Voidfarer

by Sean McMullen

  "If you do not mind moving it at a slow pace, that can be done."

  "Please explain?" I asked, both aloud and in thought, aware that the fate of our world might depend on what he was trying to tell me. "What do you mean?"

  "You wish to move the voidship, is this so?"

  "Yes."

  "To where?"

  "Down the river, to Alberin."

  "It is light enough to float, and the handling beasts are strong enough to drag it to the river. Shall I command them to do it?"

  "Yes, yes!" I exclaimed, immediately almost dizzy with hope. "Do it now. Please."

  We climbed down from the steersman's seat, and Azorian undamped the two shields and lever things with handles. Going down on one knee, he offered one of the levers to me on the palms of his hands.

  "I, ah, don't have one of these," I responded, puzzled. "Thank you." Yet again, Azorian placed his fingertips against my temples.

  'They are the weapons of the murdered voidfarers," he explained within my mind. "You and I must use them, and avenge their honor."

  "Weapons?" I said doubtfully.

  "They are known as swords. I shall show you their use later." Suddenly I laughed aloud, once I realized what they were meant to be.

  "These will not work on this world," I thought. "For what reason?"

  "Azorian, every so often an apprentice blacksmith thinks to make a weapon that is all blade," I explained. "The trouble is that when swung through the air, the metal picks up raw etheric potential, and that burns the hand of the user as if lightning had struck it. It's a wonderful idea, but not practical."

  "But these are glass blades," replied Azorian. "Millions of glass threads are dreamed together to form them. They pick up no ether from the air when they are swung."

  "Glass? Is it strong?"

  "Stronger than steel. Do you want one? They are from very reputable artisan houses."

  "Yes ... perhaps I do after all," suddenly realizing the value of what I had been given.

  "Good. When we again have the leisure, I shall show you the basic way of the sword's usage. For now, we need to harness the handling beasts."

  "So, er, you are definitely not one of the rogue sorcerers?" I asked, just to be sure.

  "I am not a rogue," he responded firmly.

  "I see. Then how came you to be in the first cylinder?"

  "Later, the story is long. One last wonder to inspect." He took his hand from my head and showed me two large, concave mirrors locked into frames near the front of the void-ship. Both seemed to be carved into blocks of violet glass, and both blocks had handles cast into the edges.

  "They are weapon crystals," said Azorian, touching my head again. "They are the core of the casting that generates the heat weapon." Azorian was effective and efficient, and although I had no doubt that he really was a lowly artisan, I suspected that he might have been the winner of some Lupanian Artisan of the Year award. He coaxed the two handling beasts out of the hatchway, then had one of them screw the hatch back in place. Next he led me out over the vast expanse of hull, pointing out things that I had missed on the first cylinder. There was a sort of half-egg shape that I had just taken as a deformity, but was actually the outside part of one of the viewing devices. At the back was glass plate, behind it a mirror, and beneath the mirror a tube to the viewing plate. It was turned to face backward during the hottest part of the flight through our air, so that the glass plate would not be damaged. At several other points on the hull were recesses containing tie bars, so that chains could be attached to carry the voidship around in the pottery kiln as it was being built, and of course to load it into what Azorian described as the mountain-sized etheric crossbow on Lupan.

  Using rope salvaged from the sunken barge, Azorian tethered the handling beasts to the voidship, then set them straining in the direction of the river. The voidship was very light for its size, and actually weighed no more than an empty barge. The handling beasts were about as strong as a team of a hundred oxen, however, and slowly the voidship came free of the soil and ruins. Within two hours it was clear of the pit it had gouged when it had landed. Another hour had it in the water, where it floated like an immense wine jar. The pity was that the voidship made a very poor river vessel, because it rolled as soon as the weight of even a single person was put on top. Azorian suggested tying logs to either side as pontoons, but I had a better solution. The Lupanians had overlooked more than our sunken barge when they had arrived at the port. Also intact was a locker containing six carpentry axes. These could be used to fashion a pair of long sweep oars for the barge. With a handling beast working the oars, the barge could then be used to tow the voidcraft along the river, rather than just drift on the current as we had done when escaping Gatrov.

