Storm Riders

by Margaret Weis

Mr. Sloan’s coat was charred and blackened and partially burned away in the vicinity of the shoulder, which had taken a direct hit. Sir Henry silently thanked Mistress Brown for the magic constructs inked onto the fabric, which had saved Mr. Sloan from more serious harm.

  The smoke of the burning corpse drifted in their direction. Mr. Sloan retched. “What is that horrible smell, my lord?”

  “Hellfire and damnation, Mr. Sloan,” said Sir Henry. “Our Bottom Dweller intruder burst into flames. Can you stand up?”

  Mr. Sloan nodded. Sir Henry assisted his secretary to his feet and together they stumbled away from the smoke into the fresh air.

  “Once again, I owe you my life, Mr. Sloan,” said Sir Henry. “I would say ‘thank you,’ but I fear my thanks on these occasions is becoming monotonous.”

  “I was only doing my duty, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan.

  Sir Henry smiled. “Throwing yourself in front of demonic fire is not generally considered to be among the duties of a secretary.”

  He paused a moment, then added, “You know that I am grateful, Franklin.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan. Embarrassed by the praise, he changed the subject. “What is that you are holding, my lord?”

  “The man’s helmet. I ripped it off his head.” Sir Henry felt squeamish touching it, remembering how Father Jacob had said the helmets were made of human skin. “You would not describe me as ‘sensitive,’ or delicate in my feelings, Mr. Sloan?”

  “Certainly not, my lord.”

  “Nor am I given to the ‘creeps’ or the ‘horrors.’ Yet, I swear to you, Mr. Sloan, the sight of that man’s face made my skin crawl. The eyes were huge, like the eyes of rats that spend their miserable lives in the darkness of tunnels and sewers belowground.” He paused again. “Or the eyes of one who has lived on an island at the bottom of the world.”

  “You are thinking of Father Jacob’s theory, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan.

  “The man’s strange appearance doesn’t prove the priest’s theory, but it does appear to corroberate it. We will send the helm to Simon for analysis, find out if it is made of skin. Too bad we couldn’t take the man alive. I did ask him who had sent him, if it was Eiddwen. He made some reply, but I couldn’t understand the language. Something to do with storms and witches.”

  “Indeed, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan. “Could you remember exactly?”

  Sir Henry thought back. “‘Stormy dead’ and ‘all witches reddening.’”

  Mr. Sloan looked grave. “Was it this, my lord? ‘Storm yn dod. Ni allwich redeg.’”

  “That or something very close, Mr. Sloan. Do you understand it?”

  “I do, my lord. The language is that of the Trundlers. As your lordship knows, I spent many years in the royal marines where I had the honor of meeting your lordship—”

  “And saving my life,” Sir Henry inserted.

  Mr. Sloan acknowledged that with a nod and continued. “Several sailors aboard the ship on which I was serving were Trundlers, and I learned the language from them. The dying man said: ‘The storm is coming. You cannot run.’”

  “Trundler language,” said Sir Henry thoughtfully. He sighed. “Once again bearing out Father Jacob’s theory.”

  He noticed Mr. Sloan wincing. “How are you feeling, Mr. Sloan? You have a nasty burn on your shoulder.”

  “The wound does sting a bit, my lord, but I am fit for duty.”

  “Excellent. Then if you feel up to it, let us see what clues our demon friend left behind.”

  By the light of the bull’s-eye lanterns, they searched the grounds. When Sir Henry came to the remains of the intruder’s body, he was stunned to see that it had been reduced to ashes. He stirred the pile with the toe of his boot, but found nothing, not so much as a fragment of bone. A few feet away Mr. Sloan located the weapon, which the Bottom Dweller had flung down after he had shot Mr. Sloan. The two men examined it with interest.

  The cannonlike weapon measured three inches in diameter and four feet long. The barrel was made of brass banded with iron and was outfitted with a handgrip and a shoulder rest. Odd-looking magical constructs had been engraved in the brass and iron.

  “Do you recognize these constructs, Mr. Sloan?”

  “I do not, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan, shaking his head.

  “Could they be contramagic?”

  “Since I have no knowledge of the subject, I would not venture to make a guess, my lord.”

