by D M Wozniak
Soon, I am standing underneath the open ceiling, through which I see the moon and cottony clouds. When I entered this place earlier, I had assumed some sort of accident occurred here. Perhaps a bolt of lightning struck a nearby willow tree causing it to fall on this section of roof.
But no. This roof was designed to open this way.
Hinged panels account for the gap. Two large sections of the roof hang downward, tied up against metal hooks. Whoever did this, did it on purpose. And did it hastily.
The floor here is completely empty, but something used to stand here. Something large. This room measures at least twenty-by-twenty feet squared. Footprints litter the dust, and some black paint covers the thick floorboards, as well.
I turn to Chimeline and raise the lantern between us.
“Tell me everything you know about this place.”
She looks tired and scared, as if someone could return at any moment. “Your grace, I never came this far back. He would only take me to that first room.” She turns, but I know where she’s referring to.
“His face was behind a veil?” I ask, using my free hand to indicate my face.
She nods. “That is a good way to say it.”
“Was there anyone else here when you visited?”
“No.”
“Did the man say anything of the work he was doing here? Anything at all?”
“Never, your grace.”
“Well, he must have said something!” I shout, my voice echoing off of the high ceiling.
She backs away, barely visible in the orange lamplight, and I see the fear in her dark eyes. Fear that I am just like him.
“I’m sorry,” I quickly add.
She takes a tentative step closer. “He seldom spoke,” she says. “He mostly watched. He always wanted me to talk to him.”
I must tilt my head in confusion.
“He wanted me to tell him what I was feeling. When he—”
“When he what,” I frown.
“When he performed his experiments on me.”
I swallow, feeling more anger rise up in me.
“What kind of experiments?”
Chimeline closes her eyes tightly, and at first I think she’s just trying to remember. But when she opens them, they’re full of tears. Even though her robe is wrapped around her, she adjusts it while shuddering, pulling the belt tighter.
“He would speak to me in my head.”
“In your head?”
She shivers. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“Never mind,” I say, turning with the raised oil lamp as I make a mental note to ask her again, once she’s faraway from this dark place.
“Did he say if the king knew of this laboratory?”
She shakes her head. “It never came up, your grace.”
It doesn’t matter. Of course the king knew. How could he not?
This place was built for his war.
I quickly walk up to the last three rooms, which are in equal size to the one with the open roof above it. In fact, each of the three seems to be identical in purpose as the lit-up fourth. Large, black sections of fabric hang, like wall-to-wall curtains, except they don’t seem to reach the floor. Instead, they fold over themselves, only to rise up again to the ceiling, secured on the next hook over.
In each of these three rooms also rests an over-sized wicker basket, large enough to fit a few people.
I turn to Chimeline, about to hand her the lantern, but then realize that it’s too heavy for her to hold indefinitely. So I turn in place and look for a hook to rest it on. Something high up, to provide as much light as possible.
Directly on the thick, wooden post in front of me is a black, metal rod, so I reach up and set the lantern’s handle over it.
Except the metal rod isn’t fixed to the post. It’s a lever.
I push it down.
Chimeline screams as the roof far above us opens up. Its two, large panels swing down and bang against the rafters. Dust in the moonlight falls over us like black snow, and I set the lantern down on the wooden planks. The girl’s mouth is open in shock, and mine must be as well.
With the added moonlight, all is suddenly clear.
“Your grace, what is it?” She approaches, resting her hands on the edge of the immense, wicker basket.
“It’s my invention,” I answer slowly, almost in a trance.
It’s right here, in front of me. In fact, there are three of them here—one in each room.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s my flying machine. An airship.”
My body frees itself from its initial paralysis, and I rush over. I inspect how the basket is secured, and notice the fabric is royal silk that has been covered in some sort of black paint. A ladder leans against the wall nearby, and I use it to start unhooking the looped bundles of fabric off of the wall.
“What does it do?”
“This was an idea I had proposed to the king years ago,” I say while working. “At the start of the war. As a way to safely spy upon enemy troop movement from the air. He said it was a stupid idea. He already had spies for that.”
She just shakes her head in confusion.
“Have you ever noticed that in summer it is always hotter on the upper floors of a home? And always cooler on the first floor or in the cellar?”
She nods.
I continue to move the ladder, carefully letting down more of the fabric. There’s so much of it. This airship has to be immense when it’s full.
“Hot air rises. That’s how my airship works. At least in theory. If one could trap air in a large sphere of fabric, and heat that air, the entire sphere and anything attached to it will rise.”
“You mean fly.”
I am panting in exertion and take a deep breath to calm myself. “Yes!”
I’ve let all of the fabric down, so I throw the ladder out of the room and return to Chimeline’s side near the basket.
“How can you fill all of this with hot air?”
I smile, seemingly for the first time today. “That,” I answer, “is where voidance comes in.”
“Your power.”
I nod. “There is only one problem—the seams.”
“The seams?”
