Hugh walked over to the ship’s porthole and stared out. Threading its way through the firmament, the dragon was barely visible, appearing as a river of silver flowing among the floebergs—a river of silver with two flaming red eyes.
“Do you know its type, human?”
“A quicksilver.” Hugh had to pause, to think of the elven word. “Silindistani.”
“We can’t outrun it,” said Captain Bothar’el. “Look at its speed! It is well-named. We’ll have to fight.”
“I don’t think so,” offered Hugh. “My guess is we’re about to meet the boy’s father.”
Elves dislike and distrust dragons intensely. The elf wizards’ magic cannot control them and the knowledge that humans can has always throbbed like a rotting tooth in the elven mouth. The elves aboard the ship were nervous and ill-at-ease in the presence of the quicksilver dragon. It wound and writhed and twisted its long, shining body around their vessel. The elves shifted their heads constantly to keep the creature in view, or jumped in startlement whenever the head shot up in a place where it had not been two seconds earlier. Such nervous reactions appeared to amuse the mysteriarch standing on the bridge. Though the wizard was graciousness itself, Hugh could see the glint beneath the lashless eyelids, and a small smile flickered occasionally across the thin and bloodless lips.
“I am eternally in your debt, Captain Bothar’el,” said Sinistrad. “My child means more to me than all the treasures of the High Realm.” Looking down at the boy, who was clinging to his hand and gazing up at him in unfeigned admiration, Sinistrad enlarged his smile.
“I was glad to be of service. As the boy explained, we are now considered outlaws by our people. We must find and join the rebel forces. He promised us payment—”
“Oh, and you will receive it, in abundance, I assure you. And you must see our enchanting realm and meet our people. We have so few guests. We become quite weary of each other. Not that we encourage visitors,” Sinistrad added delicately. “But this is a special circumstance.”
Hugh glanced at Haplo, who had been brought to the bridge with the other “guests” upon Sinistrad’s arrival. The assassin would have liked very much to get some indication of what Haplo thought of all this. They couldn’t speak, of course, but even a raised eyebrow or a quick wink would tell Hugh that Haplo wasn’t swallowing this honeyed fruit either. But Haplo was staring at Sinistrad so intently the man might have been counting the pores in the wizard’s long nose.
“I will not risk flying my ship through that.” Captain Bothar’el indicated the firmament with a nod of his head. “Give us what you have”—the elf’s gaze fixed on several fine jewels adorning the fingers of the mysteriarch—“and we will return to our realm.”
Hugh could have told the elf he was wasting his breath.
Sinistrad would never let this ship slip through his ruby-and-diamond-sparkling hands.
He didn’t. “The journey might be the tiniest bit difficult, captain, but not impossible and certainly not dangerous. I will be your guide and show you the safe passage through the firmament.” He glanced around the bridge. “Surely you will not refuse to allow your crew the chance to view the wonders of our realm?”
The legendary wealth and splendor of the High Realm, made real by the sight of the jewels the wizard wore with such careless ease, kindled a flame that burned up fear and—so Hugh saw in the crew’s eyes—common sense. He felt a cool pity for the elven captain, who knew he was flying into a spiderweb but who could do nothing to stop himself. If he gave the order to leave this place and return home, he’d be the one returning—the hard way, head over heels through several miles of empty sky.
“Very well,” Bothar’el said ungraciously. A cheer from the crew died out with the flash in the captain’s eye.
“May I ride with you on the dragon, papa?” asked Bane.
“Of course, my son.” Sinistrad ran a hand through the boy’s fair hair. “And now, much as I would enjoy staying and talking further with all of you, especially my new friend Limbeck here”—Sinistrad bowed to the Geg, who bobbed awkwardly back—“my wife is waiting most impatiently to see her child. Women. What loving little creatures they are.”
Sinistrad turned to the captain. “I have never flown a ship, but it occurs to me that the major problem you will encounter passing through the firmament is ice forming on the wings. I am certain, however, that this most skilled colleague of mine”—he bowed to the ship’s wizard, who returned the courtesy respectfully, if guardedly—“can melt it.”
