Fall of Ile-Rien #02 - The Ships of Air Martha Wells

Tremaine picked her way along the ledge, green stinking canal on one hand, rocky outcrop sprouting dense dark foliage on the other. She was exhausted and footsore and at the moment profoundly irritated. She said in exasperation,

“All they have to do is get on the damn ship. Is that really going to be so hard?”

“It’s the eyes,” Giliead told her obliquely. He and Ilias were just ahead of her on the narrow shelf of rock, both men having a far easier time of traversing it than she was. The mossy water a few feet below was foul-smelling and stagnant, inhabited only by weeds and the occasional brightly colored snake. These canals cut through the rocky island in several directions, leading to and from the stone buildings that housed entrances to the deserted waterlogged city that wove through the caves below. The builders, whoever they were, had used black stones twenty or thirty feet long to line the watercourse, stacking them like tree trunks in the same way they built their underground walls and bridges.

“The ship doesn’t have eyes.” Tremaine struggled along, sweating in the damp air. The canal was overhung by the twisted dark-leaved trees; the overcast sky made it even 2

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more dim. For years the island had been a trap for seagoing vessels and the crews who sailed them; the whole place felt as if the corruption in the caves below had crept up through the roots of the stunted jungle.

“That’s the problem,” Giliead said, glancing back at her as he brushed a branch aside. “She just looks like—”

“A big blind giant,” Ilias supplied, balancing agilely on the slick stones. They were both Syprians, natives of this world on the other side of the etheric gateway from Ile-Rien.

They were brothers, though only by adoption, and they looked nothing alike. Ilias had a stocky muscular build and a wild mane of blond hair, some of it tied into a queue that hung down his back. He wore battered dark pants and boots with a sleeveless blue shirt trimmed with leather braid.

Giliead was built on a bigger scale, nearly a head taller than Ilias, with chestnut braids and olive skin, dressed in a dark brown shirt under a leather jerkin. Both wore more jewelry than had been fashionable for men in Ile-Rien for many years—copper earrings, armbands with copper disks. Ilias also had a silver mark on his cheek in the shape of a half-moon, but that wasn’t meant to be decorative.

Tremaine let out a frustrated breath as she ducked under a heavy screen of pungent leaves. She was the odd woman out, with short mousy brown hair and sunburned skin. She was wearing Syprian clothing too, a loose blue tunic block-printed with green-and-gold designs and breeches of a soft doeskin. Her clothes were a little the worse for wear but in better shape than the unlamented tweed outfits she had left behind in Ile-Rien.

At the moment all three of them were covered with bruises, howler scratches and patches of mud and slime from the walls of the underground passages. The last few days had been nothing but fighting and running and swimming and falling, and Tremaine just wanted everyone to quietly get on the ship so they could get the hell away from here. She had also gone to a great deal of trouble to steal the Queen Ravenna for just this purpose and she wanted her new friends to like it. So far they had stubbornly refused to The Ships of Air

share her enthusiasm. Even Ilias, who had actually sailed on the ship briefly.

“It won’t matter how big the ship is as long as she sails by curses,” Giliead continued frankly. “They’re never going to get used to that.”

Tremaine knew he was probably right, though she wasn’t ready to admit it aloud. Syprian civilization was considerably more primitive than Ile-Rien’s, and they regarded any mechanical object, from electric lights to clocks, as magical.

Worse, Syprians hated magic, since all their sorcerers were murdering lunatics. It was a minor miracle that they had managed to get to this point, where a woman from Ile-Rien who was a friend of sorcerers could talk about this subject with Syprians at all. It helped that they were a sea people and fairly cosmopolitan, despite their prejudices. “But the Ravenna doesn’t use magic,” she pointed out. “The steam engines—” She stopped when she realized the words were coming out in Rienish. If there was a Syrnaic word for

“steam engine” the translation spell that had given Tremaine the knowledge of the language hadn’t seen fit to include it.

“There’s boilers, and you put water in them, and burn coal or oil or something, and the steam makes it go. It’s not magic,” she finished lamely.

Giliead and Ilias paused to exchange a look; Giliead’s half of it was dubious and Ilias’s was ironic. “They always say that,” Ilias put in. He had spent nearly one whole day in Ile-Rien and now qualified as the local expert. “Wagons without horses, wizard lights, wizard weapons, there’s an explanation for everything.”

Giliead shook his head as he started forward again. “If that’s our only way off the island, we’re going to have trouble.” Ilias nodded. “It doesn’t matter about me, I’m marked anyway,” he said matter-of-factly. The mark he spoke of was the little half-moon of silver branded into his cheek. It was what Syprian law said anyone who had ever fallen under a sorcerer’s curse should wear. “And Gil’s exempt from the law because he’s a Chosen Vessel, but it’s the others I’m worried about. If the people in Cineth harbor see them come 4

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off that ship, they could all end up ostracized or worse. And some of the younger ones come from pretty good families, they could still have a chance of getting married.” Tremaine considered that, frowning. There were a lot of things she didn’t understand about the Syprians yet. In many ways their society was a matriarchy; men seemed to hold the public offices like warleader and lawgiver but weren’t allowed to own property, and family status was important. The Andrien, the family Giliead had been born into and Ilias adopted by, had had its ups and downs, mostly due to Giliead’s being the local god’s Chosen Vessel. The three female heirs to Andrien had all been killed by the sorcerer Ixion, leaving the family in danger of losing their land when Giliead’s mother Karima died.

“They could end up ostracized,” Giliead agreed. “But that’s if we can get them aboard her in the first place.” He didn’t sound sanguine about the prospect.

It was the only way off the island at the moment and Tremaine didn’t want to contemplate leaving anyone behind. “So you’re not even curious to see the inside?” she prompted, trying a different tack. “Ilias did.” Giliead just looked back at her, not the least bit impressed by this technique.

Ilias snorted, swinging surefootedly over a gap in the stone. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Tremaine knew what he meant; the Ravenna had been the only way for him to return with the rescue party, to get back to his own world. She had been hoping the Syprians would like the Ravenna or at least get used to her. The way they acted toward their own vessels seemed to suggest ships were fairly important in their society. Ilias had become somewhat accustomed to the Ravenna, but he and Giliead were much more used to strange sights and magic than most Syprians.

She said dryly, “I failed to notice your helplessness.” Instead of retaliating verbally, Ilias just grinned and deftly caught her when her foot slipped.

Recovering her balance with his help, Tremaine was glad she hadn’t gone headfirst into the canal; once her clothes The Ships of Air

were soaked with water she didn’t think she would have had the strength to climb out again, and that would have been embarrassing. She said reluctantly, “Nobody would necessarily have to see them get off the ship. We could send all of you ashore in one of the launches someplace nearby but out of sight.” Tremaine was a little hesitant to suggest this idea, considering what she thought Ilias’s feelings on the subject were. She knew that when he had been cursed by Ixion, no one but he and Giliead had known, and Ilias had still insisted on turning himself in to receive the curse mark. “Then you could warn the city that we were coming before we sail into the harbor.”

“That might be best.” Giliead had to crouch to duck under some dark trailing vines. Pausing to hold them up for Tremaine, he threw Ilias a thoughtful look, as if he had had the same qualm.

But Ilias just said, “There would be less trouble that way.”

Ducking under the vines, Tremaine absently watched the display of flexed muscle as Ilias hauled himself up on a heavier branch to swing across another gap in the stone. She wasn’t sure “less trouble” was a realistic expectation. But whatever happened, the Ravenna would be leaving this area soon, steaming through the unfamiliar waters of this world until it was safe to open the etheric world-gate again and bring the ship to port in Capidara, one of Ile-Rien’s only surviving allies.

They still knew little about their enemies, except that they came from somewhere in this world. The Gardier used the etheric gate spell to reach their targets in Ile-Rien and Adera, something no one had realized until Arisilde Damal and Tremaine’s father Nicholas Valiarde had somehow stolen the spell from them. After both men had disappeared, it had taken the Viller Institute sorcerers years to discover what the gate spell was and where the Gardier were coming from.

The spell needed two things to create a gate to another world: a circle of arcane symbols that no one properly un-6

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derstood and a sorcerer using one of the Viller spheres. Carrying her circle with her gave the Ravenna great mobility in traveling back and forth between worlds. As far as they knew, the Gardier didn’t have circles on their ships or airships, and so could only create gates when they were close enough to one of their bases where a circle was located.

Tremaine and the others had destroyed the Gardier spell circle on this island; hopefully that would keep the Gardier ships blockading the coast of Ile-Rien from coming through the gate after them. It would not stop attack by the Gardier already in this world.

A shout from above startled Tremaine. “Now what?” They were so close to temporary safety and she was so tired. The two men plunged ahead, splashing in the stagnant water.

They were closer than she thought; only a few yards along was the break in the canal where a rough set of stairs led up the steep overgrown hill.

Tremaine reached the opening and scrambled up the steps after Giliead and Ilias, both almost at the top by now.

The short scrubby trees and thorny vines clutched at her, and she clawed at the muddy rock to drag her weary body up.

The stairs led into a flat-roofed stone building that was now filled with milling refugees, some whispering in anger or panic and others fearfully silent. She shouldered into the path through the crowd that the two men had already made, coming out of the square doorway into the plaza.

The little group of stone structures stood on a bluff looking out over the misty sea, all probably built about the same time as the underwater city; the stunted trees and thick carpet of vegetation had had time to eat away sections of the paving. Another flat-roofed building stood at a right angle to this one, concealing a shaft leading down to the caves.

Most of the freed prisoners had drawn back against the dark walls. They were all from Ile-Rien’s world on the other side of the etheric gateway, a mix of Maiutans and other Southern Seas Islanders, Parscians, with a few Rienish.

They had been captured and brought to this world by the Gardier as slave labor for their base in the island’s caves.

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Wrapped in a canvas tarp and lying on the pavement was the currently inert body of the former owner of those caves, the sorcerer Ixion. Tremaine stared warily at the bundle, wondering if Ixion had decided to rejoin the living and that was what had upset everyone. But Giliead and Ilias stood with Ander, Florian and the group of Rienish soldiers and Syprian sailors who had led the attack on the base, all looking out to sea. After a baffled moment Tremaine saw what had caught their attention: About three hundred yards from shore the low dark outline of a Gardier gunship moved silently through the mist.

Oh, no, Tremaine thought, her stomach clenching as she moved to join the others. It wasn’t the gunship from the Gardier’s harbor on the far side of the island, even she could tell that. This boat was longer than that one and had a second gun on the stern. “How long—?” Florian glanced at her, her expression desperate. “We just saw it a few moments ago.” She was younger than Tremaine, a slight girl with short red hair, dressed in stained khaki knickers and a dark pullover sweater. It had been Tremaine, Gerard, Florian and Ander who had first come through the etheric gateway, scouting the approach to the Gardier base, and been shipwrecked here. Gerard was back at the cove now where the Ravenna would be landing her launches in preparation for taking them all aboard.

Giliead must have already informed Ander of the situation because he turned impatiently to Tremaine, demanding,

“It was the Ravenna? You saw it?” Ander Destan was a tall dark-haired man, conventionally handsome. He was only a few years older than Tremaine but was already a captain in the Ile-Rien Army Intelligence Corps, or what was left of it. He had never quite trusted the Syprians the way she, Florian and Gerard had, but Tremaine could tell this wasn’t disbelief of Giliead’s truthfulness. It was pure relief; after seeing the gunship, a viable escape route probably seemed like too much to ask for. She nodded hurriedly. “Gerard’s there with Niles now, the launches will be waiting for us in that 8

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cove where we met the Swift. ” She waved her arms. “We need to get moving!”

None of the Syprians gathered around could understand Rienish, and Tremaine heard Ilias rapidly briefing Halian on the situation. Halian was Giliead’s stepfather and had been captain of the Swift; he was an older man than any of the other Syprians except Gyan, with a weathered face and graying dark hair. Halian turned to the other Syprian crew members gathered worriedly around, saying, “Break them up into groups and start leading them down the canal.