“I had never solved it in my prototype. The airship needs to be large enough to carry the weight of a few people. This takes a tremendous amount of silk, which means a lot of sewn seems. Via these seems, hot air can leak out, just like water can leak into a ship’s hull.”
Suddenly, with these words, I pause with my mouth open.
“Your grace, are you feeling alright? Your hands are shaking.”
I lift up one of them and touch my voidstone.
Amid the sudden, swirling voices, I see honeycombs everywhere. The entire airship is covered in honeycombs.
I let go.
It’s the black pitch from this morning.
“This is it,” I say quietly. “This is how Marine got away.”
“I thought you said she took a ship.”
“Yes, but I was wrong. She’s not sailing, Chimeline. She’s flying.”
The girl looks at me like I am crazy, so I rifle through my cloak pockets and throw the square swatch of fabric on the floor between us, but it doesn’t seem to help.
“I found that in Marine’s room today. It’s covered in the same black pitch as what’s covering this airship.”
She picks it up and studies it, while I grasp my voidstone.
This is going to drain the life out of me.
I start moving the air, creating a current from the open roof to the bottommost opening attached to the basket.
At first, nothing happens, but then I feel Chimeline against me. Her long, thick hair falls across my face, and I breathe in the scent of oranges. The fabric of honeycombs moves and expands, ruffling in the night, like some sea creature rising from the depths.
Black upon black.
It takes some time to fill the fabric with the cool, night air, and then more to comm
and the indivisibles to move at ever greater speeds. Heating them, over and over again. Faster and faster. The screams of the voidstone urge me on. Or maybe they tell me to stop.
When I finish, I let go of the stone. I am sweating profusely underneath my black flaxen cloak, my chest leaning upon the basket railing. I slump down to the ground. My fingertips are numb, and I let out a meager cry of fear. I haven’t come this close to voideath since I was young. It is beyond careless.
My cries of fear turn to screams of accomplishment.
The base of the airship is before me, but that is all which can be seen. Above us, the black fabric rises up into the roof’s opening, and then disappears from view. It’s a towering presence. It is so beautiful.
There are groans under me.
Each corner of the basket is secured with rope. The four ties lead to iron rings, which are in turn mounted to the wide floorboards. The ropes and rings hold, but the old floorboards buckle under the pressure. While I study all of this, one of them cracks free, and the basket lurches to the side.
“Your grace!”
There must be only a fleeting moment until the rest of the boards snap free, but there is one remaining thing which I must do.
“Get in!” I yell to her.
Her eyes open wide, as if I am mad, but I reach out my hand and scream, “If you stay here, you’ll die!”
“Why?”
“Trust me!” I tell her, as I push her toward the basket. Grabbing the oil lamp off the ground, I add, “I’ll be right back!”
I begin to stumble down the length of the dark barn, all the way to the open door which we came through. About halfway there, I look over my shoulder and see that Chimeline is inside the basket, looking at me with both hands clutched upon the edge.
Once I’m near the exit, I toss the lit lamp through the air in a clear arc. My aim is true—it hits the straw mattress, and the glass shatters to pieces.
Flames instantly engulf the bed, and start rising up, into the corner.
But that’s not enough.
Touching my voidstone, I create another channel of wind, this one violent and coming from the open door, right through the flames. I fan the lit oil with my hatred, as it splays across the room and through the center aisle, splattering everything with light. I am a painter, and my brush strokes are built of fire and rage.
There is screaming everywhere, inside me and in the world outside. The swirling sounds of the voidstone pain me now, as if a million souls are pleading for me to let go. And when I do, a different sort of screaming takes its place.
It’s the horses outside.
Staggering towards the exit, I see that they are both caught within their tethers, eyes white and legs thrashing.
I cannot even feel my fingers anymore, but I touch my voidstone one last time, cutting both of their reigns. Immediately, they run off down the willow-lined riverbank.
I’m barely able to walk back to the airship—I cannot feel my feet anymore. The basket is already over my head. I find the ladder that I used to unhook the fabric, and lean it precariously against the edge. Taking four or five hesitant steps upward, the ladder falls away as I grasp Chimeline’s tiny hands, and somehow she pulls me in.
The two of us collapse onto the floor of the basket, my body landing on top of hers as the last remaining floorboard snaps free.
The feeling of acceleration is half-ecstasy, half stomach-churning. The world pulls us down, but we rise up, defying it. I roll my body off hers, and we both lie on our backs, side by side, staring upwards at the pure black of the fabric sphere. My eyes find the section of sky between the painted fabric and the sides of the wicker basket where tree tops quickly pass us by and disappear, leaving blue moonlight and spun clouds in their wake.
Chimeline finds my hand in hers.
“We are flying, your grace!” she whispers excitedly to me. The night whistles around us, and her lips touch my ear.
“Yes, we are,” I answer, my voice mixed with a laughter that I thought was lost for good. “Yes, we are.”
PART TWO
The Effulgent
The Rise and Fall of Master Voider Democryos
I wake up and orient myself.