His arm around his son, Sinistrad started to leave, using his magic to transport him the short distance back to the dragon. Their bodies had faded to almost nothing when he paused and fixed a glittering-eyed gaze upon the captain. “Follow the path of the dragon,” he said, “exactly.” And he was gone.
“So what do you think of him?” Hugh asked Haplo in an undertone as both men, plus the dog, Alfred, and Limbeck, were escorted back to the brig.
“The wizard?”
“Who else?”
“Oh, he’s powerful,” said Haplo, shrugging. “But not as powerful as I’d expected.”
Hugh grunted. He’d found Sinistrad daunting. “And what did you expect—a Sartan?”
Haplo glanced sharply at Hugh, saw it was a joke. “Yeah,” he answered, grinning.
CHAPTER 47
THE FIRMAMENT
THE CARFA’SHON SAILED THROUGH THE ICE FLOES, LEAVING A SPARKLING trail of crystals swirling and glittering in its wake. The cold was bitter. The ship’s wizard had been forced to draw magical heat from the living and working areas of the ship and use it to keep the rigging, the cables, the wings, and the hull free of the ice that rained down on them with a rattling noise, sounding so Limbeck said, like millions of dried peas.
Haplo, Limbeck, Alfred, and Hugh huddled for warmth around the small brazier in the hold. The dog had curled up in a ball, its nose buried in its bushy tail, and was fast asleep. None of the four spoke. Limbeck was too awed by the sights he had seen and expected to see. What Haplo might be thinking was anybody’s guess. Hugh was considering his options.
Murder is out. No assassin worth his dagger takes on the job of killing a wizard, let alone a mysteriarch! This Sinistrad is powerful. What am I saying? This man is power itself! He hums with it like a lightning rod in a thunderstorm. If only I could figure out why he wants me now, when he tried to kill me once before. Why am I suddenly so valuable?
“Why did you make me bring Hugh, father?”
The quicksilver dragon threaded its way through the ice floes. It was moving with unusual slowness, being held back by Sinistrad so that the elven ship could follow. The lethargic pace irritated the dragon, who, in addition, would have liked very much to dine on the sweet-smelling creatures inside the ship. But it knew better than to challenge Sinistrad. The two had waged numerous magical battles before, and Gorgon had always lost. It hated the wizard with a grudging respect.
“I may need Hugh the Hand, Bane. He is a pilot, after all.”
“But we have a pilot—the elf captain.”
“My dear child, you have much to learn. So begin learning it now. Never trust elves. Though their intelligence is equal to that of humans, they are longer-lived, and tend to gain in wisdom. In ancient days, they were a noble race and humans were, as the elves are wont to sneer, little more than animals compared to them. But the elf wizards could not leave well enough alone. They were, in fact, jealous of us.”
“I saw the wizard take the dead elf’s soul,” interrupted Bane, hushed with remembered awe.
“Yes.” Sinistrad sneered. “That was how they thought to fight us.”
“I don’t understand, father.”
“It is important that you do, my son, and quickly, for we will be dealing with an elven ship’s wizard. Let me describe to you, briefly, the nature of magic. Before the Sundering, spiritual and physical magic—like all other elements in the world—was blended together in all people. After the Sundering, the world was spl
it into its separate elements, at least so the legends of the Sartan tell us, and this happened with magic.
“Each race naturally seeks to use the power of magic to make up for its own deficiencies. Thus, elves, tending naturally toward the spiritual, needed magic to help enhance their physical powers. They studied the art of granting magical powers to physical objects that could work for them.”
“Like the dragonship?”
“Yes, like the dragonship. Humans, on the other hand, were better able to control the physical world, and so sought additional power through the spiritual. To communicate with animals, to force the wind to do our bidding, the stones to rise up at our command—this became our greatest talent. And, because of our concern with the spiritual, we developed the ability of mental magic, of training our minds to alter and control physical laws.”
“That’s why I could fly.”