  A handling beast was set to work pumping the bellows on the sunken barge, and we all stood watching in fascination.

  "What took us a half day of pumping will take that thing a half hour at most," I said. "The sweep oars will take a lot longer to make."

  "In a couple of days we can drift to Alberin, sir," said Riellen. "Why bother with oars?"

  "We could be there by sunset today if we had barge sweep-oars," I pointed out.

  "There are tree trunks curing in that yard behind us. If I had six strong, steady, disciplined men the sweeps would be ready almost as soon as the barge was afloat again."

  "There are people hiding in the forest, sir. I saw figures moving in the distance, watching when the handling beasts were dragging the voidship."

  "Were there, indeed?" I said, stroking my beard. "I suppose anyone who can take orders and work in a team will do. Militiamen, marines ... Riellen, hurry over to the forest, try to find me half a dozen men in uniform."

  "Sir!"

  Riellen hurried away. I swept the countryside with my farsight every so often, but all was still, and empty of Lupanian towers. To the south there were clouds of smoke rising into the still air, and I hoped that the Lupanians would be busy there for at least three or four hours more. They would eventually be back for the handling beasts in our cylinder, but from the air crystals that were activated, Azorian estimated that they had been left with air to last until sunset. If Fortune looked upon us with any sort of favor, the tripods would not return until then, when we would be long gone. The handling beast worked tirelessly at the pump, with Azorian in the saddle and applying his fingers to what passed for its head. The sides of the barge came clear of the water, and within a quarter hour I knew that it would be floating well enough for us to set off. I turned back to the forest, hoping that Riellen would not be too long, and to my surprise I saw that she was already returning. There were six men with her, but... I lowered the farsight, blinked, wiped the objective lens on my tunic, then trained it on the approaching figures again. I then sat down on a pile of rubble, put my face in my

  hands, and tried very hard not to surrender to blind hysterics. "Inspector, are you troubled?"

  I lowered my hands. It was Lavenci, bending over and peering at me anxiously, with her hands on her knees. Her hair hung like twin waterfalls of milk to frame her face, and her eyes were like a pair of coals. She could come across as very endearing when she wished to.

  "It's nothing of consequence," I sighed, standing up. "But thank you for your concern."

  Riellen hurried up with her recruits, panting heavily but triumphant.

  "Sir!" she barked, stopping before me to salute. "Six men in uniform, as ordered."

  I folded my arms and surveyed the men from the forest, shaking my head.

  "Constable Riellen, I do concede that these are men, there are six of them, and they are in uniform, but these are morris dancers." Six men wearing white hats, tunics and trews, lots of bells and ribbons, and heavy black clogs immediately realized that they had failed some quite fundamental test. Their eager expressions fell so far and fast that I thought about trying to dredge up the energy to apologize to them.

  "But Inspector, we want to help," said the man wearing the most bells and r
ibbons, and who was apparently the leader.

  "Aye, and we learn routines fast, sir," said one who was even bigger and stronger-looking than Pelmore.

  "And we work as a team," said another, who had a rebec poking out of his pack.

  "And we have our own sticks," said the leader.

  "Oh wonderful, I'm sure they'll be all we need against the Lupanian heat weapon," I responded.

  "But Miss—er, Constable Riellen said that you were going to lead us against the oppressive, oligarchical oppressors from the Lupanian establishment," said the leader.

  "I think she said we would oppose the oppressive, oligarchical Lupanian establishment lackeys," said the big man.

  "Didn't she say—" began a man who was no bigger than Riellen.

  "Enough!" I shouted. "I wanted militiamen with basic warfare carpentry skills, not light entertainment while we have breakfast—not that we have much food, of course."

  "But Inspector, I'm a carpenter," said the big man.

  "And so am I," said the tiny man.

  "And I'm a wheelwright," said the man with the rebec.

  "And the rest of us learn quickly and work as a team," said the leader. "We really want to do something against the, er, ollypressive..."

