by Frank Tuttle
The crows still spoke, but their words were lost to the rumbling of the wheel.
Meralda tugged at a limb and the disc obliged, rising and speeding off as Meralda guided it toward the source of the noise. The crows quickly fell behind, but Meralda urged the disc on, and it hurtled ahead, heedless of the endless thunder.
Finally, there shone a light. Meralda slowed the disc, and brought it to rest along the inner wall of the wheel. Directly opposite one of the huge circular openings that faced outward, a ring of bright blue light was forming, the same size as the one that opened out onto the night.
As she watched, the glow widened and intensified, as though light from somewhere else was leaking through the wheel’s polished metal.
A door, thought Meralda. A door is opening.
A door to something feared by Otrinvion the Black. Feared by the Vonats and the Gaunt.
The black disc wobbled beneath her, its limbs flailing and jerking as if nervous or afraid.
“It all makes sense now,” Meralda said. “Perhaps I wasn’t the one destined to unmake the world. Perhaps I simply opened the door for the creature that does.”
The crows approached, two tiny dots winging through shafts of sunlight in the distance. The blue circle widened and the thunder increased in volume, and without ever knowing precisely how she achieved it, Meralda simply reached inside herself and took hold of the vortex and hurled it at the noise and the light.
“I tell you to hold,” she said, waving her finger at the light. “There will be no final cosmic event today. I forbid you to open, do you hear! I have had enough!”
The sudden silence was somehow even louder than the awful, roaring noise.
The crows dropped at her feet. Neither spoke.
The circle of light faded, barely visible. It never quite winked out, but after a time Meralda had to put her face close to the surface to even see a hint of it.
Well I’ll be damned, said a crow, before it fell over from exhaustion.
Meralda sat on the disc and said nothing at all.
* * *
The sun set, tinting each of the westward-facing openings a glorious crimson.
Meralda watched, hunched on the Arc’s cold floor, her chin resting on her hands.
The crows bathed in the pools of cold water. Each raised a spray with his wings, and it seemed to Meralda that they argued, so harsh were their croaks and caws. She did not ask the source of the contention, but she could guess well enough, and it was the same subject that occupied her own thoughts – what are we to do now?
I know nothing of the capabilities of this poor creature, she thought, stroking the ugly thing’s back. I haven’t even seen it drink, though I know it must. How far can it fly? Dare I take it aloft, knowing I could be plunged into the Sea at any moment, with no hope of rescue?
The sky went from red to purple to black, and soon a fat pale moon appeared in the nearest of the openings. Meralda watched it rise, and wondered if the crew of the Intrepid watched as well. Had the airship maintained flight? Had it weathered the storm? Or, like the Jenny, had it too hurtled down into the waves?
Meralda clenched her jaw and wiped the tear quickly away. “I don’t have the luxury of self-pity,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
The crows stopped their flapping and hopping and turned toward Meralda.
What is that? asked one.
“Nothing,” Meralda said. “I was merely thinking out loud.”
Not you, said the other crow. That sound!
Meralda rose.
Indeed, there was a noise – a whining, faint at first, but growing quickly louder.
Meralda whirled. The circle of blue light, the opening in the far side of the Arc, remained invisible from where she stood. Meralda frowned – the buzzing was louder now, so loud that she realized it wasn’t the noise made by the blue door at all.
No, this sound was familiar, like the whine of an airship’s electric fans.
The crows took to the air, speaking at once, all their words unintelligible. Meralda saw the light in the distance, just beginning to come round the Arc’s gentle, distant curve.
“It can’t be,” she said.
The Intrepid soared into sight, fans whirling, running lights ablaze, the twin electric mooring lights sweeping back and forth across the Arc’s dim interior like lances of fire.
Meralda shouted. She shouted and danced and waved her arms, and when the airship soared past above, she saw her fans reverse and heard shouts and whistles. Meralda collapsed onto the flying thing’s rugged back, breathless and giddy.
Lines dropped down from the airship as her massive frame began to descend. The mooring lights came to rest on Meralda, blinding her with their intensity, and she shielded her face with her hands as bodies began to slide smoothly down the lines.
