Trei nodded slowly. “All right.”
“I wish you could stay here and watch the dawn with me. But we’re all supposed to be up in the Tower of the Winds at dawn so we can see the Tolounnese ships come. I think Master Akhai thinks we might be able to do something.…” She hesitated.
“You don’t think so?” Trei guessed.
“Well … I think Master Tnegun doesn’t think we can do enough to stop the ships,” Araenè said at last. “So I don’t suppose we can. They say if Master Cassameirin were here—actually, I’m not sure what they think he could do, but they say he’s clever. But, anyway, nobody knows where he is.” She nodded with sudden decision toward the egg Trei now held. “So you take that. You take it, and you use it.”
“If I can,” Trei assured her. He wrapped the egg up in a fold of cloth his cousin gave him. “Araenè—are you all right?”
“Of course,” his cousin said, too quickly. “It’s almost dawn. You’d better go.”
She went to the door, and Trei noticed again how cautious she was about the door, even though it opened properly to the novitiate sleeping hall on the first try, and how she kept a foot in the open door until they were through, and he wondered a little about that caution, but then the other novices were crowding forward and he forgot the question that had been in the back of his mind.
The Tolounnese ships arrived at dawn, along with Ceirfei, whose uncle had ordered him back to the kajurai precincts.
“My uncle thinks I’ll be safer here,” Ceirfei said, in a toneless voice that made it clear he was ashamed to have been ordered to safety.
“And so you will be,” Genrai said firmly, but gave Trei a raised-eyebrow glance that Trei could answer only with a shrug.
The novices watched the Tolounnese ships from a balcony of a white tower, one of the highest towers within the kajurai precincts, where novices were not normally permitted. Trei was glad for the additional height, for the ships brought an unnatural calm with them: air as heavy and thick as syrup, visible to kajurai eyes as a flat deadness without any of the usual complicated structure of wind and pressure. The sea around the ships was pressed out as flat as glass, but the zone of dead air only reached about three times the height of the ships’ masts: not nearly as high as their balcony.
The sails of the ships hung limp from their masts, but Trei, leaning to look over the edge of the novices’ balcony, saw the long oars reach forward and pull back, reach forward and pull back, and then run in and lock into their resting positions. The ships glided slowly through the quiet water into Milendri’s vast shadow, dropped anchors fore and aft, and settled into their positions.
There were fifteen ships: slender shapes with sharp-edged iron prows for ramming and three-tiered ranks of long oars on either side for speed and maneuverability. Not that they needed either to attack the Islands. What they needed for that were men and a way to reach the Islands. Trei guessed that each ship might hold hundreds of soldiers—if all the men pulling the oars were soldiers, which seemed likely. And given the reports about Islands falling into the sea, they could all guess how the Tolounnese commanders meant to get their men up to the Islands. Or, more likely, the reverse …
Narrow strips of steel had been inlaid from bow to stern down each ship’s uppermost deck and similarly down the hull between the banks of oars; the metal blazed in the brilliant light.… No, it wasn’t merely the sunlight that made the metal shine like that: power that was actually visible to Trei’s kajurai eyes ran in swift pulses down the steel and curled out like steam around and behind each ship. Trei could see the mages on the nearest ship: a man on the captain’s afterdeck, surrounded by clouds of thickly gathered magic.
Though kajuraihi, wings red or gold or white, were soaring in high spirals above the region of dead air, no dragons were visible anywhere. And all those watching from the balcony felt the shudder as Milendri began to settle heavily toward the sea and the waiting ships.
They all flinched; Tokabii let out a little squeak of surprise and then looked embarrassed, but even Rekei didn’t tease him about it. “Gods,” muttered Ceirfei, catching the balcony railing and peering over. He was pale, but steady: they had known this was going to happen.
The Island settled … and steadied. But then it shuddered again and dropped once more, this time falling faster and farther. Both Kojran and Rekei yelped, and Genrai grunted. They jerked to a sharp halt for a moment and then dropped again. Trei clung to the balcony railing with a grip that hurt his hands. He couldn’t have made a sound to save his life.
