by Ash, Sarah
It was a splendid sight. But something was bothering him, scratching uncomfortably like a claw at the back of his mind. Maulevrier’s pilot. The name, Karl Lorens, was unfamiliar, but something about the man’s stance and the lithe way he had moved as he leapt into the flyer, jogged a memory—and not a pleasant one.
Oskar Alvborg: his scourge and tormentor from military academy days.
It couldn’t be. Surely he wouldn’t dare break his terms of exile and risk execution .
Lindgren turned to gaze up at the Emperor and the princess; Eugene was following the competitors’ progress through a nautical spy-glass and seemed not to have noticed; neither, it seemed, had the princess.
***
The Aiglon flew on—and so did the Svala .
Yet no matter how much strength Branville exerted into tugging back on the rudder to try to keep the Aiglon aloft, no matter how much Toran tried to regulate the flow of fuel powering the engine, the puttering sound grew louder and the craft began to lose height rapidly.
“Hold her steady!” Toran yelled above the hissing and rattling emanating from his precious mechanisms.
“What the fuck d’you think I’m trying to do here?” Branville was straining to steer the craft away from the tall pines looming ahead, the outer reaches of the vast forest that delineated the Swanholm estate’s northern boundaries.
“We’re coming down too fast!”
“D’you think I don’t know that?” Toran heard a note of desperation in Branville’s voice above the howl of the wind as the ill-controlled descent, nose-first, continued. “Do your job, Arkhel, and slow her down so I can do mine.”
Branville’s scared. Things must be bad. Are we going to die? Toran pushed the rising tide of fear away, forcing himself to concentrate on the practical. What would Gerard advise?
The engine was hiccupping and a dark plume of smoke had begun to issue from beneath the craft. With each erratic beat, the craft lost height. They were skimming the tops of the pine trees; branches scraped the undercarriage.
“Clearing up ahead,” Toran shouted. “If I stop the engine, can you do the rest?”
“Can I hell?” came back Branville’s grim reply.
Toran cut the engine.
The craft went plummeting down, the left wing scraping against the branches of a giant fir, skewing the angle of descent as they skidded onto the mossy green of the glade floor. But still the Aiglon kept going, bumping over tree roots, hurtling onward.
Toran heard, as if from far away, his own voice screaming above the rush of the wind.
And then the Aiglon crunched into the screen of trees at the far end of the clearing. There was a flash of searing white light and all sounds, all smells, all sensations abruptly cut out.
Chapter 47
“Out of my way!” The Winged Warrior’s voice blasted through the roar of the wind and rain, its metallic timbre making Gerard’s ears ring until he feared his eardrums would burst. The blast sizzling directly toward Gerard went wide, diverted by the newcomer’s arrival.
The old man deftly steered the little craft around, placing himself between the Warrior and Gerard cowering below. The wet air shimmered with silvery sky-dragon scales as more and more flocked to the old man, filling the sky with their snaking, sinuous bodies.
In the roar of the gale, Gerard could not make out the words issuing from the old man’s lips. But the fiery angel hesitated even as he was about to launch another blast of golden fire. The light in his eyes had dimmed. The crackling hum emanating from his flame-tipped wings diminished until Gerard heard the old man cry out in commanding tones.
“Be gone, Ardarel!”
A great rent opened in the clouds massing overhead. The angel retreated, disappearing into the swirling gray.
Gerard, mouth and throat heat-scorched, drew in a raw, ragged breath of rain-chilled air. He tried to stand up and fell down again. When he raised his head again, he saw that the old man had deftly steered his sky-craft to earth and was carefully disembarking.
“This wasn’t quite the way I’d intended for us to meet,” he said, turning to face him.
Gerard blinked, dazzled by eyes that were as silvered as his own, glittering with icy striations, piercingly intelligent in spite of the old man’s weathered, lined skin and wild wisps of windblown white hair.
“Y-you have the advantage, Sieur,” Gerard stammered, feeling as if he had just been intimately scrutinized. He staggered to his feet, slipping a little on the sleet-sheened grass.