There’s boats waiting at Dead Tree Point.” Florian pressed forward, following the men as they scattered. “I’ll translate for them.” She and Ander were the only other Rienish besides Gerard and Tremaine who spoke the Syprians’ language, Syrnaic. “Oh, here.” She dashed back to hand Tremaine the battered leather bag that held the sphere.

Tremaine took it absently, hanging it over her shoulder as she watched the Syprians spread out to herd the freed slaves down the steps to the canal. The Gardier’s prisoners had had to be in fair health to survive this long, but some of them were disoriented and shocked by their long captivity underground and the swiftness and violence of their escape. Some didn’t speak Rienish, so that made it even more difficult. Getting them on the motor launches waiting in the cove would be less of a problem; once they saw the boats they would surely know it was their best escape. The Syprians were going to be the problem then. I’m not leaving anybody behind, Tremaine thought, taking a sharp breath. Not this time.

Ander’s military team were gathered around the eleven captured Gardier; Tremaine moved to join them. The prisoners sat on the broken moss-stained stone of the plaza in a sullen group, their hands bound with the same chains they had used on their slaves. With pale skin and heads shaved to stubble, they all looked alike to Tremaine. Their brown coverall uniforms with heavy boots and close-fitting caps had nothing to distinguish one from the other. They were a different problem altogether. Tremaine eyed them, deciding it looked like a problem that could be solved by eleven bullets.

The Ships of Air

“The wireless?” Basimi, one of the Rienish soldiers, turned to ask Ander.

Ander squinted at the wireless that had brought them the Ravenna’s signal. “Take the box, leave the antenna.” It was strung up across the two stone buildings and would be too much trouble to remove. And the Gardier knew they were here, there was no point in trying to remove any trace of their presence.

Ander stepped toward the Gardier prisoners, watching them carefully. He grasped the Gardier translator disk around his neck, saying, “Get up, follow us quietly and you won’t be harmed.” They had captured several of the translators, small silver medallions with an inset crystal that held the spell that converted the speaker’s words to the Gardier language. They translated only Rienish, unfortunately, and didn’t work for Syrnaic.

Most of the Gardier just stared at him but one spoke rapidly in a high light voice, the disk translating his words,

“Free us and surrender. You will be well treated—” Tremaine, her eyes on the long black shape of the gunship plowing through the gray sea, suddenly had enough.

That a Gardier, sitting there in chains surrounded by Rienish, would still have the gall to try to dictate terms was too much. The slaves, the people fleeing Vienne knowing they had no control over their lives, poor dead Rulan’s betrayal, what the Gardier had done to Arisilde, all came together in perfect clarity for her.

Basimi had set his captured Gardier rifle aside so he could pack the wireless box; Tremaine walked across the plaza to pick it up. Distracted and thinking she was just relieving him of a burden, he barely glanced at her.

Tremaine hefted it thoughtfully. The weight and stock felt odd in her hands and there was no safety. Crossing back to the Gardier, she pumped it to get a cartridge into the chamber. She stopped beside Ander, lifting it to her shoulder to aim at the Gardier spokesman. The man’s expression went from stoic contempt to fear, his dark eyes widening in alarm.

Good, she thought. I’d hate to take you by surprise. Then be-10

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fore her finger could tighten on the trigger a long arm reached over her shoulder and grabbed the barrel.

It was Giliead. Tremaine tried to hold on to the gun but had to give up before her hand got caught in the trigger guard. Ander was staring, startled. From across the plaza Ilias shouted, “Tremaine, stop that!”

“They won’t move!” She gestured in frustration at the Gardier. She wondered if anybody else was appreciating the irony of the barbarian Syprians preventing the civilized woman of Ile-Rien from shooting the prisoners. Some of the ex-slaves had stopped to watch, probably hoping to see her do it. Ander and Basimi and the other Rienish military men were staring in disbelief. Why do they all look like this is such a bad idea? “We can’t leave them, they know too much about us! What else are we going to do?”

“Not that.” Giliead’s expression was way too reasonable for her current mood. “They’re not wizards,” he said patiently. “And they’re helpless.” He held the gun away from his body, his distaste for what he thought of as a curse weapon evident, but there was no way she could get it away from him.

“Then let them loose and I’ll pick them off on the run.” But the moment of cold uncontrolled fury was fading.

Tremaine knew she wasn’t in touch with her own emotions at the best of times, but maybe this was a little much. She pushed her hair back, looking away.

Ilias rolled his eyes and turned back to helping one of the Parscian women to her feet, obviously leaving the situation to Giliead, who just watched Tremaine calmly. If he had said aloud, “I’ve given you my position on this and I’m not going to argue about it,” it couldn’t have been more clear.

“Tremaine, would you mind if I handled this?” Ander said with sarcastic emphasis. He was past astonishment and on to exasperated anger, the usual emotional state he and Tremaine communicated in. “Would that be all right with you?”

Tremaine folded her arms and told him, “Somebody figure this out right now or we do it my way.” She couldn’t The Ships of Air

back the threat up with Giliead standing ready to wrestle another gun away from her, but maybe in the heat of the moment nobody would figure that out.

The conversation had been in Syrnaic, and with Florian down on the stairs urging along the first group of prisoners, Ander and the Syprians were the only ones who had understood it. He turned to the Gardier again, grasping the translator, and shouted, “Get up! I won’t ask it again!” Maybe his grim face convinced them, though Tremaine thought it was probably her he wanted to throw off the cliff.

Two of the Gardier stumbled to their feet and the others followed, the spokesman last and most reluctant, with the Rienish soldier Deric giving him a poke with a rifle to hurry him along. The other members of Ander’s military team closed around them, shepherding them toward the stairs after the last group of refugees.

Ander stopped beside Tremaine. She expected another sarcastic comment, but he said reluctantly, “At least you got them moving. They really thought you meant it.” As he moved away Tremaine clapped a hand over her eyes. It would have been worth it, just to show Ander. He had known her for years longer than anyone else here except Gerard, and yet he didn’t know her at all. She lifted her head to find herself sharing a look with Giliead. His mouth quirked, and she had the sudden feeling he understood.

Basimi, the wireless box packed in its case and tucked under his arm, pointed at the gun. “Uh, Ma’am, could you ask him if I could have—”

“Yes, sorry.” Tremaine rubbed her face, trying to collect herself. She told Giliead in Syrnaic, “He wants the weapon back.”

Giliead handed it over as Ilias came up to them. He gave Tremaine a pointed look, and she snapped, “Don’t you start.”

He ignored her, turning to Giliead. “You ready to take Ixion?”

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looked at the canvas-wrapped bundle lying on the broken pavement. Moving the sorcerer’s body wouldn’t disrupt the ward Gerard had placed on it, but Tremaine wouldn’t have had that job for anything, and Ilias looked as if this was as close as he planned to get to it. They both watched Giliead lift the body and heave it over his shoulder.

Tremaine hurriedly picked her way along the edge of the canal after Ilias and the others, the sphere’s bag bumping her familiarly in the hip. I feel like I just did this. Oh right, I did. The overcast sky was darkening rapidly and the canal had become a dim gray-green tunnel as the overhanging vegetation screened what little light remained. Giliead, still carrying Ixion, had gone up ahead to talk to Halian, jumping down into the canal and wading through the waist-deep water past the line of refugees making their way along the stone ledge. Ander and the other Rienish were herding the Gardier prisoners through the canal up near the front of the line. Basimi was just ahead of Ilias, burdened with the wireless box and the rifle slung over his back. Tremaine had offered to carry the gun for him, but for some reason he had declined.

Most of the refugees were moving quickly, carrying the injured, helping each other along, spurred by fear of recapture. Occasional stragglers still fell behind, dazed by the suddenness of events or too scarred by their long captivity to really understand what was happening. Ilias plunged into the water frequently to hand them back up to their companions or to just get them pointed in the right direction. “It’s not the ones who are still trying to move you’ve got to worry about,” he commented to Tremaine, hauling himself out onto the stone pathway again, dripping with the stagnant water and with his arms and chest stained with moss. “If they have to be carried, there’s more chance they might go dead later.” Tremaine grabbed the shoulder of his shirt, more to steady herself than him, since he was far more surefooted on the slippery stone. “What do you mean ‘go dead’?” Her The Ships of Air

knowledge of Syrnaic having come from a spell rather than studying the language, she found she actually did know some of the local idiom, but this one escaped her.

Ilias pushed to his feet, tossed the wet hair out of his eyes and moved after the others. “It’s when someone’s been caught or had their village cursed by a wizard, and they just never get over it. They won’t talk, won’t recognize their family, won’t eat or drink unless you make them. You’ve seen that before?”

“Yes, I know what you mean.” Tremaine digested that, not liking the implications. If the other Syprians were really that affected by exposure to magic, then that didn’t bode well for a future contact between the cities of the Syrnai and Ile-Rien’s government-in-exile. The Andrien family had accepted them, but then they had felt obligated by all the mutual lifesaving that had gone on between Tremaine, Florian and Ander when they had been stranded in the underground city searching for Gerard, and Ilias, who had been likewise searching for Giliead. And Giliead’s mother Karima had managed to reconcile herself to having a son who was a Chosen Vessel, so getting used to the idea of wizards as allies probably wasn’t as hard for her as the others. Tremaine had noted that Halian’s son Nicanor, the current lawgiver of Cineth, had barely deigned to look at them.

“Anything I should know?” Basimi asked, glancing cautiously back at them. The conversation had been in Syrnaic and he hadn’t understood it.

He was a hard-faced wiry man who was one of the few who had volunteered to follow Ander back to this world to infiltrate the Gardier base. Tremaine knew nothing about him except that he probably wasn’t a traitor like Rulan. “Just chatting,” she told him.

The first of the refugees must have reached the cove long before them. As they finally climbed up the canal’s em-bankment near the bluff, Tremaine foundered in the sudden high wind. Following the last of the stragglers, Basimi staggered under the burden of the wireless. Ilias stopped, look-14

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ing worriedly up at the cloud-heavy sky. “This isn’t natural,” he muttered. Tremaine was uncomfortably reminded of the spell-driven storm that had swamped the Pilot Boat when they had first been stranded on the island.

She stumbled around the rocks to see the little sandy cove and the even more welcome sight of two motor launches moored in the shallows. They were sturdy boats, each almost forty feet long, painted gray to match the Ravenna’s war camouflage, with steel hulls, diesel engines and canvas canopies to protect the occupants from the weather. The surf rolled in around them, white and frothy, and the wind lifted the sand in stinging sheets. Another boat already packed with people fought the waves between the tall rocks, heading for the safety of the larger ship anchored somewhere in the heavy mist outside the cove. At least Tremaine hoped the Ravenna meant safety. She couldn’t see Niles, but Gerard and a couple of men in short jackets of the red-trimmed dark blue of undress Rienish naval uniforms were helping refugees onto the first launch. Florian was at his side.

Tremaine trotted across the sand, the wind tossing her hair, and got there in time to hear the other girl say, “Gerard, is this an etheric storm?” Florian squinted up at the streaming clouds overhead, her face white and strained, having to nearly shout to be heard over the roar of the surf.

“I’m afraid so.” Gerard winced away from the spray as the waves broke around the launch’s hull. He was a tall man in his early forties, with dark hair just lightly touched with gray. He was currently wearing Syprian clothing, battered dark pants and a loose mud-stained white shirt with a green sash; he was a sorcerer and had been Tremaine’s guardian before she was old enough to assume control of the Valiarde family fortunes. “It’s nearly impossible for us to call up weather magic so quickly, but we’ve seen the Gardier do it before.”

Florian gave Tremaine a concerned look as she approached. “Is that all of them? Ander already took the Gardier on another boat.”

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“We’re the last,” Tremaine told her, looking around for the Syprians. They were gathered in a group over by the rocks, and Giliead, hands planted on his hips, was talking to them. Ilias had gone to stand at his side. That doesn’t look good, she thought grimly. She noticed Giliead didn’t have the canvas-wrapped bundle anymore. “Where’s Ixion? Did they put him in the boat?”