“Yes, and if you had been an elf, you would have lost your life, for they do not possess such power. The elves poured all of their arcane skill into physical objects and studied the art of mental manipulation. An elven wizard with his hands bound is helpless. A human wizard, under the same circumstances, need simply tell himself that his wrists are shrinking in size and it will be true. Thus he can slip out of his bonds.”
“Father,” said Bane, looking backward, “the ship’s stopped.”
“So it has.” Sinistrad checked an impatient sigh and reined in the dragon. “That ship’s wizard of theirs must be nothing more than Second House if he can’t keep the ice off their wings any better than this!”
“And so we have two pilots.” Bane twisted around in the dragon saddle in order to get a better look at the ship. The elves had been forced to take axes to the ice that had formed on the cables.
“Not for long,” said Sinistrad.
If he’s going to use this vessel, the wizard needs a pilot. This question settled, Hugh took out his pipe and began to fill it sparingly with his dwindling supply of tobacco. And now the wizard has two pilots—me and the elf. He can keep us both guessing, play us one off the other. Winner lives, loser dies. Or maybe not. Maybe he won’t trust the elf at all. Interesting. I wonder if I should tip off Bothar’el?
Lighting his pipe, Hugh gazed at the others from beneath hooded lids. Limbeck. Why Limbeck? And Haplo. Where does he fit in?
“The Geg you’ve brought, my son. You say he’s the leader of his people?”
“Well, sort of.” Bane squirmed uncomfortably. “It wasn’t my fault. I tried to get their king—they call him the head foreman—”
“High froman.”
“—but that other man wanted this Limbeck to come and”—the boy shrugged—“he came.”
“What other man?” Sinistrad asked. “Alfred?”
“No, not Alfred,” Bane said scornfully. “The other man. The quiet one. The one with the dog.”
Sinistrad cast his mind around the bridge of the ship. He did recall seeing some other human but couldn’t bring his face to memory. Nondescript, a kind of gray blur. That must be the one from the newly discovered realm.
“Perhaps you should have cast the enchantment over him, convinced him that he wanted what you wanted. Didn’t you try?”
“Of course, father!” Bane said, his cheeks flushed with indignation.
“Then what happened?”
Bane ducked his head. “It didn’t work.”
“What? Could it be possible that Trian actually managed to disrupt the spell? Or perhaps this man has a charm—”
“No, he doesn’t have anything except a dog. I don’t like him. He came along and I didn’t want him to but I couldn’t stop him. When the enchantment went out to him, it didn’t work like it does on most people. Everyone else sort of absorbs it, like a sponge sucking up water. With him—that Haplo—it just bounced right back.”
“Impossible. He must have a hidden charm, or else it was your imagination.”
“No, it wasn’t either of those, father.”
“Bah! What do you know? You’re just a child. This Limbeck is the leader of some sort of rebellion among the people, isn’t that right?”
Bane, head down, pouted, refused to answer.
Sinistrad brought the dragon to a halt. The ship was lumbering along behind, its wings brushing the edges of floebergs that could smash its hull into fragments. Twisting in the saddle, the mysteriarch caught hold of his son’s jaw with his hand and jerked the boy’s face upward. His grip was painful; Bane’s eyes filled with tears.
“You will answer promptly any question I put to you. You will do my bidding without argument or back talk. You will, at all times, treat me with respect. I do not blame you for your lack of it now. You have been around those who did nothing to command it, who were not worthy of it. But that has changed. You are with your father now. Never forget that.”
“No,” whispered Bane.
“No, what?” The grip tightened.
“No, father!” Bane gasped.
Satisfied, Sinistrad released the boy, rewarding Bane with a slight widening of the thin, bloodless lips. He turned back to face forward, ordering the dragon on.
The wizard’s fingers left white indentations on the boy’s cheek, purplish marks on his jaw. Thoughtful, Bane was silent, trying to rub away the pain with his hand. His tears had not fallen and he blinked them back from his eyes, swallowed those in his throat.
“Now, answer my question. This Limbeck is leader of a rebellion.”
“Yes, father.”
“And so he could be useful to us. At the very least, he will provide information about the machine.”
