Storm Riders

by Margaret Weis

  “Bourgeois little man,” said Rodrigo.

  “Bourgeois or not, he and my mother have the same job, just different masters. The countess spies on people for the king, while Dubois spies on the same people for the grand bishop.”

  “And Sir Henry Wallace spies on both,” said Dag.

  “While they spy on him,” said Stephano.

  “Who’s watching who’s watching who’s watching whom,” said Rodrigo, using one of his favorite expressions.

  “That about sums it up.” Stephano gave a rueful laugh. “Sometimes I wonder why I want to go back to that life. Look at how peaceful, how beautiful, how quiet it is here on our island…”

  “I did not hear you say that!” said Rodrigo, appalled. He rose to his feet. “I’ll go apologize to Miri.”

  “Let her cool down a bit first,” Dag suggested. “Or we’ll be burying what’s left of you beneath that tree.”

  Rodrigo sat back down and began running his hands over the table as though he were playing a pianoforte.

  “You were starting to tell me about replacing the magical constructs,” Stephano said.

  Rodrigo brought his hands down in a silent, crashing chord. “I’m baffled. The contramagic devours any construct I try to lay over it. I need to find a way to negate it, but I don’t know that much about it.”

  “Can we set sail without any magic?” Dag asked. “I know the magic’s useful…”

  “The magic is not ‘useful,’” said Rodrigo reprovingly. “The magic is necessary. Among other things, the magical constructs that charge the gas in the lift tanks that keep us afloat are regulated by the magical constructs on the helm.” Rodrigo fixed Stephano with a stern eye. “We’ve been over this.”

  “I know, I know,” said Stephano. He rested his head in his hands. “I keep hoping something will change.”

  “Here comes Miri,” said Dag warningly.

  Miri emerged from the Cloud Hopper with Gythe. They were carrying towels, going to the lake to bathe.

  Miri McPike and her sister, Gythe, were Trundlers, a nomadic people who belonged to no nation, swore allegiance to no king. They sailed the world in their houseboats, whose trundling motion in the air gave them their name. Miri was the oldest, in her thirties. She had raised Gythe, who was about ten years younger, after their parents were murdered by the Bottom Dwellers. The Cloud Hopper was Miri’s boat, the only legacy most Trundler children inherit.

  Miri was a striking woman, with green eyes, hair the color of a forest fire, and a temper to match. She had met Stephano years ago. The two had started as friends, then became lovers, and were now friends again. Miri had told Stephano weeks ago, when the Hopper had been sinking in the Breath, that she had fallen in love with Dag. Stephano had given her his blessing then, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about such a pairing and he was starting to think Dag wasn’t sure how he felt about it either.

  Gythe had strawberry-blond hair that was fine as cobweb, more the color of clouds at sunset than flame. She was winsome, fragile, and had never spoken a word since the day she had discovered what was left of her murdered parents. The Trundler healers could find nothing wrong with her physically. She could still sing the older Trundler songs, still sing her magic. Words were gone.

  “If she talks, she fears she will have to speak of the horror she saw that day,” Miri had once told Stephano. “I don’t think she can bear it.”

  Both women normally wore traditional Trundler garb, consisting of an ankle-length skirt over loose trousers that tied at the ankles and a linen blouse that buttoned up the front with long sleeves to protect from the sun. Whenever Trundler women had to climb the rigging of their houseboats, they would take off the cumbersome skirt, wearing only the trousers. In the heat, they wore the skirts and blouses only.

  Miri held her head high and refused to look at the men. Gythe cast them an unhappy glance as they passed. Gythe was upset whenever anyone quarreled.

  “Do you have your pistol?” Stephano asked, as he always asked.

  Miri did not answer, except to pat the stowaway pistol that she had tucked into her waistband. Stephano had decreed that no one leave the campsite without a weapon. The exception was Rodrigo, who may have known which end of a gun to hold, but not always where to point it.

  Stephano wondered if he should try to mollify Miri. Gythe saw him open his mouth and shook her head emphatically in warning. The two women, accompanied by the cat, Doctor Ellington, who was apparently not speaking to the men either, walked the path that led to the lake and disappeared into the brush.