“My name is Linnaius. Kaspar Linnaius.” And the stranger held out his wrinkled hand to Gerard. Gerard, not certain that he had heard aright, automatically reached out and took the extended hand in his own, pressing it with warmth and profound gratitude. For there was something strangely familiar about the elderly man, even though he was certain they had never met; he would certainly have remembered encountering someone as charismatic as this before.
“Let me look at you.” Kaspar Linnaius placed his other hand on Gerard’s shoulder and gazed at him intently. There was an otherworldly air about him: his skin was translucent, as if too thinly stretched over his bones, lending an air of great age and frailty.
“Hmm,” Linnaius said at length, “I see something of myself in you. My much younger self,” he added wryly. “You’re Gerard Bernay, aren’t you? I’m your great-grandfather.”
“My great-grandfather?” Gerard had only a hazy memory of his grandfathers, both long dead, so the appearance of an even older antecedent was a challenging concept to come to terms with.
“My hair was once that color too . . . and your profile owes more to the Verniers than the Tivadars.”
“I beg your pardon?” Gerard had no idea what his self-styled great-grandfather was talking about. Still shaken from the encounter with the Winged Warrior and the clash of the clans, he gazed uneasily beyond Linnaius to the damaged gatehouse. The Nagarians—those that were still on their feet—had begun to shout, aiming their crossbows in their direction.
“We can’t talk here,” said Linnaius. He climbed back into the craft and beckoned to Gerard to join him. Gerard, not certain if he was awake or dreaming, hesitated and then as the druzhina began to run toward them, hastily clambered in.
“Izkael!” cried Linnaius and Gerard saw the long, lithe translucent dragon that had coiled itself, patiently waiting, on the ground, uncoil and dart upward. With a jolt that sent Gerard grasping at the side, the craft rose into the air. To his amazement, he saw other silvery sky dragons dart down to help lift the craft and bear it upward, deftly avoiding the shaggy overhanging branches of firs, until the druzhina below were as tiny as fallen pine cones and they were far beyond the reach of their crossbow bolts.
“Do sit down,” said Linnaius who had settled himself in the stern of the craft, one hand on a rudder. “You’ll find it more comfortable—and there’s less danger of you falling over the side.”
Speechless, Gerard obeyed, cautiously settling himself on the rugs beside the old man, moving slowly so as not to disturb the balance of the little craft. He stroked the grain of the wood, wondering what kind it might be: ash or hazel, durable, yet light, more like a boat, expertly constructed by a master of the ship-building trade.
“What was that creature?” Gerard’s sight was still scarred by flames; his mind still dazzled by the glare of the fiery blade. “You called it Ardarel. It looked like . . . an angel.”
“Ardarel is one of the Seven Heavenly Guardians of the mortal world. Some people call him and his brethren angels.”
Gerard’s mother had instilled in her children a respect for the tenets of the Church and had kept a little statue of Saint Klara in a little niche in their house. But he had never once imagined that the angels in the luminous stained-glass windows in the parish church with their calm expressions could be anything other than benign protectors.
“What have I done wrong? Why did he want to punish me? I’ve really led quite a boring life.” Gerard laughed but there was no relief
in the laughter. Boring . . . but not chaste or sin-free in the eyes of the strait-laced Tielen Church. He even found himself wondering if this could be some punishment called down on him for making Edvin his lover.
“I’m to blame, Gerard. You’ve inherited the curse—or the gift—of the silver eyes from me. You have mage blood. And the Guardians have but one design: to destroy us.”
The craft flew on; already they had left the forest behind and were skimming high above the moors. Gerard caught sight of the huts of the miners below and the raw earthen scars where they had been digging.
“But—but why? Do we pose such a threat to them?”
“We are the living proof that one of their kind transgressed. He fell in love and lay with a mortal woman and we are his descendants. The indisputable proof shows in our eyes and in our elemental powers—powers that mortals were never meant to possess.”