I’m still lying on the floor of the basket, and with the absolute blackness of the airship above me. I look to the blueish space between the bottom of the sphere and the top of the basket and see that it’s still night.
Chimeline kneels next to me in her robe, eyes closed. Her palms press against her temples, her body shaking.
“Chimeline,” I say, my voice hoarse.
She doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s shaking her head back and forth, mumbling something. As I watch her, the sounds crystallize into words.
“No,” she says. “I’ll do it tonight.”
I sit up.
“Chimeline!” I repeat, my voice louder. I give her a good shake at the shoulders. This time, she opens her eyes, blinking rapidly.
I look deep into them and wait.
“Your grace,” she says. Another few blinks, and she swallows. “Your grace,” she repeats. “I don’t know...what...”
“Who were you talking to?”
She looks away. “Nobody...it was nobody. I...I was having a bad dream.”
I frown. “You didn’t look asleep to me. You were on your knees.”
“Was I?”
I press the muscles at the back of my neck, sore already from the angle at which I slept.
“I fell asleep too,” I say, letting go of her as I struggle to stand.
I grasp the wicker railing with both hands. Flexing my fingers and toes, I can barely feel them. They’re better than before, but only marginally. I’ve used the voidstone far too much.
After I help her up, I inhale at the view of nighttime beauty.
We’re slowly and silently floating over rolling farmland, somewhere away from all civilization. I cannot see a single person. There are no houses or villages here, only empty dirt roads. A single campfire burns far away, its slender column of white smoke curling in the direction we’re moving.
“Are we slowly falling?” Chimeline asks, standing next to me.
It takes me a moment to sense that her instincts are right. “Yes,” I answer.
The terrain is hilly, but it’s been carved into shallow, curving terraces. These sections are engorged with standing water—almost like tiny, crescent-shaped pools. They reflect the moonlight in different ways. Some are bright, some are darker, and all are full of vegetation. Given our high perspective, the first thing that comes to mind is a stained-glass window in one of the effulgency temples. It looks like thousands of curved pieces of glass cover the entire world in blues and greens.
“Rice paddies,” I mumble.
“I thought that’s what they were too,” Chimeline says next to me. “Except they look so different from up here, your grace.”
“You don’t need to call me that anymore. Dem is fine.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can tell that she’s looking at me with an open mouth.
“When you say your grace,” I clarify, “it implies that I am in the good graces of the king. Which I am not, anymore.”
She’s quiet for a moment before answering. “Because you stole his airship?”
I laugh bitterly. “No. It’s because I disappeared without permission. He will not forgive that. Over dinner, he had specifically asked me to get the next class ready for graduation. For his idiotic war. The fact that I am gone now...” I exhale. “It’s treason, plain and simple.”
She puts her hand on mine as I search the skies for O’Eridani, the End of the River. I quickly find it behind me—the star is brighter than the rest, and quite easy to spot on a mostly clear night.
“We’re traveling south,” I say.
“Can you see the citadel?”
“No.” I point to O’Eridani, explaining that it’s always true north, and she nods.
“And the rice paddies,” she adds. ”Rice doesn’t grow ne
ar the citadel. It’s too far north for that.”
I nod, impressed. “That is a keen observation.”
Turning to her, I then ask, “How long have I been asleep?”
She hunches her shoulders underneath her robe. “I don’t know. I fell asleep too, your gr—”
I smile as she quickly covers her mouth with a slender hand. “That’s going to be a tough habit to break,” I say, turning to the east.
“There’s no hint of sunrise, which means that it’s probably only threebell,” I say. “Maybe fourbell.” Then I swivel to the west and point at the campfire’s pillar of smoke, which is now behind us. “We’re moving quite fast. The way that smoke quickly dispersed—it’s already so far away.”
I purse my lips, deep in thought. “I think we’re a day’s hard ride south of the citadel. Two days without killing our horses. From my recollection, that’s about where the rice paddies begin.”
She nods, yawning wide.
As I involuntarily mimic her yawn, I look around, realizing that I can see more detail below. The branches of trees, the stacked stones lining the road. Farm equipment, left for another working day in the sun. A scavenging dog.
Chimeline’s intuition was right—the airship falls so gradually that we cannot feel it. Yet, just in the time we’ve been talking, we’ve dropped significantly. When we first shot out of the burning barn, we must have climbed incredibly high. But I passed out. Because I never witnessed our initial height, the sense of change has been lost on me.
At this rate, within a halfbell, we’re going to hit the ground.
I flex my fingers as I grasp the railing. They’re still somewhat numb, and the thought of touching my voidstone again fills me with dread. But I need to do it, if I want to keep traveling. And I need to keep traveling if I am ever going to find Marine. It’s only been one day since she left, so the weather patterns should be similar enough.
But how far?
The problem is, the two of them could travel a very long distance, assisting each other. I can imagine it now. One of them sleeps, while the other manages the airship, ensuring that the air remains heated. When one of them becomes weak or near voideath, they switch places. Marine isn’t a powerful voider, but she’d be able to sustain flight.