Boots struck metal beside her. The figure rolled, leaped to his feet, and caught her up in his arms.
“Fancy meeting you here,” said Donchen.
Meralda kissed him before he could speak again.
Mug, his birdcage replaced by a wooden bowl to which his miniature flying coils had been attached with thick grey rigger’s tape, buzzed down to hover near.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake,” Mug said, rolling his eyes in unison. “Is that all you two ever do?”
~~~
From the private journal of Mugglesworth Ovis, Decembre 5, RY 1969
Forget Tim the Horsehead’s lone stand against the entire Vonat army on the east bank of the Lamp River. Put aside tales of King Thank’s heroic defeat of the traitorous Mage Alat in the Gold Room. Rip the story of Akin Three-hands from the history books, friends, because the Tale of Mug and Donchen and their harrowing saga of survival on the storm-wracked Great Sea is about to be told.
The Gaunt’s final blow broke the Jenny’s valiant back. We lost the port coil instantly, and as the Jenny’s keel twisted and her hull began to rupture, the starboard coil began to stutter. I told Donchen to shove the throttle forward and try to keep us airborne while I went to look for Meralda.
The gangway was filled with broken timber and twisted steel. By the time I made my way through it, the Jenny was falling, out of control, and Meralda was gone.
I nearly hurled myself out into the storm. I truly did. I cast all twenty-nine eyes about, but the steam and the spray were too thick, and as my heart broke I realized the only person I could save at that moment was Donchen.
I made my way back to him. By then the stuttering coil was barely functional, and we were dropping like a rock.
Donchen, it must be said, kept calm at his post. We tried restarting the port coil. We switched to secondary power. Finally, as the face of the sea rushed toward us, the starboard coil stopped stuttering long enough for Donchen to level us out.
Unfortunately, the listing port coil caught the water and we slammed into the sea, and the Jenny simply came apart around us.
My own coil shorted, and I sank. But only briefly -- Donchen caught my cage and made for the surface, and I shall never forget the sight of the sun, shining dimly through Meralda’s new-forged fog.
We clung, despondent and wilting, to a scrap of the Jenny’s hull. The sky soon cleared, revealing to us the vertical walls of storm clouds and the wheel in the sky, and the lack of sight of Mistress, or the Gaunt.
And there we bobbed, until the Intrepid emerged from the storm. We were soon rescued, and once Donchen was able to locate the tracking charm he’d hidden inside Meralda’s ring we took off in hot pursuit of her.
I am happy to report that Mistress is back to normal. No more glowing eyes, no more levitations, no more rains of pencils. I believe she misses having coffee appear at her hand, but she agrees the lack thereof is a small price to pay for avoiding cosmic ruin.
The most disturbing thing I’ve heard was mention of our return journey to that wretched wheel in the sky. Not that I needed to hear the words spoken. Mistress has filled up four notebooks with notes and sketches, none of which she’ll let me read, and
she’s even taken to drawing the terrible thing in the margins when she’s distracted.
I say leave well enough alone. If Donchen is right, and the Arc is the source of the storms his people have observed for ten centuries, then leaving it be for another hundred years shouldn’t be a problem. But of course Mistress doesn’t see it that way, and won’t, unless I can convince Donchen to take my side.
But there’s time enough for all that later. We’ve still got thousands of miles of storms and Sea to cross, in an airship being held together with rigger’s tape and hope. We’d not be going anywhere if it weren’t for the flying coils. We lost all but two of our fans and part of the pressure hull to the storm. We won’t be ascending above four thousand feet, says the Captain, and if we lose the flying coils he claims I’ll have to grab a line and pull us all the way to Hang.
He’s joking, of course. Mostly. But the coils are humming along like they are new, we’ve plugged all the gas leaks, and aside from a few new drafts in the passageways, the Intrepid soars as well as she did that night we fled the Park.
It seems so long ago, that night.
Sea monsters. Vonat airships. Evil magics. Giants.