  “And there is no one we can ask,” said Sir Henry, frustrated. “Not without being accused of heresy!”

  “There is one person, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan. “Father Jacob Northrop.”

  The two exchanged glances.

  “Yes, well, I must think about that,” said Sir Henry.

  They walked over to inspect the steel panels.

  “Here’s where he fired. Again, nothing but that strange acidlike burn,” said Sir Henry with satisfaction. “Poor Eiddwen. She will be sadly disappointed. I am almost sorry he did not live to report this news to her.”

  “He could have sent a report after his first visit, my lord. That is what I would have done.”

  “We cannot assume the demon was as competent as you are, Mr. Sloan, but you do have a point. If Eiddwen does hear it, I hope she chokes on it,” Sir Henry added grimly.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the pile of ashes, then looked around the yard. “There is nothing more we can do here. We will clean up, then go home to our beds. We have earned our rest this night.”

  They picked up the strange weapon and the helm, wrapped them in a tarpaulin that had been covering part of the damaged ferry. Mr. Sloan obtained a broom from the workshop and swept away the ashes. They drenched the greasy burned spot on the ground with buckets of water, but were not able to remove all traces.

  “Instead of a greasy patch, we now have a greasy wet patch,” said Sir Henry ruefully. “The workers are sure to take notice.”

  “Alcazar could tell them he was doing some experimenting, my lord,” Mr. Sloan suggested. “The workmen are accustomed to his oddities.”

  “An excellent idea, Mr. Sloan.”

  They left the salvage yard, walking the deserted streets to the inn where Fielding was waiting for them. Mr. Sloan would have driven the carriage, but because of his injury, Sir Henry would not permit it. Instead, Sir Henry made Mr. Sloan sit in the carriage and took the reins himself, much to Mr. Sloan’s chagrin.

  When they returned to Sir Henry’s house, it was silent. Sir Henry’s hours were so erratic that he had ordered the servants never to wait up for him. He and Mr. Sloan conferred quietly in the entryway. Mr. Sloan asked for his instructions before retiring to his own chambers—a set of rooms above the carriage house. Sir Henry had been turning things over in his mind. He had reached a decision.

  “I fear I must ask you to forgo sleep this night, Mr. Sloan.”

  “I am at your lordship’s service, as always.”

  “First, take yourself to Dr. Fosgate and have that burn treated.”

  Mr. Sloan smiled faintly. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Next, shut down the salvage yard for the next few days. You will have to find a way to explain to Alcazar the absence of the gunboat.”

  “Indeed, my lord.” Mr. Sloan raised an eyebrow.

  “Tell Alcazar I am running the boat through additional tests or some such thing. He is to continue producing the steel to make more panels. Bring in an additional smith and more workers. I want enough panels to outfit every ship in the fleet defending the homeland.”

  “That will take some time, but I will arrange it. Should I dispatch a messenger to Captain Northrop, asking him to meet you at the salvage yard in the morning?”

  Sir Henry smiled. “You know my mind, Mr. Sloan. No, I will speak with Northrop myself. He is my friend, but he has his faults—the chief being he cannot keep his damn mouth shut. No hint of my plans must become known to anyone.”

  “I understand, my lord. Are you still sailing to Braffa, or should I send a
message to the admiral?”

  “I am still traveling to Braffa, Mr. Sloan,” said Sir Henry. “After a small detour to Rosia.”

  “You will be putting yourself in grave danger traveling to Rosia, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan.

  Sir Henry shrugged. “I spent the ride here considering my options, Mr. Sloan. Bottom Dwellers caused the collapse of the Crystal Market. I do not know how they did it, but I am as certain as death that they did. I am convinced they will attack Freya next and when they do, we must be prepared. ‘The storm is coming. You cannot run.’ I need to speak to Father Jacob.”

  “Is a reunion between the priest and the captain wise, my lord? After all, Captain Northrop did try to kill his brother.”

  “I will deal with Alan,” Sir Henry said.

  “Yes, my lord. Is there anything else?”

  Sir Henry did not immediately respond. The only sound to be heard in the slumbering house was the ticking of a clock in the front parlor. The muffled tick, tick, tick put Henry in a somber mood. Life’s moments slipping away, never to be recovered.