They steadied again at last, much lower in the air. Trei wondered whether the lowermost tips of jagged stone were underwater yet and guessed they probably were. He stared down at the flat air, now hardly a wing-length below their balcony, and realized that even if the Island mages could fight the Tolounnese mages, they might not dare: if the Tolounnese mages lost control, or lost too much of their power, then unless the living wind came back right away, Milendri would fall not only into the water, but all the way to the bottom of the sea.
“We’re still awfully high for them to reach,” Genrai observed shakily.
“Wait,” said Ceirfei. They waited tensely. But the Island did not sink lower.
Instead the deck of the nearest ship rose up. No. Not the deck itself, but the strips of metal that sheathed it. Those ratcheted jerkily up off the deck until they tilted upward at an awkward, straining angle. Then the steel boarding ladders, for that was what they were, flung themselves up and out from the ship with roaring screams and bright, hot billows of steam. Their leading edges, lined with glittering hooks, slammed against the Island’s side, shattered the outermost walls of Canpra’s belowground buildings, scraped down along the red stone, caught on broken stonework, and held.
“Gods!” Genrai said.
Tolounnese soldiers began to climb up the ladders, toward the balconies and wide windows and broken walls of Canpra’s underground city. Shouts came from every side. Islanders were running down into the underground parts of the city, hurrying into places where they might meet the entering Tolounnese. Trei imagined the meeting between the Islanders and the Tolounnese soldiers, in the broken towers, among buckling walls and shattered ceilings and falling stones. He swallowed. “Don’t you have any soldiers?” he asked Ceirfei.
Ceirfei shook his head. “Real soldiers, soldiers meant to do more than keep order in the streets on a wild festival day? Soldiers meant to stand up against the likes of that? No.”
“We’ll fight,” Genrai said. He, too, was grim. “Soldiers or not.” He looked around, as though he might find a sword, or at least a club, waiting conveniently close at hand.
Trei could just imagine what professional Tolounnese soldiers would do to a lot of Islanders armed with knives and clubs. Then he tried hard, and unsuccessfully, not to imagine it. Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe the Islanders would surrender quickly. But Genrai had said, We’ll fight, and Trei knew they would try. A lot of Islanders would die, and then they’d be defeated anyway, and Trei could hardly stand to think of either the deaths or the defeat. He knew, for the first time with a visceral certainty, that he’d really meant it when he’d insisted to Genrai, I would stop them if I could.
Genrai glanced at Ceirfei and suddenly left the balcony.
“Where’s he going?” Tokabii asked, astonished.
“I don’t know,” Ceirfei answered. He looked at Trei, his eyebrows raised, but Trei could only shake his head.
Genrai came back in and said curtly to Ceirfei, “The wingmaster wants you.”
Ceirfei stared at the other boy, outraged. “What, you suggested he tuck me away somewhere safer still?”
“Yes,” Genrai snapped. He was very pale, but determined. “Though I shouldn’t have needed to! You ought to have the sense to know when to step back on your own account! Now, Wingmaster Taimenai expects you: will you keep him waiting?”
For a moment, Trei thought Ceirfei might blaze into a rage none of them had the time—or the abilit
y—to withstand. But then the young prince simply turned on his heel and stalked out. His furious temper was plain from the stiffness of his back. But he went.
“I didn’t think of that,” Trei said shakily to Genrai.
Genrai gave him a wry look. “The wingmaster had already sent to tell us we’re all supposed to fly over to Kotipa, quick while we can still reach good air. We haven’t much time. Kojran, you and Tokabii lay out the wings. Trei, run get the thing your cousin gave you—you are willing to do this? You’re quite sure?” He gave Trei a steady look, meaning he’d guessed what Trei already knew: that no one, no matter how skilled in the air, would find it very easy to fly down to a close-guarded Tolounnese furnace, throw something into it, and then just fly away.
“Yes,” Trei whispered. Then he said it more strongly. “Yes, I’ll go. But you—”
“We’ll all go at least partway. I’ll go all the way. In case … Well, we should have somebody to … to be a second chance.” He meant that he would throw the egg into the furnace if, at the last moment, Trei couldn’t or just wouldn’t.