  Stephano rubbed his temples. The oppressive heat was making his head ache. He went back to discussing the magic.

  “You said Gythe was a savant, someone extraordinarily skilled in magic, like that priest, Father Jacob. Gythe covered the boat in Trundler protection spells. Maybe she can do something about the contramagic.”

  “Gythe is what one might term ‘magically illiterate,’” said Rodrigo. “She never had any formal training. She makes magic intuitively, the same way she plays the harp. She can’t read music. She can’t ‘read’ magic. Unlike Father Jacob, who knows all the rules and theories and equations that deal with magic, Gythe flings magic about like rice at a wedding. Repairing the magic is up to me, I’m afraid.”

  “If that’s the case, we’ll be marooned here for life,” Dag muttered.

  “Rigo’s been there when we needed him before,” said Stephano with a smile, remembering years ago when Rodrigo had risked his life to rescue him when he was near death on the field of battle.

  Rodrigo only shook his head and played a silent dirge on the table. Dag rested his chin in his hands, leaned his elbows on the table, and gazed at the stars, perhaps dreaming of riding dragons. Stephano sat glumly in the dark. In trying to cheer his friends, he had ended up depressing himself.

  The air was fragrant with the smell of night-blooming jasmine. Birds whistled a few last notes as they settled into their nests. The breeze strengthened and, in the distance, lightning flickered among the clouds.

  Stephano roused himself. “Dag, you better go fetch Miri and Gythe. There’s a storm brewing—”

  “They’re coming, sir,” said Dag. “I can see their lights.”

  Miri carried the lantern, letting it swing back and forth as she walked. Gythe was entertaining herself with her magical “fireflies,” sparkling flares of colorful, winking magical light she cast up into the trees and scattered along the path. Dr. Ellington always tried his best to maintain his dignity and refrain from batting at them, but when one flitted past his nose, the temptation proved too great. He pounced, catching the light, then watched in annoyance as it darted away.

  Miri sat down on a tree stump and placed the lantern on the table. The light flowed over them, gathering them in its friendly circle. Dag picked up the cat, set him on his knee, and stroked him. The Doctor purred, a low, throaty rumbling. Gythe, whose long, strawberry-blond hair fell in sleek, wet waves around her shoulders, began to carefully comb the tangles from Miri’s wet, curly hair.

  “Miri,” said Rodrigo, “I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I know,” Miri said with a half smile. “It’s the heat. We’ll all feel better in the morning. The storm will cool the air.”

  The lightning was striking closer. Thunder rumbled and a few raindrops began to fall. When one hit the Doctor on the nose, he jumped off Dag’s knee and made a dash for the Cloud Hopper. His human friends followed, leaving the dishes and the pewter tankard on the table to be washed by the rain.

  Dag had repaired the fire damage done to the Cloud Hopper, making the houseboat once more livable, if not yet ready to fly. Miri and Gythe retired to the cabin they shared, while Rodrigo and Stephano lay down in their sleeping hammocks suspended from the overhead. Dag had a mattress on the floor so he could keep a pistol near to hand. He remained on deck, having volunteered to take first watch.

  Outside the boat, the storm raged. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and the
rain lashed the deck where Dag had taken shelter beneath a canvas awning they’d formed out of a sail. Stephano, lying in his hammock, could hear Dag’s feet pacing the deck restlessly, heedless of the rain.

  If we don’t get back home soon, Stephano thought, there’ll be murder done.

  “Rigo, you asleep?” he asked.

  “No,” said Rodrigo. “Water’s leaking somewhere. That infernal drip is keeping me awake.”

  “Mind if I talk?”

  “So long as you don’t drip, I am amenable.”

  “This is all my fault. My mother warned me about Sir Henry,” said Stephano. “Father Jacob warned me. Me and my damn arrogance. I didn’t listen and here we are, trapped in this godforsaken place.”

  “My dear fellow, you’re becoming as monotonous as that drip. I hear this from you every day. You didn’t shoot us down. Sir Henry Wallace shot us down.”