“On the other one.” Gerard nodded, indicating the launch wallowing in the surf a little further down. “That’s the boat you’ll be taking. I want the sphere to stay fairly near him.”

“Are they coming?” Florian shielded her eyes from the spray, watching the Syprians worriedly. “I know they think the engines are magic, but it’s their only chance.”

“I’ll go see.” Stumbling in the wet sand, Tremaine went over to join the group.

Arites, a young man with wild brown hair who was a Syprian poet, was standing with Dyani, Gyan’s young foster daughter. She was a slight girl with dark brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Gyan himself looked grave, and Halian was fuming with frustration and anger. Most of the others hovered between confused and rebellious. “I won’t do it,” one of them was saying stubbornly. He was big like Giliead, but with darker hair and a boxer’s mashed nose. “It was bad enough letting them curse the Swift, and we saw what happened to her—”

“It was Ixion’s curseling that did that,” Gyan objected.

Tremaine was glad he was on their side. He was an older man, with a heavy build and a good-humored face, balding with a long fringe of gray hair. He was much respected by the other crew. “And Gerard’s curse got us out of that prison—”

“But you can’t ask us to get on that wizard ship!”

“It’s not magic,” Tremaine protested helplessly. “The lights, the engines, it’s steam turbines and—” She stopped in exasperation when she realized the words were coming out in Rienish because there were no equivalents in Syrnaic.

“Dammit!”

“I’ve been on the wizard ship,” Ilias began patiently. “It’s not—”

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“You’ve got nothing to lose,” the man snapped at him.

Ilias’s expression went stony and he stepped back, reflexively drawing away from the group.

That did it for Giliead. He looked the men over with grim contempt. “I’m going. Anyone who wants to stay, we’ll send help back to you. If the howlers or the Gardier wizards leave anything.”

“Wait.” Halian fixed an eye on the objector and said, almost too quietly for Tremaine to hear over the rising wind,

“So you’re captain now, Dannor?”

“Maybe he ought to be,” somebody else piped up.

Without taking his eyes off Halian, Dannor backhanded the offender in the mouth, saying, “When I want you to talk for me I’ll tell you.”

“Tremaine!” Gerard shouted from the launches. “We have to go!”

“Go on!” she turned to yell. “We’ll take the other boat.” I hope. She could feel the sphere shaking violently in its bag and wondered if it was responding to the argument or the growing storm.

“The thing is, Dannor,” Halian said, still softly, “either you’re making yourself captain, or you’re not.” Dannor breathed hard, something flat and desperate in his eyes. Halian had been Cineth’s warleader once, Tremaine remembered. Dannor looked like he knew why Halian had been chosen for that job and didn’t want to find out all over again. He stared out toward where the Ravenna lay, obscured by the heavy mist and the black rocks that sheltered the cove. A scatter of raindrops pelted the sand around them and thunder rumbled. “Halian, I—” Halian’s grim expression didn’t soften. “Do you really think I’d ask you to do this if it wasn’t the only choice?” Gerard had splashed back out of the surf and started across the beach toward them. The other boat was leaving, she could see Florian standing in the stern watching them, hanging on to a stanchion as it fought the waves. The last one, empty but for two Rienish sailors, still waited.

Tremaine was turning to tell Gerard to go back when sand The Ships of Air

suddenly blew up in her face and something shoved her hard from behind. She hit the wet beach facefirst.

The next thing she knew Gerard was dragging her upright, the sphere’s bag knocking her in the stomach as she got her feet under her. “Ow,” Tremaine protested weakly.

Her ears rang, her head pounded, her teeth hurt. After everything else, it seemed especially unfair. “What happened?” The Syprians were scattered around her, sprawled in the sand or struggling to their feet.

Gerard spoke urgently, but his voice sounded far away over the ringing in her ears. Giliead staggered upright, shaking his head, and Ilias rolled over, still stunned.

Tremaine gave up on trying to hear Gerard and looked around for the source of the explosion. She saw with shock that the big rock they had been standing near was missing a large chunk off the top. She could smell burning and the aftermath of a lightning strike. She pointed at it, tugging on Gerard’s sleeve, trying to get him to look. “They’re shelling us!”

Gerard gestured imperatively at the boat, shouting something that sounded tinny and far away. Ilias managed to struggle up and Giliead pulled Halian to his feet. He started pushing the others toward the beach. Tremaine reached to help Dyani, but Gerard grabbed the other girl’s arm and hauled them both toward the water.

Something flashed overhead, lighting up the gray sky, and Tremaine flinched. “What was that?” she demanded again.

Gerard’s voice still sounded too far away but this time she understood his shout. “It’s lightning, etheric lightning.

The Gardier generated this storm and the lightning is aiming for us.”

Damn. Tremaine stared up, stumbling as another flash lit the sky. The men on the boat were waving urgently for them to hurry. “Us specifically?” She looked around and saw with relief all the Syprians were with them; no one was staying behind. Dannor and Halian were half-carrying Gyan.

“Anything human,” Gerard clarified.

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“Why aren’t we dead?” Dyani asked, looking up in terror at the flashes shooting across the gray sky.

“The sphere is deflecting it!”

Dyani probably didn’t understand what that meant, but Tremaine was a little reassured. Arisilde, locked inside the sphere, was fighting the Gardier spells for them.

They stumbled into the surf and the cool water shocked Tremaine out of her daze. Staggering in the waves, they reached the boat. Tremaine grabbed the railing and looked for Ilias. She found him when he caught her around the waist and lifted her over the side.

The floorboards were already drenched with spray. Others tumbled in, and Tremaine helped Gerard and Dyani steady Gyan as Halian boosted him up to climb the rail. The older man’s face was red and he was breathing hard; Tremaine hoped he wasn’t having a heart seizure. Then she saw the gray hair at the back of his head was matted with blood and realized he must have been hit by a fragment of the shattered rock.

Giliead was the last to scramble in. The engine coughed to life, making the Syprians flinch in alarm, and the boat began to plow forward against the waves, taking them away from the island.

Chapter 2

The wall rose out of the sea and the fog, up and up, bigger than a mountain, taking up all the horizon like another sky. . . .

—“Ravenna’s voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,” Abignon Translation

Tremaine thought the water in the cove was rough, but as the launch left the shelter of the rocks, the high waves flung it into a violent roll. She slid from her seat to the deck, clutching the bench and trying valiantly to keep her stomach down where it was supposed to be. She hadn’t ever been seasick before, but the waves tossed the boat like a tin cup.

Gerard pushed his way up to the bow and held on to the rail next to the sailor wrestling with the wheel. Everyone else was clinging to the seats, trying to brace themselves.

Ilias was beside Tremaine, gripping a stanchion, and Giliead was braced next to him. Even with the wind and the spray in their faces they were watching something with awed expressions. Whatever it was Tremaine didn’t think she wanted to see it. The sudden onset of nausea had sucked any interest in staying alive right out of her; it was almost like being back home again. Then the wind died suddenly and she realized the sea was less violent, the boat’s wild dips and sways less agonizing. She grabbed the rail and dragged herself up a little to look.

At first all she saw was a giant gray wall. She thought it 20

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was mist or a low cloud formation, then she realized it was the Ravenna, looming over the little boat like an avalanche.

Ilias and Giliead must have been watching her advance and turn.

The pilot turned from the wheel to shout, “We’re all right now! She’s come to our windward side so we’re in her lee.” Oh good, an optimist, Tremaine thought. “She’s shielding us from the wind,” she translated into Syrnaic for the Syprians, though being sailors they probably didn’t need her to tell them what had happened.

The boat chugged rapidly toward the Ravenna now, making good progress over the still-rough sea. Peering up at the ship, Tremaine could see a few lights glowing along the upper decks and a searchlight sweeping the water, fixing on the launch to guide it in. The gray paint made the ship fade into the heavy overcast sky and her upper decks were draped in mist. It fell over the ship like a giant’s shroud, catching in diaphanous streamers on the three enormous smokestacks.

She didn’t dwarf the island behind them in actual physical size, but she gave the impression she wanted to try. The Ravenna had been built to be a passenger liner, the largest in the Vernaire Solar Line, and she was far from home, just like everyone else from Ile-Rien.

Somehow approaching the liner by sea was more daunting than just walking up to her on the dock; the Ravenna was free now and all-powerful in her element. As they drew steadily closer to that great gray wall, Tremaine suddenly remembered the smashed warehouse and the sheared-off pier, victims of a miscalculation during the ship’s leave-taking from Port Rel. It had seemed funny at the time; it didn’t now.

The pilot brought the little boat alongside the wall between dangling cables, then worked frantically with the other crewman to get them locked in place at the bow and stern. With the others, Tremaine stared nervously at the huge hull so dangerously close that she could count rivets. Gerard stood at the wheel, holding it steady as the two seamen worked. She saw Gyan up toward the bow with Arites and The Ships of Air

Dyani; he looked a little better though his face was gray in the dim light. He was staring at the Ravenna with nervous astonishment. Halian shouldered his way back through the others, his face intent, leaning over to ask Tremaine, “What are they doing?”

Giliead and Ilias both leaned in to hear her answer. She swallowed to clear her throat. “They hook those cables to the front and the back and then there’s an electric winch to haul the boat up to the deck where they uh . . . keep boats.” She knew about the procedure in principle but had never gone through it herself.

Giliead and Halian exchanged a dubious look, and Ilias leaned back on the rail, craning his neck to stare up at the height above them.

Halian nodded in resignation, squeezed her arm, and said, “Don’t tell anyone else.”

Finally one of the seamen signaled to those waiting above and the lifeboat started to lift, moving a little in the wind. Some men shifted and called out in alarm, but Halian snapped at them to be quiet. It seemed to take forever, and Tremaine tightened her grip on the bench, reminding herself that if the Rienish woman who was supposed to be blasé about all this got hysterical, everybody else was bound to do it too. She saw portholes in the Ravenna’s side, then larger windows streaked with water from the spray, then suddenly the boat swayed in toward an open deck, bumping against the ship’s railing.

Tremaine stumbled as she stood and Giliead caught her arm to help her. A seaman held a gate in the ship’s railing open and she stepped up on a bench and climbed through it, finding herself on the Ravenna’s polished wooden deck in a milling confusion of sailors, freed prisoners and people she vaguely recognized from the Viller Institute. The deck was rolling, but it was nothing after being thrown around in the little launch. The wind was still harsh, but the other stowed lifeboats, their canopies flattened down, hung overhead in their curved davits, forming a sheltering partial roof for the deck.

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A little dazed, Tremaine noticed some of the sailors were women, their hair cropped short or tightly bound back under their caps. Early losses at the beginning of the war meant there were now more women serving in the army and the fragments left of the navy than ever before in Rienish history. It didn’t surprise Tremaine that the Ravenna, designated as a last-ditch evacuation transport when the Pilot Boat had failed to return with the sphere, had ended up with a lot of female crew. It also meant they would all have only a few years experience at most and that none had ever worked on a ship like this before.

Tremaine watched the others clamber off the boat, then Gerard appeared at her side, guiding her to an open hatch. A seaman stood beside it, motioning for them to hurry.

Tremaine dragged her feet, looking back to make sure the Syprians were following, then ducked inside.

Getting out of the wind was an immediate relief; with everyone else, Tremaine jostled down a narrow wood-paneled stairwell that opened abruptly into a large area, brightly lit and teeming with refugees from the Gardier base, more Viller Institute staff and crew members trying to get them all to go somewhere. Voices spoke urgently in Rienish, Maiutan, Parscian; freed slaves who had held together throughout the battle and the trek across the island were falling down on the tiled floor and weeping with relief. Tremaine stumbled and leaned on a wall of finely polished cherrywood. Over the heads of the crowd, she spotted green marble pillars and the top of a glassed-in kiosk.