Gerard tried to digest this information. To his rational mind, it was the stuff of legends. There had to be a better explanation . . . yet here he was, seated in a little flying boat, drawn through the air by wouivres, skimming over Azhkendir at a faster speed than he had imagined his flyer could ever achieve.
“Since then, Ardarel and his kin have pursued us relentlessly. They leant their powers to certain saints and convinced them that we should all be burned as sinners to purge the mortal world of our malign influence. Not surprisingly, there are very few of us left.”
“Then why did Ardarel retreat just now?”
“Ha!” Linnaius let out a curt laugh, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the skies ahead, one hand on the tiller. “Because the Guardians are aethyrial beings. They can’t tolerate the atmosphere of the mortal world for long. It weakens them. Which is why they used the saints as their agents. They can only last here for a few minutes.”
Gerard considered this. “So, even with all their powers, they haven’t yet found a way to survive here?”
“There is a way. To take on—share—a mortal body. But it’s anathema to them. They’d rather use other mortals to do their ‘holy’ work for them. They want to close the forbidden ways to and from the Aethyrial Realm which those with mage blood in their veins and certain crafty shamans have been using to slip in and out. And I fear they’ll pursue us until they’ve achieved their goal.”
Gerard had begun to shiver; the chill of the winds was numbing him, slowing his thoughts.
“Wrap yourself in the rugs,” said Linnaius, thrusting one toward him. “You’re not accustomed to traveling at this great height where the air is thin.”
“Where are you taking us?”Gerard asked, pulling the rug tightly about him.
“To introduce you to my patron, the Emperor.”
“Emperor Eugene?”
“Is there any other?” Linnaius gave him a stern look from beneath his wispy white brows.
And then Gerard remembered. “The flying contest.”
“Eh?” It was his great-grandfather’s turn to look confused.
“The Emperor is holding a contest. My protégé Toran has reached the final stage. The challenge was to design a sky-craft and fly it. ”
To Gerard’s surprise, Linnaius chuckled. “Just like Eugene,” he said, more to himself than Gerard. “Still so impatient. These things take time. I’ve only been gone a year . . . And how, pray tell, are these sky-craft supposed to move through the air?”
“Toran made mention of a special fuel that would power the engines.”
“A special fuel?” There was a note of disapproval in Linnaius’s voice that disturbed Gerard.
“And yet the prototype Aiglon flew perfectly without the need of any special fuel. I helped in the manufacturing of the components. I know it works—”
“Well, of course anything that you touched would absorb something of your gift.” Linnaius’s reply was salted with an unmistakable tinge of exasperation. “But you were unaware of it, I suppose, so you can’t be held responsible.”
“You mean that any of the flying mechanisms I helped to construct would fly successfully because of the powers I’ve inherited from you?” Gerard was just beginning to realize the import of his great-grandfather’s words and their implications. “But I had no hand in the construction of the full-scale Aiglon .” He sat bolt upright, setting the craft shaking. “Dear God, that means those cadets are in danger. We all assumed the Aiglon could fly because of the design of the wings and the efficiency of the little engine and . . .”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looking up saw his great-grandfather regarding him intently.
“When did you say this contest was to take place?”
“Dievona’s Night. At the palace of Swanholm .”
“Today. Then we may still get there in time.”
Chapter 48
The two competing sky-craft, airborne, reached the wide bassin of the Dievona Fountain. Eugene leaned forward, shading his eyes, eager to see which one had landed the first. The spectators all strained in the same direction, Major Bauldry training his spyglass on the distant craft which, like two white-winged cranes, flew onward.
Behind him he could hear Altan Kazimir agitatedly muttering under his breath, “It can’t have been the fuel. No it can’t have been.”
“Lindgren!” Eugene turned to the colonel who was staring, mouth open. “Why haven’t they landed? Where are they going?”
The sky-craft disappeared from view.
“I confess I have no idea.” Lindgren seemed frozen; suddenly he blinked and addressed Eugene. “Permission to organize a rescue party, majesty.”
“Granted.”
As the colonel hurried away, calling for his adjutants, Eugene put one hand on Karila’s shoulder to reassure her. It was only then that he realized that she was still staring fixedly into the sky; she had not even turned her head to follow the progress of the flyers toward the fountain.
