,” she said into the device.
“We have a full rupture in two bags,” said the Captain. “Riggers are sealing them now, but we won’t be able to ascend any higher without new lifting gas.”
A shiver ran up Meralda’s spine. The Intrepid’s seawater converters would take hours to produce more lifting gas. But the Gaunt won’t wait that long.
Her mind raced. I don’t dare try unmagic after what happened to the Sea below. But I can remove the safety protocols built into the converters. Lower the converters’ efficiency a few points. Speed the process up, get us higher, faster, and hope it’s enough.
“I’ll do what I can to hasten the conversion process,” she said to the Captain. “I’ll be in the converter room.”
“Do what you have to,” he said, and the tube went silent.
The airship’s deck tilted as the airship strained to rise beyond the Gaunt’s reach. Meralda reached out to steady herself, and Donchen caught her hand.
“You did not break the world,” he said. “We’re still here.”
“For the moment.” She managed a smile. “Mug. Please have the Bellringers bring Goboy’s Glass to the converter room. There aren’t any portholes there.”
Mug sailed away. Meralda turned to Donchen. “Walk with me. Tell me of the Gaunt.”
Donchen nodded. They hurried toward the upper deck and the tiny water conversion room.
The Bellringers arrived first, and were securing the Glass to the bulkhead with straps and a towel for backing when Meralda and Donchen arrived.
The Bellringers finished making the Glass fast. Tervis grinned, and produced a bag of donuts, smiling shyly as he handed them to Meralda.
“Thank you,” she said.
It was then she saw the ugly purple bruise on Kervis’s aura, above his right eye.
Kervis turned, but Meralda touched his face. He didn’t flinch as the red glow from her eye-lights passed over him.
“I don’t have to ask,” Meralda said. Indeed, she saw it all, plain in Kervis’s thoughts–a derisive whisper about her, overheard by Kervis. Kervis’s challenge to the whisperer, a burly Alon half again the Bellringer’s size. The Alon’s glare and the words ‘Meralda the Mad.’
Kervis struck first. It had taken half a dozen crew to break up the fight.
“It’s nothing, ma’am,” said Kervis. “Just a fellow who forgot his manners is all. He won’t do that again soon, I can tell you.”
Donchen grinned at Kervis, who grinned back. “You are a stalwart lad,” said Donchen. “Next time you see this rude fellow, point him out to me. I might have a word as well.”
“Me too,” Mug said, his eyes narrowed. “What’s his name?”
“You will do no such thing, neither of you,” Meralda said. A rain of ornate hairpins fell. “I shall need coffee,” she added. “Lots of it, if you please. And my pens and paper.”
“I’ll get the coffee,” said Kervis.
“Pens and paper,” said Tervis.
They rushed out the door, boots thumping at a run.
“I will check your math,” said Donchen, propping himself in a corner. “Quietly.”
“Thank you,” Meralda said. She turned toward the gas conversion machinery and the single lit panel that controlled it.
She forced her jaw to unclench, relaxed her fists, let out a deep breath. She could barely read the dials or distinguish one indicator lamp from another, the glow of the panel’s primal energies was so bright.
“Please read the dials and lamps to me,” she said to Donchen. “My vision.”
“Of course,” replied Donchen, his quick grey eyes scanning the panel. “Input voltage 250. Maximum Thaum Current, 400. Percent heat loss, 12. Lamps are on for safe engage, restricted caution flow, and pump engage.”
“Thank you.” Meralda reached out and flipped the leftmost switch, disengaging the first set of safety spells. The lamp went dark, and the hum of the machinery increased in pitch.
She flipped the second switch as well, and the hum became a grumble.
“We’re now operating with only a two-to-one margin of safety,” she said.
“I’ll just pretend I don’t understand that,” muttered Mug.
Donchen shrugged. “We’ll be operating under the Sea and in pieces if the Gaunt One grabs our airframe,” he said.
Meralda flipped the third and final switch. The room began to vibrate, and the air took on a peculiar smell.
Meralda watched the dials as the needles slowly crept to the right. She could imagine lifting gas boiling off the seawater, rushing through the fill tubes, inflating the airship’s sagging envelope, until she was ready to soar so high the Gaunt could only watch and howl in frustration.
She picked up the speaking tube by the panel. “Engineer to bridge,” she said. “Range on the giant?”
The tube crackled and buzzed. “Two miles aft,” said the Captain. “I need altitude.”
“You’ll have it,” Meralda said. She replaced the tube.
Meralda twisted a knob. More voltage flowed through the great steel plates in the machine’s heart, and the volume of gas dispensed increased. Yes, there will be oxygen contamination, thought Meralda, but a few parts per million hardly matters now.
We have to go higher. Higher than we’ve ever gone.
“A question,” said Donchen. “Should we be alarmed at all those little red lamps flashing right now?”
“Only if the bottom row alights,” Meralda said.
“It just did,” said Donchen.
Meralda glared at the lamps, and they were extinguished.
“The Gaunt One isn’t real,” said Donchen. “And you are not the Unmaker.”