“Promenade deck,” she said to herself, relieved. Now she had her bearings; they had come down a full level from the boat deck above and were in the ship’s main hall and shopping arcade. Past the people clustering around she could see that the glass cabinets for the shops along the walls were dark and empty.

“Gerard!” Someone forced his way through the crowd.

“There you are,” he said, as if Gerard had been deliberately concealing himself. It was Breidan Niles, the sorcerer who The Ships of Air

had brought the Queen Ravenna through the etheric world-gate to this temporary safety. He had narrow features, fair hair slicked back and wore an exquisitely tailored country walking suit. Despite the appearance of a man who should be lounging decoratively at one of the expensive and fashionable cafés along the Boulevard of Flowers, Niles had been working on the Viller Institute’s defense project as long as Gerard. As the other primary sorcerer on the project, his role had been to stay in Ile-Rien to watch over things there; this evacuation had been his first chance to travel through the gate.

Before Niles could continue, Gerard interrupted.

“There’s a problem. We’re holding an enemy sorcerer called Ixion.” Gerard gestured toward the damp canvas-wrapped bundle Giliead was just depositing on the floor. “He isn’t a Gardier; he’s a native collaborator. He’s apparently perfected a consciousness-transference spell that can take effect at the moment of his death. Now he seems to be in some sort of comatose state. Giliead here is something of an expert on this subject and he believes it’s very possible that Ixion has another body waiting somewhere that he can transfer into if we attempt to harm this one.”

“I see.” The crowd noise rose and fell around them, but Niles stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyeing the quiescent bundle as if they were standing in a quiet library. “No chance we could tempt him over to our side?” Gerard’s mouth twisted in distaste. “I rather doubt it.

From what our allies tell us the Syprian sorcerers are all quite mad. My experience with Ixion certainly bears that out.” Niles’s frown deepened. He pulled a booklet with a printed cover out of his coat pocket and began to flip hurriedly through it. Tremaine stared. It looked like a tourist brochure. “What is that?” she demanded.

“A map of the ship for passengers,” Niles explained.

“There were bundles of them in the purser’s office. They come in handy since so many of the crew were assigned here just yesterday.” He glanced at Gerard. “Thorny problem. But this Ixion isn’t resistant to our spells like the Gardier?” 24

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“No, not resistant at all, fortunately.” Gerard pushed damp hair out of his face. “Does the ship have a brig?”

“No, but there’s a secure area meant for stowaways.

That’s where your Gardier prisoners have been packed off to.” Niles’s brows lifted as he studied the map. “The ship does have an extensive cold-storage capability.” Gerard smiled thinly. “That’s a thought.” Giliead touched Tremaine’s arm, asking uneasily, “What are they saying about Ixion?”

Tremaine started. Listening to Gerard and Niles talk, she had almost drifted off. “They’ve thought of a place to keep him,” she explained, switching back to Syrnaic with an effort and trying to look alert. “A locked cold room somewhere.”

He nodded, pressing his lips together. “I’ll take him there.”

“No!” One of the Syprians protested. Tremaine craned her neck and saw it was Dannor. Of course. “You brought us here, you stay with us.”

Tremaine saw Halian’s face suffuse with red. Ilias muttered something under his breath that hadn’t been included in the sphere’s translation spell. But it was obvious the others agreed, except maybe Arites, who was staring around in anxious curiosity. It’s a good thing they don’t know Niles is a sorcerer, Tremaine realized. Ilias knew from his brief visit to Ile-Rien, but he didn’t look inclined to mention it. The Syprians had gotten used to Gerard, but there was no telling how they would react to another Rienish sorcerer, especially as unsettled as they were now.

Watching with concern, Gerard told Giliead, “It’s all right, we can take care of it ourselves. I still have a ward of impermeability on Ixion.”

Giliead hesitated, threw a dark look at Dannor, then said reluctantly, “All right.”

“Very well.” Gerard turned to Tremaine as Niles called over a couple of men to take Ixion. “Will you let me have the sphere?”

She nodded, handing him the bag wordlessly. The lights The Ships of Air

were too bright, and everything was taking on a surreal tint, probably a product of her exhaustion. As he pushed off after Niles, Florian appeared, saying, “Were you the last, did everyone make it?”

Tremaine stared at her blankly. Florian, with her red hair tied tightly back and her face pale, seemed oddly normal against the chaotic background. Tremaine shook herself and nodded a shade too rapidly. “Yes, we were the last. Everyone made it.”

“Good.” Florian relaxed in relief. “I’ve got to go, I need to help them get some people down to the hospital.”

“Good luck,” Tremaine managed as the other girl slipped away through the crowd. She looked at the Syprians gathered around her. Dyani had fetched up next to Tremaine and she anxiously eyed the light in the wall above their heads. It was encased in a smooth crystal sheath mounted in a brass base. It took Tremaine a moment to realize what was wrong, then she said hurriedly, “The lights aren’t magic, they just look that way.” We need to get out of here, she thought wearily. She stood on tiptoes to see over the heads of the crowd; her legs felt like rubber.

“This way,” she said in Syrnaic and turned to follow the wall around. By this method she found the grand stairway at the back of the large chamber. She led the way down the carpeted steps, feeling the tension in her nerves ease as they left the noisy crowd behind. She glanced back to make sure the Syprians were following and saw Giliead and Halian both looking around, probably doing head counts. Gyan was walking by himself but holding on to the wooden banister with another man at his elbow watching him worriedly. Dannor, who had started the mutiny, looked wary, and she was glad to see Ilias was right behind him.

The next deck was the First Class Entrance Hall she, Florian and Ilias had passed through when they had boarded the Ravenna in Port Rel. It was brightly lit now, the fine wood walls and the marble-tiled floor gleaming, and nearly as crowded as the main hall. Tremaine continued down to the next deck, finding a smaller carpeted lounge, mercifully un-26

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occupied, with one wall taken up by the steward’s office. It was covered in sleek wood and had etched glass windows; there was a light on inside and the door stood open.

Tremaine hesitated then decided not to bother them. If she did, it would just give someone the opportunity to give her a lot of unnecessary instructions and orders.

Four large corridors led off from here, two toward the bow and two toward the stern. She picked the nearest and led the way down toward what should be the First Class staterooms.

The corridor seemed to run most of the length of the ship, the patterned carpet making her a little dizzy as her eye followed it. The doors were in little vestibules opening off the corridor; she picked one at random. There was only one doorway in this vestibule, so she hoped that meant it was a big room.

“This is the place,” she said over her shoulder, trying the handle. It was locked. She stepped back and gestured. “Can somebody open this?”

Halian stepped forward, took the handle and applied his shoulder to the fine-grained but light wooden door. Something cracked in the jamb and it swung obligingly open. It was dark inside and smelled dusty, unused. Tremaine stepped in, fumbling for the wall switches.

Behind her, Dyani whispered like a litany, “The lights aren’t curses, they just look like it.”

“It’s all right,” Ilias told her, managing to sound as if he believed it. “Really.”

“Are there curses here?” somebody asked Giliead.

He hesitated an instant too long. “No.” Tremaine found two call buttons for the stewards before finally pushing the button for the lights. As the lamps flickered to life she saw she had struck gold. The lights were milky crystal lozenges set into cherrywood-veneered walls and the floor had a deep tawny carpet. If Giliead could sense spells it might be the concealment wards protecting the ship from the Gardier; or the staterooms in this section might have been warded against thieves at the commercial liner’s commission. If they had, nothing had happened when the door was forced open. She walked through a small foyer to The Ships of Air

a sitting room with gold-upholstered chairs and two couches. The built-in writing desk, the silk pillows and the rich red drapes concealing the portholes in the far wall were all meant to make it look like the best hotel in Vienne rather than a ship’s cabin.

The Syprians followed her with subdued murmurs of admiration at the furnishings. Gyan dropped down on one of the couches, clutching his head and groaning. Halian turned and in a grim tone that reminded Tremaine that he had raised at least two children, said, “None of you better break anything, I’m saying that right now.” Breathing space immediately formed around a delicate little marquetry table.

Muttering, “There’s got to be beds somewhere,” Tremaine shouldered her way through and fumbled at the latch of a sliding door in the other wall. She pushed it open to reveal a dining room with a fine wood table, more upholstered chairs, another built-in desk and chest of drawers, and another couch.

“Is it all like this?” Dyani asked in an awed whisper.

Tremaine glanced back at her and saw the girl seemed to be over her fright. She looked more intrigued than afraid now.

Ilias hadn’t liked the ship much either, until he had seen some of the more richly decorated public rooms. The Syprians used a lot of color in the painted walls and floor mosaics of their own homes, and the rich fabric and decoration must seem comfortable and familiar to them, unlike the starkness of the Gardier base.

“Normally they charge a lot of money to stay here,” Tremaine told her, stepping into the dining room. She knew there were even better suites available, forward on the deck above the Promenade, just below where the captain and the chief engineer had their quarters. Those were the ones meant for members of the royal family.

Pressing the switches for the lights as she went, Tremaine found two more unobtrusive panel doors that led into equally lavish bedrooms, with two double beds each and accompanying vanities and chests of drawers in the same cher-28

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rywood. There was also a smaller plainer bedroom that might be the maid’s quarters though it was probably better than any of the Third Class rooms, and a large bathroom with gleaming taps and walls that looked like alabaster but probably weren’t. She was momentarily stymied by the fact that all the beds had been stripped to the mattress covers; going off in search of the laundry, wherever it was in the bowels of the ship, was not high on her list of what to do next. But by opening all the doors and drawers she discovered a cabinet in the maid’s room with neatly folded linens, towels and silk bedcovers, all in red or gold to match the curtains and carpets. They weren’t musty because the seals on the cabinet doors were nearly airtight, and as she piled them into Dyani’s arms the faint faded scent of lavender laundry soap puffed up from the folds. It was odd; the people who had carefully cleaned up after this suite’s occupants on the ship’s last voyage had probably never imagined that the next time she left port would be to carry refugees away from a devastated Ile-Rien.

In the sitting room everyone was finally starting to settle down. Ilias had shown the others how to get hot water out of the bathroom taps and Giliead was in there tending Gyan’s head wound; Arites, deprived of paper and writing implements by the Gardier, was walking around muttering to himself, probably trying to memorize details; some of the men had just curled up in corners and gone to sleep.

Tremaine found herself standing in front of the mural on the dining room wall, a surrealist mix of curves and angles.

One of the men whose name she thought was Kias—big, olive-skinned, with frizzy dark hair falling past his shoulders—

asked, “What is that supposed to be?”

“I don’t know,” Tremaine replied honestly. Her last dose of strong coffee had worn off far too long ago and the world felt distant and strange. The surrealist mural didn’t help that sensation.

There was a knock at the door and several people flinched. “What now?” Tremaine grumbled and went to answer it.

The Ships of Air

Ilias followed her into the foyer, saying under his breath,

“Did you steal this room too?”

Ilias had maintained that Tremaine’s method of getting the Ravenna diverted to the Institute’s use was stealing; that he was technically correct just made it worse. “How very helpful.” Tremaine glared at him, then opened the door.

It was an older woman, slender, her graying dark hair neatly arranged and her face bare of cosmetics. She wore a plain but well-tailored blue-gray wool suit. Tremaine thought she might be one of the Institute’s secretaries or administra-tors but didn’t recognize her. The woman lifted her brows and said calmly, “Oh, it must be Miss Valiarde from the Viller Institute. They said you’d be somewhere with all these young men.” She smiled admiringly at Ilias, who was leaning against the other wall, displaying more bare chest and arms than one usually got to see in Ile-Rien since the ballet, the opera and the more interesting demimonde theaters and dining establishments had shut down for the duration. He smiled engagingly back at her. Tremaine suspected the Syprians were going to prove popular, at least among the Rienish on board. “We’re just trying to keep track of everyone,” the woman explained, “so we can get all these poor people into rooms. I’ll note down that you’re in charge of this suite. . . .” She wrote rapidly on the clipboard she carried.

Gratified as she was to actually be recognized, Tremaine had a sudden qualm at being “in charge” of anything at the moment. “What do I need to do?” she asked, shifting to lean casually against the door and cover the broken lock with her body.