  He placed his hand on Mr. Sloan’s arm. “I leave the care of my wife and child to you, Mr. Sloan.”

  “A sacred trust, my lord,” said Mr. Sloan.

  The two said good night. As Mr. Sloan left on his errands, Sir Henry walked upstairs. He went first to his room, where his beloved Mouse was sleeping soundly. He kissed her forehead. She smiled in her sleep.

  He then crept into the nursery, padding softly, careful not to wake the nursemaid. He leaned over the cradle, looking at his son. He was such a tiny mite of a thing, his head covered with brown fuzz. Sir Henry touched his fingertips to his lips, then placed his fingers on the child’s head, giving him a silent blessing.

  After that, he changed his clothes, picked up a portmanteau that was always packed, and scribbled a hurried note to his wife saying that he had been called away to deal with the situation in Braffa. He ended with his expression of enduring love, left the note on her dressing table, and departed.

  22

  Everything in nature serves a purpose—or so science teaches us. (Even bloodsucking ticks, though I can’t fathom how they are useful!) If we accept that magic is a force of nature inherent in all things then we must also accept that contramagic is a force of nature. Then what purpose does it serve other than to erase constructs we create? We know that over time, all magical constructs fail and must be renewed. We have always believed that this was the result of magic simply fading away. What if this is not the case? What if contramagic acts to weaken the constructs in a natural cycle that balances the magic? If so, the Bottom Dwellers might have developed the means to create an imbalance that will disrupt the cycle and end up destroying all magic everywhere.

  —Thoughts on Contramagic, Rodrigo de Villeneuve

  Rodrigo de Villeneuve’s perspective on life might have been summed up as: Why bother? He was often in lust, but had never bothered to fall in love. He was a skilled crafter, but had never bothered to excel at his craft. He was a talented musician and composer, but had never bothered to take lessons or write down any of his compositions. He had developed the theory of how to produce magically infused steel, but had never bothered to try to put his theory into practice.

  This didn’t mean Rodrigo couldn’t bother when he chose to. During the ill-fated revolution, he had risked his life searching the battlefield to find Stephano, carry his wounded friend to a secret location, and nurse him back to health. He had used his skill as a crafter to deal with the Bottom Dweller who had sneaked aboard the Cloud Hopper to attack Gythe and he had fixed the broken magic aboard the ship. Such times of “botheration” were rare, however.

  He was going to some bother now, experimenting with a few of the rudimentary constructs of contramagic he’d managed to puzzle out while trying to find a way to repair the damage the contramagic was causing. He likened the slow, painstaking process to that of a person trying to teach himself to read. He theorized that if he understood contramagic, he could devise magical constructs to neutralize the destructive effects. He kept his work secret.

  Contramagic. The study or even the mention of the word was forbidden by the church. Such magic was deemed “evil.” When Rodrigo was young, he’d tried to learn more about it, mainly because he’d been ordered not to study it. He remembered holding forth on the subject at a tavern, after having imbibed several glasses of cheap sherry.

  “Contramagic uses the same six basic sigils, just turned upside down, as it were, and bound together by some sort of mysterious something,” Rodrigo had argued.

  He had always enjoyed tossing such conversational bombshells, and he had chuckled over the shocked looks on the faces of his friends as he unsteadily made his way back to his room that evening. His laughter had ceased abruptly when a large chunk of stone had crashed to the sidewalk at his feet. Rodrigo had looked up to see a tonsured head looking down at him. A suddenly sober Rodrigo had realized that this was no accident. Either he had been extremely lucky or the attack was a warning. He had never told anyone, not even Stephano, about that night. Rodrigo had taken the hint and abandoned his study of contramagic. And there was another reason. Miri would be outraged and even Stephano would be uneasy.

  Rodrigo was also working to heal the rupture between Miri and Stephano. At the moment Rodrigo was having more success with the contramagic.

  * * *

  The Sommerwind and the Cloud Hopper were sailing side by side, battling unfavorable winds that were blowing them steadily westward. The Sommerwind’s smith and crafters had repaired the Hopper’s damaged lift tank and filled it with lift gas, so that the houseboat was now sailing under her own power. Miri remained aboard the Sommerwind, to tend to the captain and injured crewmembers. Gythe was at the helm of the Cloud Hopper. The captain of the merchant vessel was improving under Miri’s care.