“I made drawings of the machine, father,”
“Did you?” Sinistrad glanced behind him. “Good ones? No, don’t take them out. They might blow away. I will look them over when we reach home.”
Hugh puffed slowly on his pipe, feeling more relaxed. Whatever the wizard was plotting, Limbeck would provide him information and access to the Low Realm. But Haplo. Try to figure that one. Unless he just came along by accident. No. Hugh gazed at the man intently. Haplo was teasing the sleeping dog, tickling its nose with its tail. The dog sneezed, woke up, looked around irritably for the fly, and, not finding it, went back to sleep. Hugh thought back to their imprisonment on Drevlin, to the riveting shock he’d experienced seeing Haplo standing beside the grille. No, Hugh couldn’t imagine Haplo doing anything by accident. This was by design, then. But by whose?
Hugh’s gaze shifted to Alfred. The chamberlain was staring into nothing, his face the face of one who walks in a waking nightmare. What had happened to him in the Low Realm? And why was he here, other than that the kid wanted to bring along his servant? But Bane hadn’t brought Alfred, Hugh remembered. The chamberlain had tagged along of his own accord. And was still tagging.
“And what about Alfred?” Sinistrad asked. “Why did you bring him?”
The mysteriarch and his son were nearing the edge of the firmament. The bergs were becoming smaller and the distances between them farther apart. Ahead of them, sparkling in the distance, shining through the ice like an emerald set amidst diamonds, was what Sinistrad said was the High Realm. In the distance, behind them, they could hear a ragged cheer lift from the elven ship.
“He found out about King Stephen’s plan to have me murdered,” Bane answered his father, “and he came along to protect me.”
“He doesn’t know more than that?”
“He knows I’m your son. He knows about the enchantment.”
“All the fools know about it. That’s what made it so effective. They were so delightfully aware of their own helplessness. But that wasn’t what I meant. Does Alfred know you manipulated your parents and that idiot Trian into thinking that they were the ones responsible for casting you out? Is that why he came?”
“No. Alfred came because he can’t help himself. He has to be with me. He’s not smart enough to do anything else.”
“It will be handy to have him with you when you return. He can verify your story.”
“Return? Return where?” Bane looked frightened. He clung to his father. “I’m going to stay with you!”
“Why don’t you rest now? We’ll be home soon, and I want you to make a good impression on my friends.”
“And on mother?” Bane settled himself more comfortably in the saddle.
“Yes, of course. Now, hold your tongue. We are nearing the dome and I must communicate with those waiting to receive us.”
Bane rested his head against his father’s back. He hadn’t told quite all the truth about Alfred. There had been that strange occurrence in the forest, when the tree fell on the boy. Alfred thought I was still unconscious, but I wasn’t. I saw. Just what it was I saw, I’m not certain. Up here, I’m sure to find out. Perhaps, someday, I’ll ask father. But not now. Not until I learn what he meant about “returning.” Until then, I’ll keep Alfred all to myself.
Bane nestled closer to Sinistrad.
Hugh dumped the tobacco out of his pipe and, wrapping it carefully in its cloth, placed it snugly against his breast. He’d known all along he was making a mistake coming up here. But he couldn’t help himself. The kid had ensorceled him. Hugh decided he could, therefore, quit thinking about his options.
He didn’t have any.
CHAPTER 48
NEW HOPE, HIGH REALM
GUIDED BY THE MYSTERIARCH AND THE QUICKSILVER DRAGON, THE Carfa’shon sailed through the magical dome surrounding the High Realm. Elves, humans, and the Geg pressed their faces against the portholes, staring out at the marvelous world below them. They were dazzled by the extraordinary beauty, awestruck by the magnificence of what they saw, and each reminded himself uneasily just how powerful were the beings who created these marvels. Within seconds they had left behind a world of frozen, glittering ice and entered a sun-warmed green land with a shimmering rainbow-hued sky.
The elves shed the fur coats they had donned to combat the frigid cold. Hugh dumped the charwood out of the brazier into the firebox. The ice began to melt from the ship, pouring off the hull, falling to the ground below them like rain.
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