“Just make sure the dead-lights—the metal covers over the portholes—stay fixed in place. There’s plenty of fresh-water for drinking but do have everyone use the saltwater taps for bathing. And here.” She pulled one of the ship’s map booklets from her pocket and showed Tremaine two areas marked in pen. “If anyone needs medical attention, Dr. Divies is set up in the ship’s hospital with the army surgeon, and some volunteers are going to try to serve a hot meal in the First Class Dining Room in a few hours.” 30

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Tremaine took the booklet, finding herself smiling.

“They’re ambitious.”

The woman caught her meaning and smiled back. “Yes, if there’s any delay, it’ll be because they’ve mislaid themselves in those huge kitchens.” She checked her notes again.

“Also, try to conserve the linens as much as possible. Getting the laundry operational is rather low priority at the moment. Oh”—the woman tucked her clipboard under her arm and extended a hand—“I’ve forgotten to introduce myself.

I’m Lady Aviler.”

Tremaine automatically shook the extended hand. The expensive but tastefully plain just-what-one-should-wear-to-an-evacuation clothing, the confident beau monde manner combined with the polite leer at Ilias all made sense; she was a member of Ile-Rien’s nobility. The Aviler family had been highly placed in the Ministry as long as the Fontainons had been on the throne. She couldn’t remember if it was Lady Aviler’s son or husband or brother who had been minister in charge of the War Appropriations Committee. How had the woman ended up on the ship? Had she been in the group picked up at Chaire? And more importantly, did she know the orders Tremaine had brought to transfer the Ravenna to Colonel Averi and the Institute were forged? “This is Ilias,” she managed, hoping to distract her.

Lady Aviler gave him a pleasant nod and a warm smile.

“How very nice.”

As Lady Aviler continued briskly up the corridor, Ilias leaned out to watch her. “Get back in here,” Tremaine snapped, anxious to shut the door again. She was paranoid about her trick with the orders being uncovered. Not that it had been terribly well covered in the first place, but she hadn’t had any time. And really, she told herself, at this point there isn’t much they could do about it. Except, of course, throw her in the brig with Ixion and the Gardier. But the main thing was that it would be embarrassing and she knew it would tell too many people more about how her mind worked than was good for anybody, especially her.

The Ships of Air

Ilias stepped back in, giving her a wry look. “She was nice.”

Tremaine grimly shut the door, heading back into the sitting room. “Sure she was.”

Gyan was back out in the main room again, his head wound tended, resisting Halian’s attempts to make him sit down. He demanded, “Do we know where we’re headed, if the Gardier are still out there?”

Gardier. Oh, damn. Tremaine rubbed her forehead, trying to massage away the pounding headache. She needed to know what was going on out there too. “I’ll go up and find out.” She started for the door again.

Giliead stopped her, taking her by the shoulders and steering her back into the room. “No, you’ve done enough. You’re about to fall down.”

“I am not,” Tremaine protested, stumbling.

“Yes, you are.” Ilias took over, taking her arm and hauling her back through the dining room. Kias was still staring at the mural. “When’s the last time you slept?”

“Don’t ask hard questions.” Tremaine rubbed her eyes.

She wanted to say that she had to get back up to where the decisions were being made. The Viller Institute’s money and authority meant nothing now, and she had only a toehold with the people who were running things. If she didn’t hold on to it, she would lose even that.

Ilias steered her into the maid’s room, and Tremaine gave in and collapsed on one of the narrow beds. The mattress was still bare but it was wonderfully comfortable. She was asleep in moments.

Ilias looked around for a blanket and Dyani handed him one out of the cupboard. She paused to run her hand over the dark red fabric, saying, “All the dyes match. And the weaving is so tight. How do they do that?”

“You should have seen their city,” Ilias told her, covering Tremaine with the blanket. Her tousled hair and the shadows under her eyes made her look vulnerable and soft. When 32

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awake she was anything but, no matter what she seemed to think of herself. “And that was after the war with the Gardier.”

Dyani took a deep breath, looking down at Tremaine worriedly. “These people are so powerful. If they can’t fight the Gardier with ships like these, how can we?” Good question, Ilias thought grimly, but he squeezed her arm, and said, “We’ll think of something.” Arites ducked his head in to whisper, “Halian wants to talk to you.”

Ilias grunted an acknowledgment, having an idea of what Halian wanted. He stepped out past him. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Good, see.” Arites pulled the charred torn fabric of his shirt apart so Ilias could see the little round wound. “The wizard weapon sent a bolt right through me—there’s a hole just like this on my back where it came out, but Gerard made the bleeding stop and a little later I saw the hole had closed up, like this.”

Arites sounded rather pleased and enthusiastic about the whole thing, but then as far as Ilias could tell he had been born open-minded. Ilias absently flexed the arm he had broken in the wreck of the Swift. “Yes, they’re good at that.” The problem was, if everyone didn’t keep quiet about it when they got back to Cineth, Arites might end up sentenced to a curse mark.

Ilias returned to the main room, seeing everyone was settled in the beds or collapsed in the padded chairs that looked almost as comfortable. Thunder rolled outside, distant and ominous; he could hear the wind trying to bore into the heavy metal hull, but not a hint of a draft came through.

There was only the familiar sway of the deck underfoot to tell him he was on a ship.

He looked for Giliead and Halian and after a moment heard their voices out in the hall. He found them just outside the door, leaning against the dark wood walls of the little vestibule. The wizards lights out here, like those inside, were set back into the ceiling behind mist-colored The Ships of Air

glass ovals so they weren’t harsh and bright. There was a carpet on this floor too, a gold-and-brown one with a pattern that dazzled the eye as it stretched the length of the corridor as far as Ilias could see, which was a pretty damn long way. By ducking his head a little he could tell it curved upward as it grew smaller with distance, until it vanished into shadow. He could hear voices speaking Rienish somewhere down there and saw a few men come out of a door, look around in confusion, then retreat.

Giliead saw he was looking at the curve in the floor and said ruefully, “It’s hard to believe.” Ilias nodded, knowing what he meant. A building this large, especially constructed of metal, would have been enough of an amazement; that this was a living ship was almost incomprehensible.

Leaning against the opposite wall, Halian said in a low voice, “So? Can we trust these people? And I don’t mean our friends, I mean the ones who give them their orders.” So Ilias was right, and it was time for this conversation.

He glanced at Giliead, who just looked thoughtful. Ilias leaned in the doorframe next to him and said slowly, “Everything’s as they said. I saw their city. There were places that had been torn apart and burned to the ground by the Gardier.

The man who took Ixion away with Gerard is another wizard.” Ilias held out his arm, showing them the faded bruises.

“When the Swift sank I broke this, and he healed it.” Giliead took his arm, looking it over carefully. Ilias continued, “But they have traitors, people who have sworn themselves to the Gardier like the one who betrayed us on the island. Some captured Ander and Florian and nearly killed them before we came back here.” Halian nodded, impatient. “That’s to be expected in a wizard’s war like this.” He stepped closer, his face serious.

“I know you weren’t there long, but did they seem the kind of people we could ally with?”

Ilias stared at the floor. He didn’t like this all being on his head; he didn’t want to mix what he wanted with what Cineth, let alone the whole Syrnai, should do. In his gut he 34

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thought the Rienish would make good allies; better than the Hisians, who made treaties only for the pleasure of breaking them and thought everybody who looked odd was a wizard.

He told himself it wasn’t just because the Rienish, like the woman who had come to the door, never saw his curse mark for what it was and that he liked being looked at like a man again. “All I can tell you is that they treated me well.” Glancing up at Giliead, he added, “And it wasn’t like the places here that fall under wizard’s rule.” They had both seen what could happen to a village or town taken over by a wizard: the people cursed into obedience and treated like slaves. There were towns past the Bone Mountains in the dry plains where wizards had held sway for generations, and the inhabitants were little better than cattle.

Giliead eyed Halian. “You’re thinking of what to advise Nicanor and Visolela.” Nicanor was Halian’s son by his last marriage and now lawgiver of Cineth with his wife Visolela.

It would be their decision whether to recommend the alliance to Cineth’s council or not, and whichever way it decided, the rest of the city-states in the Syrnai were likely to follow.

“We need an alliance.” Halian pressed his lips together.

“What they’re doing now is just helping shipwrecked travelers, no more than any other civilized people would do. But when the Gardier return for vengeance we’ll truly need their help.”

Ilias shook his head regretfully. “They haven’t been able to help themselves. When we left, their cities were falling,” he said, trying to be honest. “But their god-thing can fight the Gardier in ways we can’t. We’d be better off with their help than without it.”

Halian looked at Giliead. When the cities of the Syrnai sent a representative to foreign lands, it was usually a Chosen Vessel, but they all knew this was different. “You agree?”

Giliead nodded, as if he had already made the decision sometime ago. “Yes.”

Ilias took a deep breath. He had gone with Giliead to the The Ships of Air

Chaeans and to other lands, but he had the feeling that going with the Rienish would take them even further.

Halian leaned back against the wall, his face grave. He knew what this decision could mean. “Then we need someone to speak for us with them. Would Tremaine be a good choice?”

“She’d fight for us.” Ilias snorted. “And I don’t think she knows how not to fight dirty.”

Giliead’s mouth quirked. “That’s true.”

“All right.” Halian stepped back, nodding to himself. This wasn’t his first wizard war by a long stretch; Ilias just hoped it wasn’t the last one for all of them. Halian already looked worn down and older than Ilias was used to thinking of him.

Giliead must have had the same thought. “Get some rest,” he suggested.

Halian nodded wearily, clapping Ilias on the shoulder as he went back into the room. Ilias and Giliead looked at each other, then Giliead jerked his head down the hall, back toward the stairs. “I want to see what they did with Ixion.” Ilias nodded. He was tired, his head hurt from the storm and his scars ached, but he was too keyed up to sleep. Besides, it was their job to make sure there were no curses lying in wait so the place was safe for ungrateful bastards.

As they started down the corridor, he said, “I’m going to kick the shit out of Dannor.”

“He’s an idiot,” Giliead agreed grimly.

Dannor wasn’t really an idiot and they both knew it, but Ilias was tired of his word being disregarded as worthless because of the curse mark. All his other years of experience at finding and killing wizards aside, a sane person might think that someone who had actually been cursed and survived would be the best judge of what was safe and what wasn’t. It’s not as if you didn’t ask for it, he reminded himself. He took a breath, trying to look at it in perspective. “He was right.”

Giliead gave him a sour look. “If you say that again I’m going to kick the shit out of you.” Caught by surprise, Ilias glowered back at him. “You 36

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think?” he said dangerously. They stopped, facing each other, but just then two Rienish women came into the corridor, and they had to step apart to give them room to get by.

By the time the women had passed, glancing at them with nervous curiosity, the mutual urge to relieve their feelings by pummeling each other had faded. Still glaring at each other, they reached the room with the big staircase again and started up.

At the first landing Ilias stopped to get a better look at the Rienish-style painting mounted on the wall, forgetting his pique entirely. It showed a woman in a midnight black gown slashed with bloodred silk, a glitter of icy gems on her breast. She was sharp-featured but beautiful, with red hair coiled elaborately around her head. She was seated surrounded by a group of young men all in dark rich clothes, with long hair and beards. He had come across this kind of art when he had gone to Ile-Rien with Tremaine, Florian and Ander, and it was different from any type of painting he had ever seen before. “Look how they do this. It makes the people seem so real.” He stepped closer to look at the brush-strokes.

Giliead put a hand on his shoulder and drew him back, adding matter-of-factly, “There’s curses in that.”

“Really?” Ilias fell back a wary step, startled. “Tremaine said the paintings didn’t use curses.”

“The ones in those rooms she took us to didn’t. This one is different.” Giliead held his hand over it, not quite touching it, frowning in concentration. “It doesn’t feel dangerous. I don’t think it was meant to be a trap. It’s very old.