In other words, the voyage has been fraught with precisely the perils I predicted, before we took to the skies. I’d like that noted somewhere, preferably by being carved in stone–Mug was right.
But we survived. I said prevailed earlier. Mistress frowned when I spoke the words. Her eyes don’t glow any longer, but they look haunted now, like she’s seen something even worse than the Gaunt.
She’ll tell me when she’s ready.
Donchen is always near, of course. As are the crows, who are now nothing but crows, as far as I can tell.
Given our delays and diversion, the Captain claims we won’t reach the Hang coast for at least another nineteen days.
I can tolerate that. In the evenings, we all gather here and talk. Sometimes Donchen sings or juggles or tells stories. Meralda smiles then, and laughs, and the haunted look leaves her eyes, for a bit.
We are none of us home yet, but we’re together. I suppose home isn’t so much the place as the people, so for now Intrepid is as good a place to call home as any.
Chapter 15
Meralda started the wheels spinning on her makeshift balanced load thaumeter by hand, flipped a series of switches, and waited for the motors to finish spinning the wheels up to speed.
Her cabin was clean. The only conjured items that remained were a pillow which served as Catastrophe’s bed, the cage which housed the sleeping raccoon, and Meralda’s favorite oil painting, Rainy Afternoon, which she planned to enjoy right up until it was returned to the Museum.
Catastrophe purred. The raccoon snored. The whine of the bicycle wheels reached their familiar operating pitch, and Meralda reached for her notebook and pen.
A knock sounded at her door. “Mage? It’s me,” said Mrs. Primsbite. “I brought coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Meralda grinned and marched to the door. “That’s overt bribery,” she said, opening the door. “Are they good sandwiches?”
“Your young man made them himself,” said Mrs. Primsbite. She handed Meralda the covered silver dish and swept inside. “If I was twenty years younger I’d ask him to make my sandwiches as well.”
Meralda blushed, and Mrs. Primsbite laughed. “Forgive me, dear. Too many years in a newsroom filled with men folk.” She stopped well before reaching the spinning wheels of the thaumeter. “I see I am interrupting something. My timing remains impeccable.”
Meralda bit into a sandwich and motioned the penswift toward a chair.
“I’m glad we’re alone, dear, because I have a few questions I’m fairly certain you don’t want to hear asked.”
Meralda swallowed. “I told you the whole story.”
“No one ever tells me the whole story,” said the penswift. “And that’s perfectly fine, as long as I get enough of the truth to fill my column. Not that I plan to reveal anything we speak about today. Even if I did, who would believe me? Vonat prophecies? A magic that transcends magic? My editor would claim I’d spent the morning with my head over an ink press, enjoying the fumes. No. I’m here strictly to satisfy my own curiosity.”
The thaumeter began to spark and flash. Meralda put her sandwich down and rushed to the machine.
“Just a moment,” she said, peering into the heart of the device. “Any second now…”
A tiny silver bell rang. Meralda watched a series of dials spin until one by one, from left to right, the needles halted.
She threw a switch, and the wheels began to slow.
“You look relieved,” said Mrs. Primsbite.
“I am,” replied Meralda. “The speed of light is back to its original value. Now the thaumic elasticity constant is normal as well. I believe reality is healing itself, in the absence of my unmagic.”
“Mr. Kerns wrote, not long ago, that we live in an age of progress and wonder,” said Mrs. Primsbite. “I believe he’d faint dead away if he saw the things I’ve seen these last few days. Wheels in the sky. Flying machines. Giants.” She laughed and took a small bite of her own sandwich. “But there’s more to it than all that, isn’t there? Something dreadful, if I’m any judge of people, and false modesty aside, I certainly am.”
Meralda looked away from her. “Worse, you mean, than the prospect of being attacked without warning by monsters from the sky? Worse than nearly ending the world in the precise manner foretold by some ancient Vonat prophecy?”
“Much worse, I believe.” Mrs. Primsbite sighed. “As I said, I’m just Wedding right now. Mrs. Primsbite and her pad and her pen are still outside the door. I have less interest in hearing what you have to say than I do in telling you I’m here to listen. We’re very much alike, Meralda, you and I. I know that peculiar silence, and know how much it weighs.” She shrugged, and found her smile again. “Talk, or not, as you please. This truly is an excellent sandwich.”