“Kari?” he said sharply. She blinked and seemed to wake from whatever trance she had fallen into. Fears stirred within him from a time—not so long ago—when she had been inextricably linked to Khezef. The daemon-Drakhaoul had even called her his soul-child. Forgetting for a moment about the flyers, he gently cupped her face in his hands, tilting it up to his. “What’s wrong?”
She gave a little shudder and he saw his own fear mirrored in her eyes. “It couldn’t be,” she said softly. “I thought . . . just for a moment . . . I sensed Sahariel.”
“Sahariel?” Eugene echoed. His half-brother Oskar’s Drakhaoul. The one who had kidnapped Karila. “But there’s no way Sahariel could still be here.”
At that moment, Gustave reappeared, pushing his way through the throng.
“Countess Marta,” Eugene said, beckoning to Karila’s governess. “Please escort the princess indoors and find her some refreshment.”
“Will the cadets be all right, Papa?” Karila asked as the countess guided her away.
“Don’t worry, my dear, we’ll see to it that those brave young men don’t come to any harm.” He heard the easy reassurance in his voice and hated himself for lying to her. As he turned to Gustave, he was already wondering how he would make adequate recompense to the Tourmalise government, the Paladur Military Academy and the boys’ families, if they did not survive the flight.
“Toran Caradas,” Gustave said in an undertone as the other guests were ushered by the palace staff to the back of the terrace where punch and caraway cakes were being served, “is Jaromir Arkhel’s younger cousin and only son and heir to Lord Ranozhir Arkhel. His mother’s father was Lord Denys Caradas of Serrigonde in Tourmalise.”
Stricken, Eugene gazed at Gustave. “So he’s Jaro’s cousin. And we may just have unwittingly sent the boy to an untimely death.” The thought chilled him. He spotted Major Bauldry trying to rally the other cadets who were standing around looking confused. Doctor Maulevrier’s students looked equally bewildered.
The sound of horses’ hooves crunching on gravel made all the onlookers swivel their heads as Colonel Lindgren led a small det
achment of imperial cavalry at the gallop toward the Dievona Fountain. Following behind was a small closed carriage which Eugene recognized as belonging to his physician Doctor Amandel; Gustave had prudently thought to anticipate all eventualities.
Jaro’s cousin. Eugene was seized with an overwhelming impulse to accompany the rescue party. “Gustave, cover for me,” he said and before his secretary could object, he hurried away, swiftly descending the sweeping staircase and calling to the sentries on duty for a horse.
***
Beyond the gray-green Saltyk Sea far below Gerard spotted land: a rugged coastline with bays and inlets. As they drew nearer he could make out ports, harbors, the weather-boarded houses painted in the colors favored by his countrymen: red, blue, green, to brighten the long dark months of winter.
“Is this really Tielen?” He could hardly believe that they had traveled so far in such a short time.
“We’re heading to the palace of Swanholm,” Linnaius said. And then he leaned forward, resting his free hand on Gerard’s shoulder. “Listen, Gerard, if anything happens to me, you must go straight to Enhirre. There’s a hidden community of mages there. They’ll train you and keep you safe from Ardarel.”
“Enhirre?” Gerard repeated. “That’s half a world away. And how will I track down these mages if they’re in hiding?”
“I’ve written it all down for you and left the book with an old friend, Chinua. He’s got it in safe-keeping for you.”
“How do I find this Chinua?”
“The wouivres will take you to him. Although he’s in just as much in danger from Ardarel as we are; he’s a shaman with shape-shifting powers.”
Instinctively, Gerard glanced into the sky, dreading to see the burnished gleam of fire-tipped feathers streaking through the clouds toward them, in pursuit once more. One question came to the fore of his mind. “Why?” he asked. “Why are the angels attacking us, not defending us?” He felt betrayed. He had always thought he was a rational man, a man of science who no longer believed in the numinous, let alone the stories from holy scripture he had listened to in church as a child.