Maybe it was painted by a wizard and his curses just . . .

leaked into it.”

“Oh.” Relieved, Ilias stepped close again to examine the woman’s image. “Maybe that’s the woman the ship is named after.” She looked like someone that would make Visolela feel threatened and defensive, so Ilias immediately wanted to like her. He jerked his chin toward the men gathered around her. “She had a lot of husbands.” Warrior-husbands.

The Ships of Air

They all wore swords, strange-looking ones with long narrow blades and rounded guards to deflect the sharp points.

No one had worn swords when he had been to Ile-Rien, but he knew all the warriors must have been away fighting the Gardier.

Giliead nodded, studying the woman thoughtfully.

They went on up, finding the big room where they had first boarded less packed with people but still crowded, everyone babbling in unfamiliar languages. Ilias recognized some of the freed slaves by their ragged brown Gardier clothes. From here he could see there were round columns of polished green stone flanking colorfully patterned carpets and more of the cushioned furniture. There were glass-walled rooms along the sides, though they seemed to be empty.

“I don’t see Gerard.” Giliead let out his breath, sounding both resigned and annoyed. “This is going to be like looking for a pebble in a quarry. Any ideas?”

“No. . . . Wait, there’s somebody.” Craning his neck, Ilias saw a familiar sleek blond head bobbing through the crowd and started forward, shouldering his way through. It was the other wizard, Niles.

“Hey,” he called when he was in earshot. “Niles.” The man turned, a little startled, and eyed them dubiously.

“We need to find Gerard,” Ilias said. He was annoyed to find himself speaking slowly, as if that would help. The only word the man would recognize was the other wizard’s name.

Niles lifted his brows, enlightened, and motioned for them to follow, turning to head for the opposite end of the big chamber. It was easier this time because people had noticed them and were moving aside, mostly so they could stare. It didn’t bother Ilias since he had done his share of that in the Rienish city. And it wasn’t unfriendly staring, like the Gardier or when he and Giliead had traveled to an enemy city or port; it was just honest curiosity.

Niles led them to the back of the big chamber, down a 38

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short corridor where the tile floor turned to rich green carpet. It opened into another stairwell, this one gently lit by cloudy glass panels in the walls, each etched with graceful waterbirds and plants. They went up a couple of decks, through an empty carpeted chamber, then a metal door that led to another stairway, this one narrow and without the colorful appointments of the others. The walls here were just the bare metal bones of the ship and as they went up Ilias caught the scent of damp outdoor air, as if a hatch was open somewhere. He wondered how far they were above the water. “How do you steer something like this,” he said softly. It must be like trying to steer a floating city.

Giliead shook his head slightly. “The steering platform has to be in the bow.”

“But how does that work?” Ilias protested. They came up into a short passage with four doors and Niles chose one, stepping inside. Ilias looked cautiously past him, seeing a room with wooden walls unadorned except for two small windows looking out into a cloudy gray sky. In the corner there was a long cabinet with narrow drawers, very like the one where they had found the maps inside the Gardier’s flying whale. The men in the room were leaning over a big table spread with maps and papers, studying them intently.

Permeating the air was the strong odor of that awful drink the Rienish seemed unable to live without. The Rienish sailors had identical clothing the way the Gardier did, but instead of dull brown they wore short dark blue jackets with bands of red on the upper arms, the front decorated with small round ornaments of bright metal. The color of their clothes can’t be the only difference between them and the Gardier, Ilias thought, feeling a little uncertain in spite of himself. He glanced up at Giliead, whose brow quirked, as if he was thinking the same.

Then past the other men he saw Gerard, leaning over the table and looking reassuringly ordinary in his Syprian clothes.

The Ships of Air

“Gerard,” Ilias said in relief.

“There you are.” Gerard straightened up. He spoke to Niles for a moment in Rienish, then adjusted the pieces of glass he wore over his eyes and switched back to Syrnaic to ask them, “Everything all right? Oh, this is the shipmaster, Captain Marais.”

One of the other men glanced up, studied them with sharp attention, nodding as Gerard repeated their names. Ilias was surprised to see how young he looked, though his face was reddened and weathered from long experience at sea.

Giliead nodded to the man, then asked Gerard, “Where’s Ixion?”

“Ah, yes.” Gerard’s expression hardened as it always did at any mention of Ixion. It was one of the reasons Ilias trusted him. “We’ve got him stowed away in a specially warded chamber. Would you like to see it—him?” Giliead let out a breath and glanced at Ilias. “Not really, but I should anyway.”

“How do they steer this ship?” Ilias asked, only partly wanting to delay the visit to Ixion. He was really curious.

“Ah . . .” Gerard looked around absently. “I can show you the wheelhouse, it’s right up here.” In Rienish he spoke to the captain again, who nodded and waved them on. Gerard stepped to the half-open hatch in the far wall.

They followed him into the next room and Giliead stopped so abruptly in the doorway that Ilias stepped on him. A little wary, he peered past him to see a big room, the opposite wall lined with large square windows.

Green-gray sea stretched out in all directions and they were so high in the air the heavy clouds seemed almost within reach. Ilias had seen the view from the bow before but they were higher up this time; in daylight, even the half-light of the storm, it was far more breathtaking. “A floating mountain,” Giliead said softly.

The two men in the room turned to look curiously at them but didn’t object to their presence. One stood before the cen-40

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ter window, holding on to a wooden wheel mounted on a post. Gerard exchanged a few words with the other, who nodded and made an expansive welcoming gesture.

Giliead moved further inside, still caught by the view, and Ilias followed him, looking around. There wasn’t much there he understood the use for except the windows. The other sailor stepped to one of the waist-high white pillars that studded the floor, taking hold of the lever that sprouted out of the top and pushing it forward. Baffled, Ilias glanced at Giliead, who shrugged slightly to show he had no idea either.

Gerard noticed and explained, “Those are the engine telegraphs. They’re used to communicate the helmsman’s instructions to the engineers in each of the four main engines.” He indicated the squiggles on the pillar’s side that might be writing. “Slow, full, stop, and so on.” Ilias exchanged a look with Giliead. Some of those words hadn’t meant anything, but he thought he had caught the gist of it. It was more evidence that what all the Rienish were saying was true and that the ship didn’t really use curses to sail. Wizards—the wizards they knew anyway—would have just cursed these men below to do whatever they wanted.

Not require them to read their orders from signal flags or whatever these things did.

Gerard nodded to the man holding the wheel. “The helmsman steers from there. At the moment we’re on a sort of zigzag course to avoid any Gardier airships that might be accompanying the gunship. Our advantage is that we’re much faster in the open sea.” He pointed to two glass boxes set above the center window. “That indicator shows the course heading, the other one shows the angle the rudder is making with the ship.”

“You steer with that?” Giliead’s expression was doubtful.

Gerard smiled wryly. “Yes, it’s a little daunting to know that a ship of . . . Well, of however many tons is being guided by that. Supposedly it can be moved with one finger.”

“She sheared off the end of the dock when she left port,” Ilias told Giliead. “And smashed a house.” Giliead looked impressed. So did Gerard, for that matter.

The Ships of Air

The wizard said, “Did she? I suppose accidents will— Anyway, let me take you to see Ixion.” They went down this time, past endless metal corridors and places where heavy pipes covered the ceilings. Except for the steady movement underfoot you could forget you were on a ship. The air had a slightly bitter metallic taint to it but it wasn’t hot and moved as if there was a strong draft somewhere. The passages were as complex as the caves under the Isle of Storms. Ilias groaned under his breath, wishing they could leave trail signs. He kept telling himself if this ship was inhabited by anything other than people, the Rienish surely would have mentioned it.

There were trail signs of a kind; down here they were painted on the slick gray metal walls or doors and on the decks above they were embossed in what looked like copper or brass. If they stayed here any length of time, learning to read the markings would become imperative, but right now Ilias couldn’t see any pattern to them at all.

“How many wizards are aboard?” Giliead asked Gerard suddenly.

“Niles and I are the only Lodun-trained sorcerers on the ship that I know of.” Gerard glanced over his shoulder as they left a stairwell for a narrow corridor. Before they had left the room at the top of the ship, he had picked up a familiar battered leather bag and now carried it slung over his shoulder; it held the sphere, the Rienish god-thing. “There are a few others assigned to the Institute whose training was interrupted by the war, like Florian. The ship did stop to pick up more passengers at Chaire before creating the etheric world-gate; there may be some among them as well.” He hesitated. “I was told that when the border fell, the Queen released all sorcerers from army service to flee to Parscia or Capidara. I’m . . . not certain how many would have made it.”

Ilias glanced back at Giliead, who was unhelpfully wearing his stony expression. The thought of unknown wizards 42

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aboard made his nerves jump, but he reminded himself again it was different for the Rienish.

Gerard added more briskly, “I meant to tell you, I’ve spoken to Colonel Averi and Captain Marais and as soon as the storm passes and we’re certain we’ve evaded the Gardier gunboat, we’ll head back toward the mainland and put you all ashore somewhere near Cineth.” He added hastily, “But not near enough to alarm anyone in the city. You’ll have to let us know what would be a suitable spot.” Ilias hesitated, not sure if they should say anything about the idea of an alliance yet or wait for Halian. He felt out of his depth. Brow furrowed, Giliead said, “We were hoping you would stay to talk to Nicanor and Visolela.”

“Really?” Gerard turned to regard them, his face serious.

“We had assumed that would be impossible because of your beliefs.”

Giliead shrugged slightly. “It’s not . . . impossible.” Gerard gave him a thoughtful nod. “I see. I’ll speak to the military commander about it.”

As they moved on, Ilias exchanged a guarded look with Giliead. At least it had been suggested and Ilias supposed that was all he and Giliead could do without stepping on Nicanor’s sensitive toes. Halian’s idea seemed only common sense, but considering how much trouble the council had had with the very idea of wizards as allies, they had a steep hill to climb.

More sailors, men and women both, came and went down here, either dressed in the now familiar blue or stripped to brief white shirts stained with sweat and some dark foul-smelling stuff. They passed through a room where three men stood guard, all armed with the weapons that shot metal pel-lets to kill at a distance. The Gardier used these too, but the Rienish insisted they didn’t need curses to work, but a black powder made from various metals. As deadly as the weapons were, they might as well have used curses.

“Here we are.” Gerard stopped in front of a heavy door with a round glass window in the center. “The wards I placed around Ixion should keep him inside. Considering I The Ships of Air

used the sphere and that Niles has augmented my efforts with his own wards, it should be secure.” Gerard rubbed his forehead, letting out his breath. “Of course, we also have the armed guards.”

Giliead held out his hand to the door. “I can feel the curses— spells.” He added the Rienish word a little self-consciously. From what he had told Ilias, Giliead and the others owed their lives to Gerard; if he hadn’t given them a curse to immobilize Ixion, they would never have gotten out of the Gardier cells. Not without making a demon’s bargain with Ixion himself.

Giliead stepped up to look through the glass and Gerard told him, “Niles and I believe your first instinct was entirely correct. Attempting to kill him would have been a mistake; I think if this body is still viable, the spell to transfer his consciousness won’t initiate. Such a spell couldn’t be cast in the usual way; it would have to be triggered by the sorcerer’s death or severe injury.” He hesitated, then gestured absently.

“If he can somehow trigger it on his own, we won’t know until he does it.”

Giliead nodded thoughtfully. He held his hand close to the door without quite touching it. “It’s cold. Is that part of what’s keeping him inside?”

“No, that’s actually not magic. This room is connected to one of the ship’s refrigeration units. They create the cold.” Gerard eyed the door. “We thought if we made it somewhat uncomfortable for him, he might be encouraged to break cover.” Giliead’s mouth twisted ruefully and Ilias thought, Won’t that be fun. He would have preferred it if Ixion never broke cover.