  “The miracle of yellow goo,” Rodrigo remarked.

  Miri reported that although weak from loss of blood, the captain was able to come on deck, inspect the repairs, and tell the crew he was pleased with the progress.

  That day the wind changed, blowing the ship and the houseboat in a westerly direction. They lost several days fighting the headwinds. Leutnant Baumann told Stephano that this was normal this time of year. They would soon make up the lost time and arrive in Evreux only a few days behind schedule. The crew of the Sommerwind was in a good mood.

  The same could not be said of those on board the Cloud Hopper. Miri spoke with Gythe daily, standing at the ship’s rail and shouting instructions for Gythe and Rodrigo, who had been drafted into helping concoct more of Miri’s herbal remedies. They sent the bottles and jars from the Cloud Hopper to the Sommerwind in a basket tied to a pulley.

  During these times, Miri did not speak to or even look at Stephano, and when Rodrigo tried to talk to her on Stephano’s behalf, Miri silenced him with a glare.

  “The words froze on my lips,” Rodrigo told Stephano. “I swear I had icicles hanging from my teeth.”

  The cat, Doctor Ellington, was the most miserable of all. He missed Dag and refused to be comforted. He would not eat. He crouched in a ball beneath Dag’s chair, giving out an occasional sorrowful yowl.

  The days passed with no change in the routine or in anyone’s spirits. No one was happy. Rodrigo, lying in his hammock at night, would hear Stephano pacing the deck for hours on end.

  “I’m facing the truth about myself,” Stephano had told his friend. “When we first encountered the dragons, I dared to dream as I haven’t dared to dream in years, ever since I resigned my commission. I dreamed of riding dragons. And now I have sacrificed Dag to that dream. He’s probably dead, and God knows what has become of the three dragons.”

  Rodrigo was at his wits’ end. He conceded that Stephano had a right to wallow in self-pity, but it was becoming quite boring. He conceded, too, that Miri had a right to be angry at Stephano, but she had signed on to this ill-fated job to find the journeyman, Alcazar, with just as much eagerness as had t
he rest of the Cadre. She would have been happily sharing in the money they would have received from the countess if the gamble had paid off. Miri had no reason to chuck everything out the window just because the job had gone up in a ball of green fire, so to speak. Rodrigo had felt compelled to point these facts out to both Miri and Stephano, with the result that now they were both angry at him.

  At night, Gythe would tether the Cloud Hopper to the Sommerwind. The smaller boat bobbed along behind, floating slightly above the larger vessel. They had been sailing the Breath for five days and nights. Gythe thought they must be near the Rosian coastline. The morning of the sixth day dawned in lovely colors of red and purple. Gythe must not have been awake yet because Rodrigo could hear Stephano tromping about on the bridge. Rodrigo would have liked to have gone back to sleep, but he had to check the magical constructs.

  He yawned, went to the galley, put the kettle on, and dozed off until the whistling woke him. He dumped the hot water into the teapot and waited for the tea to steep. Pouring the tea into the cup, he thought it looked rather weak, then realized he’d forgotten to add the tea. Sighing deeply, Rodrigo remedied the situation and carried two cups up onto the deck.

  He found Stephano looking down at the deck of the Sommerwind, watching Leutnant Baumann and his midshipmen cast the ship’s position with their sextants.

  “Breakfast?” Rodrigo asked, offering the tea.

  Stephano took a swallow and promptly burned his tongue.

  “You’re up early,” said Stephano. “Gythe isn’t even awake yet.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” said Rodrigo. “Not with you stomping up and down on my head for hours.”

  “I was thinking about Miri,” said Stephano. “She’s right. It is time that we parted company. Forming the Cadre of the Lost was meant to be a glorious adventure. We’d take a few risks, make lots of money, and have a good time doing it. Nothing has turned out as I planned. We’ve earned a pittance, barely enough to keep us afloat, and I’ve nearly gotten us all killed.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Rodrigo demanded. “You never used to take such a gloomy view of things. As for the Cadre, we may not have made much money, but at least we made some. If you disband the Cadre, what will we live on? I have my allowance, but that will only cover my half of the rent, not the necessities of life, such as fine wine and velvet waistcoats.”