  “I can’t wait for the next time I see him,” said Stephano.

  “And here I thought you’d learned your lesson when it came to that nefarious bounder,” said Rodrigo. “What’s done is done. Look at it this way: because of you, we have in our possession a pewter tankard that will revolutionize warfare. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to plug my ears with candle wax.”

  Rodrigo shut out the sound of dripping water and was soon asleep.

  Stephano lay awake a long time, listening to the rain.

  3

  I have been trying to understand contramagic, but at this point, I am at a loss. More than thirty days have passed since we were attacked by contramagic weapons and yet the residual effects of the contramagic still prevent me from replacing the magic. I feel as if I am trying to draw a construct on a piece of paper that someone keeps moving. And if I don’t find the answer, I fear we will never leave this godforsaken island.

  —Journal of Rodrigo de Villeneuve

  The next day dawned, or so Stephano supposed. He could not prove it by the sun, which had yet to make an appearance from behind the heavy clouds. He and Dag inspected the repairs done to the Cloud Hopper and then spent the rest of the morning oiling and cleaning the boat’s cannons and checking their weapons.

  Gythe crawled nimbly among the rigging. She had been born on a houseboat and had worked on one since she was a little girl. Stephano loved watching her, for she was as graceful and skilled as any circus acrobat, though sometimes he watched with his heart in his throat. The deck was a long way down.

  Miri often related how her uncle would hold races for the children to see who would be the first to climb the rigging to the top, touch the balloon, and slide down again. The winner was rewarded with small cakes known as ginger nuts. Gythe almost always won those races. Miri also told how the children would dare one another to jump from boat to boat when they were sailing, leaping across the vast empty expanse of sky to land breathless and laughing on the deck.

  “Only when our parents weren’t watching,” Miri added.

  While Gythe worked among the rigging, Miri went to inspect her traps and snares. Rodrigo took one look at the weather and decided to stay in bed. Doctor Ellington, wet and miserable, crouched under the table and sulked.

  The rain continued into midday, then stopped. The clouds remained, gray and wispy, hanging to the ground. Stephano said it was too wet to go see the dragons today. Gythe signed with her hands, pointing to the field where they met the dragons, that she was going. Miri had returned with a brace of rabbits, which put her in a good mood. She told him he might as well go with Gythe. There was nothing for either of them to do around the boat.

  Stephano and Gythe walked in silence to the field. The rain dripped from trees, landing with dull plops on the ground. Over the past month the two of them had worn away the grass in places and they squelched through the mud and puddles. Gythe had on her trousers that tied at the ankles, not wanting to dirty the hem of her skirt. With an oilskin coat over her clothes, she was drier than Stephano. He wore, as always, his uniform coat from his days with the Dragon Brigade. The coat was embellished with dragons, the tales he told the three wildlings were all about dragons. He kept hoping he was impressing them, hoping they would allow him to ride them.

  He had always dreamed of starting his own Dragon Brigade, of being able to thumb his nose at King Alaric. He had hoped this was the start of his dream, but that hope was gone; a foolish dream, a pipe dream. Rodrigo would figure out the magic and then there would be nothing keeping them from flying home and leaving the wild dragons behind.

  When he and Gythe reached the field the three dragons were not there. Stephano waited for an hour, by his pocket watch, and still the dragons did not arrive.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said. “We should be going back.”

  Gythe made a disappointed face and picked up her harp. The two were about to return to the boat when they heard the rush of wings. The three dragons flew out from the clouds.

  As Stephano gazed up at them, his heart beat fast at the magnificent sight. The dragons always flew in from the west, the direction of the island’s lone mountain, leading him to guess the dragons lived in the mountain’s caverns.

  The noble “civilized” dragons of Rosia had left their mountain caverns long ago. They had built elegant mansions similar to human palaces, but uniquely adapted to dragons’ needs and lifestyle. Stephano had heard rumors before he left that the noble dragons had abandoned their humanlike dwellings to return to the mountain fastness. He had no way of knowing if these rumors were true. He had not visited the dragon duchies in a long time. Being with his old friends, reliving the old glory days, was too painful.