Giliead stood back so Ilias could look. Wary of what he might see, he stepped up to peer through the glass, feeling the cold radiating from the door. He saw a small metal-walled room, brightly lit. Ixion’s new body, still clad in the brown Gardier clothing, lay on the bare floor. The skin on his face had a white waxy look and his features were blunt, like melted clay. From what they could tell, Ixion had grown this body in his vats, much the same way he had made the 44

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howlers, the grend, and the other creatures he had created to populate the island. It looked uncannily like his real body, the one Giliead had decapitated last year.

Ilias stepped back, ignoring the cold knot in his stomach.

It was just a body, locked in a room and held helpless by Rienish curses, but thinking that didn’t seem to help. “So when can we kill him? When we’re far from the island?” He looked at Gerard.

Gerard glanced at Giliead and let out his breath. Ilias sensed he wasn’t going to like the answer; Gerard looked exactly like a healer who was about to tell you that your leg had to come off. Giliead folded his arms and stared at the floor, as if he suspected what was coming. Gerard said slowly, “The problem is that this kind of spell is outside our experience. The books—and the people—who would be able to help are back in Ile-Rien, in the city of Lodun, trapped behind a Gardier blockade. And I suppose Ile-Rien itself has been overrun by now.” He shook his head, as if just remembering, as if the idea was still unreal. He cleared his throat and his gaze turned thoughtful. “One solution might be for us to take Ixion back to our world.” Ilias ran a hand through his hair, looking away. And if he escapes and finds his way back? He knew Gerard was trying to help, but the thought of Ixion off alive somewhere, still plotting, with them helpless to do anything about it, was the last thing he needed.

Expressionless, Giliead said, “We’ll think about it.” After a moment, he added belatedly, “Thank you.” Ilias heard quick footsteps out in the corridor and Niles, the other wizard, leaned into the room, his face flushed. In Rienish he spoke hurriedly to Gerard, who answered in the same language, sounding exasperated. Niles replied and they argued back and forth for a moment.

Finally, Gerard turned to them, looking both harassed and enthusiastic. “Niles believes he has an idea for protecting the ship against the Gardier’s disruption spell. It sounds un-conventional, but— We can’t afford to be choosy at the moment. Can you find your own way back?” The Ships of Air

Giliead nodded, saying, “Good luck,” as Gerard hurried away. Then he turned to Ilias, his face drawn in concern, taking breath to speak. Ilias interrupted him briskly with, “One of us should stay here. They don’t know what he’s like.” He didn’t want to talk about Ixion, not anymore, not right now.

“I’ll take the first turn, you go get some sleep.” Giliead hesitated, then obviously decided to accept the change of subject. He nodded, absently looking around for the door to the corridor.

“You know the way back, right?” Ilias asked, suddenly not sure if he did himself.

Giliead shrugged and gave him a farewell clap on the shoulder. “No, but I wanted a better look around, anyway.”

Chapter 3

Gerard asked Gyan what the god was. He asks everyone that. Gyan said that didn’t the Rien have gods of their own? Gerard said yes but that they didn’t choose Vessels or give advice, and Gyan asked what they did with their time? Apparently no one knows.

—“Ravenna’s voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,” V. Madrais Translation

Tremaine woke from a dream about being on the train to Parscia with Florian’s mother to find herself staring at an unfamiliar metal ceiling painted a cheery yellow.

Through the bed she could feel the rolling movement and remembered she was on the Ravenna. The distant howl of the wind, muffled and rendered impotent by so much metal and wood, told her the Gardier’s storm still pursued them.

She sat up in the narrow maid’s bed, recognizing the warm lump next to her as Dyani. The girl was curled up around a pillow, sound asleep. Gyan was in the bed against the opposite wall, buried under a blanket and snoring faintly.

There was a clock built into the paneled wall, but it was electric, powered by the ship’s system. It would have started up with the generators and she doubted anyone had bothered to go around setting the clocks in the passenger cabins.

Tremaine scratched her head vigorously and tried to get her brain to focus. She needed to find out what time it was, where they were, what the hell was going on.

The Ships of Air

She climbed out over the other girl and stood, stretching carefully. Oh, God, I hurt. She had been relatively fit and used to hard work after her stint with the Siege Aid, but after the past few days her muscles ached down to the bone. She felt bleary and incompetent as she opened the door and stumbled out.

Everyone seemed to be asleep, piled in the beds, with those who couldn’t fit stretched out on the floor. Some of them had decided to shed their clothes and Tremaine, used to spending time backstage at theaters, regarded all the bare skin with bemusement. The lights she had turned on earlier still burned; she realized the Syprians wouldn’t have wanted to touch the switches. It didn’t matter as the electric glow, softened by frosted glass, didn’t seem to be keeping anyone awake. The air was warm but not too musty or close, despite all the people in the suite. She stopped in the dining area, reaching up to adjust the small vent near the ceiling. It was a round bakelite orifice spew-ing air, with a metal lever to turn the inner ring to cool or warm, or to close it off entirely. The draft from it was strong; it might be outside air, funneled through the ventilation system by the ship’s own movement. There were fans mounted on some of the walls as well.

She continued on, pausing at the raised threshold of the bathroom. It was the only room nobody was sleeping in. You could have a bath, she thought, tempted. With hot water and soap. She didn’t think she was awake enough yet to make that serious a decision. She stepped in to get a drink of water from the tap, finding one of the small china tumblers still there though someone had carried off the matching carafe.

Several pairs of boots were drying on the black-and-white tiles, the patched leather dyed in soft colors or stamped with fanciful designs. She leaned on the sink, looking into the mirror. Her mousy brown hair was getting shaggy and she pulled it back for an unobstructed view of her face. No, still don’t recognize that person, she thought, resigned. Especially now, when she should be pale from the Vienne winter.

Whoever that was in the mirror, her cheeks had a sprinkle of 48

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freckles and red patches from riding and sailing under this world’s bright summer sun, as well as a nice patchwork of greenish yellow bruises. Giving up the unproductive self-scrutiny, she went back out into the main room.

In the sitting area Halian was stretched out on the couch, his face buried in a pillow. Giliead was still awake, sitting on the floor with his back propped against one of the chairs. His face drawn and thoughtful, he was staring absently into the foyer where the door to the corridor stood open. As he glanced up at her, Tremaine asked, “This is going to seem like an odd question, but is it day or night?”

“It’s night,” he told her, his voice low to keep from waking the others. “The storm is starting to die down.” She settled on the floor, cross-legged, and yawned. She wasn’t sure how he knew that about the storm, unless he could tell it from the sound of the wind. She propped her chin on her hand, watching him. His long braided hair, the soft sun-faded colors of his worn clothes, made an interesting contrast with the smooth yellow upholstery and elegant lines of the armchair behind him. “Couldn’t you sleep?”

“I did for a while. Too much to think about.” He looked at the door again as two Rienish sailors passed in agitated conversation. “I was wondering what your people are like.” That was too abstract a concept to be discussing at this hour. But Tremaine found herself saying, “I don’t know what my people are like anymore. I used to know, before the war. When it started, it seemed like the cities, the country just . . . stopped.” Like Lodun, trapped inside its defenses by the Gardier’s spells, perhaps not even realizing yet that Ile-Rien had fallen. “Things that were important to us just stopped.”

Giliead accepted that with a nod, without demanding further explanation. This was probably the longest private conversation she had had with him so far. From his expression he was turning her words over thoughtfully. Did all Syprians accept people at face value or was it just the Andrien family, she wondered. They all acted as if not understanding you The Ships of Air

was their problem, not yours. She looked around, distracted.

“Where’s Ilias?”

“He’s with the others guarding Ixion. He’s worried about what we’re going to do about him.” Giliead shook his head uneasily and it was obvious Ilias wasn’t the only one who was worried. “Even if we take Ixion far from the island before we kill him, we won’t know if it’s worked or not. Not until he comes back again.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Tremaine felt a little chill settle in her stomach. It was the kind of problem Arisilde had been excellent at solving. But all they had left of Arisilde was what remained in the sphere. The other powerful sorcerers who might have helped were trapped or dead at Lodun, trapped or dead at the overrun Aderassi front, and if the Gardier had reached Vienne by now, trapped or dead there too. “Couldn’t Gerard think of anything?”

Giliead’s expression grew a little less distant. He shrugged slightly and said, “He’s offered to take Ixion along when you go back to your land. And we appreciate the offer, but it would be better if we could get rid of him ourselves.

If Ilias could see it was done and over.” He hesitated, then added a touch stiffly, “He has nightmares.” And again, Ilias isn’t the only one who’d like to see it done and over, Tremaine thought, watching his face. Under the worry, Giliead looked guilty. That had never been something her father had suffered from. If you don’t care for the consequences then don’t commit the crime, Nicholas had said once, years ago when she was too young to understand that he meant it literally. But not everybody understood what the consequences were likely to be. And not everybody had a choice. And you don’t know how he felt after your mother was killed, some traitor voice said. She shook herself, pushing the uncomfortable thoughts away. “I have nightmares too, sometimes,” she said, though her dream of the Ravenna sinking seemed far away now.

Giliead shook his head, ready to change the subject.

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leave the area, the ship will turn inland and they’ll put us ashore where we can reach Cineth easily. Then you’ll leave.” Tremaine frowned, rubbing her eyes. I was afraid of that.

“Without stopping at Cineth?”

“Maybe.” He looked at her, his face serious. “We told him we want an alliance, your people with ours.” Tremaine nodded slowly. As the Gardier had used the island as a staging area for raids on the Ile-Rien coast, it would make an excellent spot for Rienish troops to prepare to retake the country. They could use both spheres, Arisilde’s and the one Niles had built, to open gateways to the coast or further inland, slipping spies, ships, armies through the etheric world-gates. If any Rienish armies had survived. They could still do it without Cineth’s cooperation, but Tremaine didn’t want to break that tenuous tie.

“You think Nicanor and the others would go for this? An alliance with a world of wizards?” Giliead looked away with a resigned expression. “I’ve given up trying to guess what Nicanor and Visolela will or won’t do. But Halian seems to think so.” Tremaine frowned, trying to read his expression. “But we think Halian’s an optimist.”

At first the Rienish guards tried to talk to Ilias, but realizing that was impossible, they fell to talking among themselves. He suspected they would like to ask about what they were guarding; he was just as glad they couldn’t.

He had taken a seat on a wooden bench bolted to the wall and leaned back, stretching his legs out. He was beginning to get used to the feel of being underground, the metal walls, the strange noises and acrid scents in the air, though combined with the roll of a ship at sea it was passing strange. But as tired as he was, he didn’t feel like dozing off. Not with that thing only one wall away, he thought, eyeing the door to Ixion’s prison. One of the guards, studying him thoughtfully and perhaps too accurately reading his expression, went to the glass window to check on the wizard’s sprawled body.

The Ships of Air

For years Ilias and Giliead had never known what Ixion looked like. The wizard had been too canny to ever face Giliead directly, sending creatures or laying subtle curse traps for him instead. Then the search had led them to a mountain village stalked by a curseling; the instant the survivors had described it they had known it was something Ixion was responsible for. It had fur and claws like an animal, but metal and wooden parts had been meshed with its flesh. It had killed the family of a man named Licias, one of the few who had been trying to hunt it. With his help they had destroyed the creature but Licias had been wounded. He was still suffering the loss of his family, alone in the village and not seeming to have many friends there. So they had taken him back to Cineth and Andrien House.

And he had been Ixion in disguise.

We should have asked more questions, Ilias thought, not for the first time, as he stared at the floor. We should have found out he was new to the village, that no one saw the family he said the curseling killed. But even if they had, would it have really made them suspicious of Licias? He had lived at Andrien in apparent friendship for months before he had finally revealed what and who he was.

Thinking about it, Ilias was beginning to wonder if the things the Rienish did, the way they used curses to build and cure and protect, was the way it was supposed to be. If Syprian wizards like Ixion had somehow looked at those things through a distorted glass, twisting them out of their original purpose into something terrible. It wasn’t an idea he wanted to share with anybody but Giliead. Even Halian might think it was too extreme.