  "Oppressive, oligarchical Lupanian establishment lackeys," said the big man helpfully.

  XXX

  The morris dancers got to work on fashioning the oars, and after that I experienced something very rare: no less than ten minutes of uninterrupted solitude. The person who brought it to an end was Azorian, who approached me holding his lever weapon, the sword.

  "Learnings," he said, pulling it apart.

  What he was left holding was a single blade about a yard long, with a handle on one end. I took out the weapon he had given to me, which was identical, to my eyes. The blade was an odd, translucent violet, and was sufficiently sharp to cut a hair dragged across it.

  If made from metal, it would have been next to useless on our world. In principle it was the ultimate weapon for hand-to-hand fighting, but its virtues lasted only until the very first swing. Swing any long metal strip through the strong etheric field of our world, and energies soon built up and discharged like a little lightning bolt into one's hand. That was why we used only axes in personal combat, which were merely short blades mounted on long wooden poles. Azorian demonstrated several cuts, parries, and lunges in quick succession. Nothing happened to his hand. This strange, hardened glass definitely did not conduct energies.

  Gingerly, I did some experimental cuts and parries myself. There was no blast of ether to sting my hand. For the next hour I was the sole student in the first tutorial in swordwork ever conducted on Verral.

  The morris dancers had two rough but functional barge

  sweep oars completed in about two hours. We mounted them amidships on the barge, in front of the second handling beast, then set off just as soon as everyone could be taken aboard. One handling beast worked the bellows pump with two of its tentacles, and the other rowed. The handling beast at the sweep oars was so very strong that it drove the barge and voidship through the water faster than the speed of a trotting horse on land.

  "I can hardly believe the strength of those things," I marveled as I stood looking back at them from the bow. Azorian put this hands to my head again.

  "The handling beasts are used to power the tripod towers," he explained. "They move the pistons, cranks and levers within the legs so that they can walk." Yet another of the Lupanians' secrets had suddenly been uncovered before my eyes. At that time I had no idea what good it would do me, but like a diligent inspector in the Wayfarers, I added the fact to my journal. Whenever not working or mindspeaking with me, Azorian sat with Lavenci's hands pressed between his. By the time we were ready to set off again, her skin was healed, and the worst of the fractures in her hand were no longer noticeable. Best of all, she had some use of her fingers back again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HOW WE SPOKE WITH THE LUPANIAN

  During our first hours on the river Azorian and I spent over an hour in mindspeak, and he explained how the tripods worked. The handling beasts had eight tentacles. Two pairs of tentacles controlled each of the tripod's three legs, and the remaining two tentacles moved the hood with the Lupanian sorcerer in it. The tripod's tentacles were artificial, made of spun glass fibers, and were controlled by the Lupanian himself. The glasswalkers, as Azorian called them, also generated the immense etheric energies for the heat weapon. The handling beasts seemed to have the intelligence of a horse or dog, and once the barge and voidship were at the middle of the river, Azorian was able to dismount and join us at the bow, leaving the beasts to work unguided. All of us were at the bow, except for the morris dancers. I had given one of the two crossbows to the dancers' captain, sent them to the stern, and told them to keep watch. Riellen scanned the horizon with a farsight for Lupanian fighting towers in search of their missing voidship, and I stood with the other crossbow over my shoulder to give the barge the appearance of being armed. After lunch Azorian held his hands up. I sat down, and allowed him to put his hands to my temples.

  "Azorian, what is it like on Lupan?" I thought. "Do you have rivers there?"

  "All is canals," he spoke in my mind. "They are old, very old. They were old when the ancients did their epic deeds. They are more narrow than this river. Very narrow, and very deep, so that there is less evaporation, and so less water lost."

  "How did you get aboard the cylinder?"

  "By chance. I was a fabricator of life castings with the Ethercast."

  "Ethercast?"