Trei said, “Someone needs to stay here and explain to … explain. In case.”
Genrai shook his head. “They’ll figure it out if we succeed. And if we fail, what will it matter? We’ll get everything else ready. Go. Run!”
Trei did run. He wrapped the dragon’s egg up in a blanket, tied the blanket across his chest like a sling, and ran back to the balcony.
All the others were already wearing their wings. Trei made sure the egg was secure and struggled into his. He seemed especially clumsy now, when speed mattered. Genrai helped, his face taut with effort as he struggled to do up Trei’s buckles without raking his own wings against the floor or walls. But at last it was done, and they could all let themselves drop off the balcony and catch the wind, working hard to get lift before they could fall into the dead air below.
“Up!” shouted Genrai. “Up and out!” Then an arrow cut through the feathers at the tip of his left wing, and he shouted in startled terror and clawed for height.
There were more arrows—somewhere close by, someone screamed—then a man Trei didn’t know, a kajurai with fire-gold wings, cut between him and the ships, perilously close to the region of dead air. The gold-winged kajurai flung something down at the ships below, and the archers stopped shooting at Trei and started aiming at their attacker. The kajurai flung something else and then rose sharply, his wings beating hard as fire bloomed below.
Trei didn’t stay to watch. He found Kotipa in the distance, took his bearings, and flew north and east. Someone flew way over to his right: Rekei, he thought at first. But then something about the way that figure flew told him it was not Rekei, but Kojran. He looked for Rekei—found Genrai instead. There was no sign of Rekei. He remembered the arrows, someone screaming; he didn’t want to believe it had been his friend, but if it hadn’t, where was Rekei? Trei looked around once more.
A kajurai dropped out of the heights: the second-ranked kajurai Rei Kensenè. He slid down to balance on the wind next to Trei, their wingtips only a foot apart. “Get over to Kotipa!” he shouted. “Fool! You can’t help here: you haven’t the strength or the training! Did Ceirfei come out here? Did you bring Ceirfei out here?”
Trei shouted, “No! Genrai got him out of the way before we came out!”
“Thank the generous Gods! Get over to Kotipa!”
“Yes, all right! Did you see Rekei?”
Rei hesitated. Then he shouted, “No!” and slipped the wind abruptly through his wings, wheeling back toward Milendri.
Trei let himself slide down a curve of wind, dropping toward Tokabii and Genrai. Kojran closed up on their other side. The trailing edge of his right wing was ragged; more than one arrow had gone through his wing, Trei guessed. It was only by the grace of the Gods none of the arrows had hit somewhere worse. He cried, “Did you see Rekei?”
“No!” shouted Kojran, and Genrai echoed him, “No!”
“He was hit! He fell into the bad air, but I think another kajurai might have caught him!” shouted Tokabii.
They all flew on in silence for a moment. Trei, at least, was thinking about how impossible it would have been for any kajurai, no matter how strong and skilled, to carry a wounded boy through that unnaturally heavy air.
“What did Rei say?” Genrai shouted over at last.
“He said to go to Kotipa!” Trei answered.
“We’ll head for Bodonè instead!” Genrai answered. “That way! It’s on the way to Teraica! We can land there to get water!”
Trei was surprised that the other boy still seemed to assume they were actually going to head for Teraica. After whatever had happened to Rekei, Trei felt himself almost wanting to just obey orders and head for the Island of Dragons.
But, with Genrai leading, they all climbed instead into a rising spiral. When they turned, they could see Milendri. The Island was far behind them now, yet the flashes of light and fire were still clearly visible. The heavy air was visible, too: from this distance, it looked darker and more solid than any air ought to.
Trei thought they were all hoping someone else would suggest staying safe on Bodonè, but no one did. They only stopped there to rest. Genrai shared out some hard bread he’d brought, gave everybody a flask to fill at a nearby pool, and brought out a sighting glass to measure against the stars as they began to come out. Trei, who hadn’t thought to bring any of those things, gave the older boy a respectful look. “Ceirfei was right—you do have sense.”