He glanced up as Gerard and Niles turned into the room, arguing animatedly in Rienish. Niles carried a leather-bound case over to the metal door that sealed Ixion’s prison. Sitting on his heels to open the case, he took out several little glass pots and jars. Ilias sat up, feeling uneasy, but the containers seemed to hold various colored powders rather than anything disgusting. “What’s he doing?” he asked Gerard.

Gerard sat next to him, holding the sphere in his lap and 52

Martha Wells

watching the other wizard critically. “If Niles is right—and of course he insists that he is—the chamber we’ve warded for Ixion will need to be excluded from this spell. Channeling the sphere’s protective ability throughout the ship may interfere with the wards already in place. Those that shield the ship from view from overhead won’t matter at a moment like that, but I’d rather not have the containment wards tampered with.”

“Me neither.” Ilias still didn’t understand all the different Rienish words for curses, but he thought he had the idea.

Niles took a sheaf of papers from his jacket and began drawing lines and circles at the base of the door, using the colored powders from the jars. As he added something from another container that looked like gold filings, Gerard made a critical comment in Rienish and got a sharp reply back.

Ilias eyed the sphere a little warily. “Is it really true there’s somebody in there? Somebody you knew—know.” Gerard regarded the copper-colored ball with a kind of rueful resignation. “It seems so, unfortunately.” He adjusted the glass pieces he wore over his eyes. “Arisilde was a very powerful sorcerer in Ile-Rien. He and Tremaine’s father had been friends since they both attended the University of Lodun—that’s a place for education, in history, law and med-icine and many other things as well as for sorcery. He built this sphere after the design invented by Tremaine’s foster grandfather, Edouard Viller.” He took a deep breath, turning the tarnished metal ball over thoughtfully. Inside it something clunked. “Viller wasn’t a sorcerer himself. He intended the spheres to allow a person with no magical ability to perform simple spells. But each sphere had to be charged by a sorcerer before it would work properly. The metal even seems to retain something of that sorcerer’s essence. In the end Viller was never able to construct a sphere that would work unless the wielder had some small magical talent, no matter how slight.” He shook his head, preoccupied.

“Arisilde was the only one who could successfully duplicate the design, until Niles managed it with the sphere he constructed.”

The Ships of Air

Ilias wet his lips. He was still trying to cope with the idea of wizards having friends, and presumably families, like normal people. “So he built it. How did he get inside it?” Gerard absently rubbed at the tarnish with his sleeve.

There was pain etched on his face as he contemplated the fate of the man he had known. “Arisilde might have been attempting to return from here to our world. Perhaps something happened during the transition, such as an attack by the Gardier, and the sphere he was using was destroyed. In an attempt to save himself, Arisilde somehow sent his soul and his consciousness into this sphere, which was stored at the Valiarde family home. This is Tremaine’s theory, based on the sphere’s responses toward her and its increasing abilities. It is just a theory.” He glanced up, shaking his head grimly. “But after Gervas’s revelation that the Gardier’s crystal devices actually contain the souls of imprisoned sorcerers, it seems all too likely.”

Tremaine decided to take that bath, then realized once she had wrestled her boots off that she hadn’t yet retrieved her bag of belongings from the steward’s office. The lure of clean underwear was too seductive to ignore, so she padded barefoot down the quiet corridor and up the stairs to the office. There she found it under the control of several women, some Institute personnel and some from the Chaire group of refugees, all apparently having signed on as Lady Aviler’s minions. They offered to take the bag of Gerard’s belongings to his cabin and Tremaine accepted, thinking that it would be interesting to see if Lady Aviler ended up leading a faction or being the power behind one. And Tremaine was certain there would be factions.

Walking back to the suite, listening to the quiet thrum of the ship, she decided grandly not to declare allegiance with any of them; it would be far more instructive to play them all against each other. She grinned to herself, giving up the fantasy. Attempting it in practice rather than theory sounded like a good way to get thrown off the boat.

Martha Wells

As she passed one of the narrow cross corridors that connected the larger bow-to-stern passages, movement out of the corner of her eye startled her. Midway down the cross corridor stood two men, one in a civilian suit and the other in dark blue naval fatigues. Reflexes common to anyone who walked the less reputable parts of Vienne kept Tremaine moving with only a slight jerk of her head to betray she had noticed them; the set of their shoulders and the way they stood conveyed furtive activity, and she was fairly sure she had seen some object change hands. It might be nothing, and it was none of her business. War profiteering, the opium trade and other criminal pursuits had flourished in Ile-Rien since so many Prefecture officers and the sorcerers who had once assisted in investigations had been either killed in the bombings or gone into the military. It would be the same on this ship, which was going to be near impossible for anyone to police. She kept an ear cocked in case either man was foolish enough to pursue a potential witness, but neither came after her.

Back in the bathroom she started the water, then realized she had also forgotten to get soap. It didn’t matter; the hot saltwater bath in the enameled tub felt incredibly luxurious.

Her various cuts, scrapes and blisters stung a bit but it was worth it. By the time she got out and dressed again, Giliead had gone down to take his turn at watching Ixion and Ilias was back.

“How did it go?” she asked him, using one of their few precious towels to dry her hair.

“He didn’t come back to life and kill us all,” Ilias replied laconically.

Tremaine decided not to prod that sore point any further.

The others were stirring and food was suddenly a priority.

In search of it, she and Ilias followed the map booklet back to the grand stair and down one deck, then through an elegant foyer to the giant First Class dining area. Dyani, who had loudly declared, “I’m not afraid. I want to see it,” trailed along after them.

The room was huge with mellow gold wood broken along The Ships of Air

the base and top of the walls by silver and bronze bands. Silvered glass panels were set above the columns that separated the main area from the private dining salons along the sides.

The light from the overheads was warm and the people sitting or wandering about were far more calm than the chaotic crowd in the main hall earlier. What must have been about half the room’s original chairs and tables remained, and about a third of those were in use. The only reminder of the danger was the blackout cloth tightly tacked over the outside windows.

Lady Aviler was right and the volunteers had managed to produce food; trolleys were lined up near the baize serving doors and several women and a few older children were dispensing bread, soup, tea and coffee. Tremaine turned to Ilias to comment only to find he wasn’t there. He and Dyani were absorbed in the set of embossed wall panels at the side of the big chamber. Going to join them, she saw the theme was “A History of Shipbuilding from Classical to Modern Times” and understood the attraction. She nudged Ilias with an elbow. “You think we can get the others down here to eat?”

“If they don’t, they can go hungry.” Engrossed in the images, Ilias didn’t sound sympathetic to their plight.

“Did Dannor make any more trouble?” Tremaine started to ask, when someone shouted, “It’s you!” She looked wildly around, thinking oh no, but the woman who had jumped up from one of the tables and now hurried toward her didn’t look hostile. She had dark hair tied back and wore men’s pants and an oversized Rienish army fatigue shirt. As the woman reached her she caught Tremaine’s hands and said in a Lowlands accent, “I thought it was you!

You’re the Ile-Rien spy.”

“Oh, no, not really—” Tremaine managed. She did know this woman; she was a Lowlands missionary who had been taken by the Gardier on Maiuta. Tremaine and Florian had spoken to her briefly when they had been captured on the island with Ilias. She hadn’t recognized the woman at first because the brilliant smile she wore now transformed her face and made her look years younger.

Martha Wells

“I want to thank you.” She wrung Tremaine’s hands gratefully. “I thought we would never see the sun again.

And you.” She looked at Ilias. “I saw his people fight for us.

Who are they?” she asked Tremaine, “I don’t recognize their language.”

“They’re Syprians. The Gardier base was in their territory,” Tremaine explained vaguely. “But I’m not really—” The group at the woman’s table was standing up to leave and one of the other women called to her. The missionary glanced over her shoulder. “I must go back, but thank you.” She kissed Tremaine’s cheek quickly and darted away.

Most of the Syprians who weren’t still asleep ended up trailing reluctantly along to the dining room. Some of them eyed the food suspiciously, but when Halian, Gyan and Arites ate, they followed suit. The biggest problem seemed to be that since Syprian dining tables were only a foot or so off the floor, they found the waist-high Rienish ones awkward. Arites had found some old pages of ship’s stationery and a pencil in the suite somewhere and sat on the floor, happily taking notes. Tremaine noticed he was writing with his good arm, a trace awkwardly.

Having gotten everyone else settled and approaching the food herself, Tremaine found her stomach in mild revolt, but a mug of tea settled it and she was able to eat one of the thick slices of bread moistened with rich brown onion soup.

She had been expecting military metal plates and cups, but it was served on the ship’s china, gleaming white with a band of antique gold.

Then one of the volunteers emerged out of the back somewhere to call out, “Is Tremaine Valiarde here?” Tremaine set her bowl aside and stood hastily. “Yes?”

“There’s someone on the line for you; it sounds important.”

“On the line?” Tremaine frowned.

“The ship’s telephone,” the woman clarified as she led her back to the discreet baize doors. Just inside the first was The Ships of Air

a narrow little corridor that led to a sort of staging area of steel cabinets and wooden counters. Through another door Tremaine could hear pots banging and someone yelling in Aderassi. She started to make a jaunty remark about it being no different than any other hotel kitchen in Ile-Rien, then recalled uncomfortably that that was a way of life none of them might find their way back to again. Adera barely existed anymore and the fine hotels and Great Houses of Vienne were probably even now being turned into Gardier barracks. There was a telephone set tucked into a small cubby and the woman handed her the receiver.

Tremaine put it to her ear in time to hear, “Miss Valiarde?

You’ve been asked to report to the ship’s hospital—” The thought that they had discovered she was crazy and were planning to lock her up crossed her mind. She brushed that aside in annoyance; it was an old defensive reflex from the time right after she had been kidnapped into a mental asylum by her father’s enemies. Still, she demanded, “Why?

Who wants me there?”

A little taken aback, the voice replied, “It’s on Captain Ander Destan’s request. I think it’s something to do with the Gardier prisoners.”

“Oh, Ander. I’ll be right there.”

The hospital was down on D deck, where according to the booklet the crew messrooms and workshops, one of the swimming pools, some of the Second Class cabins and much of the food storage areas were located. The corridor in this section was still decorated with wood paneling and carpet since passengers were meant to use it. As they approached the hospital they met Institute personnel coming and going, some leading small groups of ex-prisoners from the Gardier base. This caused a delay as many of them recognized Tremaine and Ilias as members of the group that had rescued them and they stopped to thank them in a variety of languages. Ilias seemed caught between gratification and bewildered embarrassment. Tremaine was embarrassed 58

Martha Wells

too, mostly because she had no idea how to respond, but she was surprised at Ilias’s reaction. He and Giliead’s daily life included risking death to defend their people from crazed wizards; didn’t anyone ever thank them for it?

Then outside the door to the hospital area she saw two men, dressed in dark suits of an old-fashioned cut and archaic ruffled black neckcloths. Tremaine rolled her eyes.

God, Bisrans. That’s all we need. From their dress these two were members of the dominant religious sect that completely controlled the Bisran government. Bisra had come down in the world since it had near-successfully invaded Ile-Rien more than two hundred years ago; it had spent itself in pointless wars and had become a minor player in the game of nations. Easy meat for the Gardier, once they had finished with Ile-Rien.

The two Bisrans watched them approach, neither man losing the cold aloof expression worn like a uniform. “Who are they?” the younger one asked. He spoke Bisran, but that was one of the languages Tremaine’s father had insisted she learn.

One of Nicholas’s many false identities had been a Bisran importer of glass and art objects.

The older man replied in the same language, “Some sort of native partisans, I heard one of the sailors speak of them.

They’re barbarians, worse than the Maiutans.” He turned his head to hide a thin smile. “Perfect allies for Ile-Rien.”

“At least the women aren’t half-naked too.” Tremaine realized she was the Syprian woman in question; she was still wearing the shirt and pants Giliead’s mother Karima had given her a few days ago. An astute observer would have noted her boots, scuffed and stained but with brass buckles and rubber heels, but then neither of these men had the perspicacity of the fabled Inspector Ronsarde.

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