  The three dragons landed one by one in the clearing. The female dragon landed first, as usual, with the two males following her. By this, Stephano knew that the female was the leader. One of the males was her clutch-mate, her brother. Both had the rare and beautiful bluish-purple scales much prized among dragonkind. The third dragon was the first they had met after they had crashed on the island. He was larger than the other two, with scales of dark green.

  Stephano suddenly felt reckless. After all, he had nothing to lose except his life and the way he was feeling, his life didn’t count for much.

  He did not know their names. He had asked them, but the dragons had not responded. He had named them himself, calling the green dragon “Verdi,” the purple female “Viola,” and the purple male “Petard,” because this particular dragon appeared to have a volatile nature judging by an event he had witnessed.

  Viola, his clutch-mate, had once dragged a deer into the field and was preparing to devour it when Petard snagged the carcass with his fangs and tried to gulp it down before she could stop him. Viola lunged at her brother, bit him in the back of the head, and pinned his neck with her claw. The bite was not severe, merely a warning. She snarled and showed her fangs. Petard meekly relinquished the deer.

  Viola then tore the deer apart and ate it in front of Stephano. He knew dragon behavior and he understood that Viola was deliberately eating the deer in front of him for a reason, perhaps trying to shock him.

  Stephano had seen dragons feeding before and he was not in the least shocked. In fact, he’d told Rodrigo he’d seen worse table manners in the officers’ mess. He watched Viola rip up the meat and took the opportunity to talk about how certain dragons in the Dragon Brigade were assigned the task of hunting to keep their comrades fed.

  The wild dragons were smaller than their civilized cousins, with a sleek build that made them faster in flight. Over the centuries, the noble dragons had grown too large, in Stephano’s estimation, equating heft and bulk with strength and power. Stephano and the other officers in the Dragon Brigade had often argued the point, some preferring a dragon who could batter down a stone wall with claw and tail. Others, like Stephano, preferred maneuverability and speed in flight.

  He recalled Sergeant Hroal, the dragon he’d met fighting Bottom Dwellers at the Abbey of Saint Agnes. Hroal was seventy feet long and when standing on the ground could have poked his snout
into the cathedral’s steeple. Hroal was so heavy he had difficulty taking to the air. The sergeant was what was known as a “common” dragon; not a member of one of the noble dragon families. Some of the noble dragons were even larger—eighty feet from snout to tail, weighing God only knew how much.

  Verdi, the largest of the three wild dragons, was perhaps thirty-five feet in length. Petard was slightly smaller, and Viola even smaller than her sibling. They were all fast, able to dart and dive, more like barn swallows than their ponderous dragon cousins. Stephano often imagined what it would be like to ride on the back of one of these fast youngsters.

  Stephano liked Viola, who was the steadiest of the three. He pictured the two of them diving out of the clouds, taking revenge on the Freyan naval frigate, the Resolute, that had shot down the Cloud Hopper. He pictured Viola’s claws raking the balloon, tearing it to shreds; the dragon’s lashing tail snapping the yardarms in passing.

  A dream—all a dream.

  The dragons settled themselves in a line, with Verdi to Stephano’s left, Viola in the center, and Petard on the right. The dragons were at their ease with their front legs tucked beneath their chests, their tails curled around the back legs, their long, graceful necks curved, heads down. Their spiked manes relaxed and folded back on their necks. They were in a resting position, but their eyes were wary, alert.

  Gythe and Stephano had taken shelter from the spatter of raindrops at the edge of the tree line. Gythe started to walk toward the dragons, to play her harp for them as usual. Stephano stopped her.

  “Stay here under the cover,” he said.

  Gythe regarded him with frowning disapproval, the same look Miri would give him when she was certain she wasn’t going to like whatever he was proposing.

  “I’m going to try to approach the dragons, see how close I can get,” said Stephano.

  Gythe grimaced and patted her stomach.

  Stephano smiled. “If they were going to eat me, they would have done so before now.”