  "The etheric ballista that flung the Moonbird and nine other voidcraft to your world. It was built into an extinct volcano, and it went down three miles from the summit of the crater. I counted the steps every time I descended to the Moonbird, which is what you call Cylinder One. There were twelve thousand steps, in a tunnel through the side of the mountain. I remember my last trip ever so clearly. I emerged onto the narrow landing cut into the black, volcanic rock at the heart of Mount Dastvalas. I always paused to take breath, then looked up because it was such an overwhelmingly awesome sight. The shaft was narrow, but it continued up for nine thousand feet. The last third of it was a tower built over the cone of the crater.

  "The Moonbird was fifty-five of your feet in length, but it did not seem especially impressive at the bottom of the shaft. The hatchway was at the end of the tail, and was to be sealed with a screw plug for the flight between moonworlds. Everything was designed to pass through the hatchway, even if it had to be dismantled. I put my load of initiator crystals down, and allowed the guards to search me. There were no less than twelve searches between picking up my load on the slopes on the mountain and installing the crystals in the airbags aboard the Moonbird. The guards decided that there was no problem, and I was allowed into the voidcraft.

  "I had the bundle across my shoulders as I climbed up into the hatchway. As one of the flight fabricators, I knew the interior as well as the voidfarers themselves, and perhaps better. The interior was very finely crafted, yet built for lightness and strength. The commander's couch was near the middle of the vessel, and most of the back space was filled with bags of air-stone crystals. The heaviest of the equipment and supplies was stored at the front, so that the craft would be properly balanced when flying through air.

  "I conjured what you called an auton between my hands, a spell, an engine of etheric energies. It was a tangle of bright blue threads of fire in the dim, phosphor-lit interior of the Moonbird. 'Release yourself and burn, on the fifteenth day from this very day, at this very hour,' I said slowly and clearly, then I placed it on the bag and watched the blue tangles sink into the fabric. They glowed faintly blue from within the airstone bag, and all around me was the glow of other airstone timer spells. Each spell would burst the jar of oil amid the crystals to release air into the master cabin of the Moonbird so that the crew of two could breathe. A master auton controlled a valve in hull, gradually releasing the cabin
's air into . .. what? Whatever was outside. Nothingness, was the opinion of the greatest of our philosophers, so who am I to give an opinion? There was to be enough air for the commanding sorcerer and a cold sciences philosopher to survive for two weeks, plus air for a third week in reserve. The handling beasts were to be in a state of torpor on the flight, and would require little air.

  "Suddenly a guard called out that the overmaster was to make an inspection. I replied that I still had to connect the

  bleed hoses. He told me to crawl between the racks of airstone bags and lie still until after the inspection was over. I lay still on the soft bags of crushed crystals. The overmaster! The overmaster should not have been there. Not as close to the launch as that, anyway. He had done other inspections, however, in fact he knew the craft well enough to be a voidfarer himself.

  "We all knew that the overmaster liked precision and punctuality. The shaft, the tower, the Moonbird itself, they were all made with fantastic precision, and according to a schedule that had allowed no room for missed deadlines over ten whole years. I heard voices outside. One voice had such command that it could have ordered anyone in the empire to stand up to his earlobes in steaming hot pig manure for a week if he did not bow fast enough in the royal presence.

  "I heard the overmaster crawl through the hatch, then begin to climb the rope ladder that led up the center of the Moonbird. From outside there was a sharp grunt, and then a guard cried out 'My lord, what—' before his voice was cut off too. Somebody else entered the hatch, someone who called out, 'Both guards dead.' I froze. I heard a third person clambering up the access ladder.

  'Fortune be with you,' came the over-master's voice. T shall arrive in the eighth vessel.' Someone laughed. 'We shall have the world all but conquered by then, sire.'

  'The rogue voidfarers bid the overmaster farewell, then I heard the unmistakable whirr of the hatch being screwed shut by a handling beast outside the Moonbird. That meant they were preparing for the launch. I had to get out of the Moonbird and into a sealed shelter some hundreds of feet along a tunnel in the rock, yet I could not escape with the hatch being closed. There was the heavy clunk-clack of the three lug anchors being locked down to seal the hatch, and with that sound I knew I was trapped aboard.