Genrai flushed. “I had time to think about what to bring while you went to visit your cousin.”
And he’d tried to live up to Ceirfei’s good opinion, yes. Trei understood that perfectly. He gestured toward the sighting glass. “Do you think we should fly at night?”
“No, do we have to?” Tokabii, examining his damaged wing, looked up in dismay. “I’m tired—and look at all these broken feathers! Lucky the arrows missed the primaries. Throw me that pouch of spares, Kojran, will you?”
Genrai looked grim. “We’ll get the worst-damaged feathers replaced, ’Kabii, but then I think we’d best press our speed. Don’t you?”
The boys all looked at one another. Trei knew they were all thinking about those Tolounnese ships, about the heavy air pressing the dragons away from the Islands and bringing Milendri down where the siege ladders could reach it. Tokabii bent his head over his repairs, but he didn’t object again.
“After Rekei, you’re the next best at star navigation,” Genrai said to Trei. He hesitated, then added deliberately, “Without you, we can’t go on at all, you know. None of the rest of us can do the math in our heads. Are you sure—?”
Trei knew Genrai was asking once more: Are you sure you want to take the Islands’ side against Tolounn? Now that it comes to this, are you sure you’re willing to risk your life for the Islands? His first impulse was toward anger: hadn’t he already answered those doubts two and three times over? But his anger died in the face of Genrai’s wary concern … which left room for all his doubts, which crowded into the forefront of his mind. He turned away from the other boys, staring away in the direction of Milendri.
Tolounn had everything: the artificers who’d made the steam engines, and the mages who’d figured out how to harness the huge power of those engines, and the slender iron-prowed warships, and all the soldiers. And Tolounn had the aggression and the, what, the will to win?
The Islands might share the will to win. But other than that, they had only the kajuraihi, who couldn’t even fly through the dead air the Tolounnese ships had brought with them. And the egg a fire dragon had given Araenè, which Araenè had in turn given to him. Had the dragon somehow known its sky kin were going to be forced away from their chosen habitation? Was that the reason, or a reason, it had given its egg to his cousin?
But Trei didn’t know how to put any of his questions or thoughts or decisions into words. At last he said merely, “I’m sure.”
Genrai gave him a slow nod, accep
ting this. “All right.”
Kojran, who’d been standing at the edge of the Island, shading his eyes and staring up into the sky, turned and shouted, “The first stars are out!”
Genrai nodded again. “Then I think we’d better fly.”
Trei returned the older boy’s nod. But then he hesitated, glancing at the other novices. “Tokabii, Kojran—you could stay here.”
“What? No!” said Tokabii, offended.
Kojran, to Trei’s surprise, actually seemed to consider this suggestion. “No,” he said at last. “Not here.” He hesitated for another moment and then added, “Maybe at a waystation. Like Kerii?” He looked at Genrai.
“Maybe,” said Genrai.
“What?” asked Trei, confused.
“It’s from a play,” Genrai said. “Never mind, Kojran, no need to explain it right now. Trei, you go first. Do you have your heading clear? Straight north until, um, would it be half past third bell? Then ten points north-northeast, and we should be just about on top of the first waystation by dawn, if we hold a good pace. We don’t want to make it before dawn, though.”
Because if they reached the floating rock of the waystation in the dark, he meant, they would probably fly right past it. “If we do miss the first waystation,” Trei asked, “how much farther to the second?”
“Too far,” Genrai said, and waited, his eyes on Trei’s. When Trei slowly nodded, Genrai went on, “We’ll go high first, dive to get speed, hold a fast pace. Kojran and Tokabii, you’ll fly out to either side of Trei, half a span back. I’ll come behind—you boys will have to stay in place because I’ll be too far back to see Trei. Hear me?”
The younger Third City boys both looked insulted. “Go on!” Kojran said scornfully. “You think we can’t hold a formation?”
“It’ll be harder when you’re tired,” Genrai said. “Ninety miles to the first waystation. You both think you can do that? Don’t say yes if you mean no: no one will be able to carry you if you can’t make the distance.” He looked stern, and much older than seventeen.
The Floating Islands Page 19