Meralda rose and moved to the porthole.
The Arc spanned the sky, bisecting the deep blue before both of its ends were lost in the perpetual storms that raged around each point of the Arc’s emergence. At Meralda’s insistence, the Intrepid had surveyed the Arc, finding that more than forty-five miles of it hung, slowly turning, against the sky.
“The storms are caused by pressure and temperature imbalances between our sky and whatever is on the other side of the interface,” Meralda said. “I believe they may eventually affect the weather as far away as the Realms.”
Mrs. Primsbite joined Meralda at the porthole. “It is indeed monstrous,” said the penswift. “What happened to you in there?”
“A door nearly opened,” Meralda said, surprising herself. “Whatever was on the other side is capable of snuffing out the world as though it were a candle. I closed the door. For the moment. But it will try again.”
Mrs. Primsbite said nothing for a long time.
“And yet here you are,” she said at last. “And here I am, and the great wide world besides. I’d say you won the day, dear. Don’t lose sight of that.”
“I nearly became the Unmaker,” Meralda said quietly.
“Nearly. Almost. Dear, I nearly became a midwife. I almost married Tirlin’s leading manufacturer of toilet lids. But nearly and almost don’t matter, and I am neither midwife nor purveyor of toilets and you are not the unmaker and oh look, brandy.”
The penswift produced a dainty silver flask, twisted the top, and proffered it to Meralda. “I say we toast our might-have-beens goodbye, and look instead to our tomorrows. May they be filled with handsome young men and expertly prepared sandwiches.”
Meralda laughed despite herself. She took the flask and put it to her lips and sipped before coughing and gasping at the potency of the liquid.
Mrs. Primsbite laughed, took the flask, and upended it while Meralda sputtered.
“Old Kingdom Royal Recipe, just the thing for mending aching hearts, and quite a bargain at 50 pence a pint,” sai
d Mrs. Primsbite. “I suppose it’s an acquired taste.”
“Well, well, well,” Mug said, buzzing up between Meralda and the penswift. “What have we here? The consumption of alcoholic beverages by on-duty officers? Mrs. Primsbite, make a note of this reckless behavior, won’t you? I can see the headline now–Mage Ovis Stumbles Across Great Sea, Tipsy On Smuggled Liquor!”
Donchen, still in the passageway, knocked at the half-open door. “Mage, Mrs. Primsbite. May I enter?”
Meralda wiped her chin with her sleeve. “The thaumic elasticity is back to normal,” she said, smiling at Donchen. “Oh, come in, don’t be daft.”
He smiled and sauntered inside. “As I suspected it would be.” He caught Meralda up in a brief but fierce embrace. “I always thought it would be Mug who drove you to drink,” he said.
Meralda feigned indignation. “Why Donchen. In the last two weeks I’ve been possessed by unmagic, filled with the power of the vortex, and been forced to battle giants out of Vonat legend. I believe I’ve earned a sip of–what was it, Wedding?”
“Old Kingdom Royal Recipe.” She frowned at her flask. “Forty proof, sadly. My provisions are running low.”
“I’ve also had mean tricks played on me,” Meralda added. “Tracking spells hidden on certain rings, for instance.”
Mug groaned. “She’s never going to let you forget that,” he said, aiming his eyes at Donchen’s.
Donchen shrugged. “I regret the deception, but not the decision to employ it,” he said. “After all, we’d have never found you in the Arc had I not been able to follow my ring.”
“Utterly irrelevant,” Meralda said with a wink. “I shall never forgive you.”
“It was all my idea anyway,” Mug said. He brought his new flying birdcage close to the porthole and regarded the Arc with all of his eyes. “Pity we can’t use the Delighter to knock that ugly thing right out of the sky. When are we leaving? We’ve got four fans running. Surely that’s enough, with the coils.”
“Tomorrow, at first light,” replied Meralda. “Seventeen more days at sea.”
