The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein)

by Martha Wells

  Ilias hadn’t thought it looked uncomfortable at all; it was palatial compared to some of the dirt-floored huts he had stayed in.

  Giliead stopped suddenly, head cocked. Tensing, Ilias looked at the walls, the ceiling overhead, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Giliead stepped to the wall, brushing his fingers against it as he followed it to the next vestibule. He stopped there, Ilias beside him, Tremaine drawing up uneasily behind them. “How many doors?” Giliead asked thoughtfully.

  “Three,” Ilias answered, studying the little cubby suspiciously. Tremaine leaned around him.

  “The others all have four,” Giliead pointed out.

  “Ah.” Ilias squinted hard at the blank space at the back of the narrow cubby where the fourth door should be. It might be missing because something essential to the ship occupied that spot rather than cabin space, but he really doubted it.

  “Clever,” Tremaine muttered, backing into the corridor to give them room.

  Giliead stepped to the bare spot on the wall, running his hand over it. Then he stepped back and kicked it.

  The door was there between one heartbeat and the next, banging open against the inside cabin wall.

  Ilias relaxed slightly as he looked past Giliead, relieved and disappointed. It was a small cabin with the walls painted yellow, with two narrow beds stacked one atop the other, and a basin set into the wall below one of the perfect Rienish glass mirrors. The carpet was blue with tiny white and yellow flowers. There were cabinets built into the other walls, but no place to hide. It’s empty. Damm it. It would have been good to get this over with.

  They stepped inside and Tremaine followed, though there wasn’t much room left. “No curse traps,” Giliead reported, glancing around with a frown. “Doesn’t look like he’s spent much time here.”

  “But we know it’s a wizard now, and not a curseling.” Ilias started opening cabinets and drawers, finding nothing but a little dust. “A curseling wouldn’t have the brains to hide this room.”

  “We don’t know that the thing that tried to get into the Isolation Ward is the same thing—person—that hid this room,” Tremaine pointed out. Then she grimaced. “But whoever’s been staying here has been mixing with the refugees. That really bothers me.”

  Stooping to check under the bed, Giliead threw a thoughtful glance at her. “How can you tell?”

  “The blanket is red, and the brocade along the hem doesn’t match the carpet.” She nodded toward the blanket crumpled on the lower bunk. “The mattresses are stripped to the ticking covers, and it’s the only bedding in the room. And it wasn’t here, because it doesn’t go with the rest of the decor. It was handed out from the ship’s stores.”

  Ilias felt a chill settle in his stomach. She was right; all the bedding and fabrics in their cabin were the same colors. Giliead picked up the blanket, running a hand over it. His face hardened.

  “What?” Ilias asked, watching him worriedly.

  Giliead dropped the blanket back on the bed, his mouth twisted. “I don’t think this one is harmless.”

  As they came back up the corridor of D deck, Tremaine noted the First Class area was much quieter. Her grumbling stomach informed her that it was lunchtime; most people had probably gone to the dining area. She was about to suggest they do the same when Giliead stopped abruptly in a vestibule. “There’s something here.” He stepped up to one of the doors. “It’s faint. Not like that other room. But it doesn’t seem dangerous.”

  The door opened suddenly and they all three flinched back. But it was Gerard, with rumpled hair and in his shirtsleeves, regarding them with a quizzical expression. “Oh, it’s you,” he said in Syrnaic. “Did you find anything?”

  “Just you.” Disgruntled, Ilias leaned against the wall and massaged the foot Tremaine had stamped on in hasty retreat from the door.

  Giliead managed to look as if he hadn’t reacted at all. Tremaine fanned herself with the map to cool the rush of heat to her cheeks. “Damn, just rush out and yell ‘boo’ next time.”

  “What? Oh, sorry.” Gerard disappeared inside the room. “Come in.”

  “Were you trying to get some sleep?” Tremaine went in after him, Ilias and Giliead following more cautiously. “I thought you gave that up.”

  “It’s not voluntary, I assure you,” Gerard replied ruefully. The cabin lights were on and several books and notebooks lay open on the bed. “Niles and I put an adjuration on each other to stay awake for the next few days.”

  Tremaine lifted her brows. That sounded fairly drastic. “Is that a good idea?”

  “No, not particularly,” he admitted. “Oh, thank you for packing my things, by the way.” He absently shifted some books aside so he could sit down. “Being able to shave this morning was a great relief.”

  Tremaine shrugged it off. “It was an experiment with optimism.” Gerard had an ordinary stateroom, with a built-in desk and dresser, and a couch and chair in the small open area. What wasn’t ordinary was that on every flat surface there were bowls, of crystal, colored glass and china. Tremaine stepped over to look at the three on the little boule table in front of the couch, seeing each was half-full of water and had bits of things floating in it. She recognized carpet or curtain threads, splinters of wood and what might be paint flakes. “Keeping an eye on all of us?” she asked, a brow lifted wryly.

  “Those are for different areas of the ship.” Gerard pulled off his spectacles to rub his eyes. “There’s also one for you, one for Niles and one for Florian.”

  “I thought there might be one for me this morning.” Tremaine looked around the rest of the cabin. Giliead leaned in the doorway, a closed thoughtful expression on his face. Ilias had taken a step further in but looked as if he was reluctant to touch anything.

  Tremaine noted that the mirror above the dresser was tightly covered by a blanket. She knew that scrying spells used mirrors or reflective surfaces to view their targets, knowledge gained because Nicholas had required everyone associated with him to become an expert in how to avoid sorcerous spying. Finding a reflective surface for a sorcerer to use wasn’t a problem on the Ravenna, with all her glass balusters and panels. She glanced back at Gerard and saw he was thoughtfully eyeing her and Ilias. He’s wondering how things are going, marriage-wise. And maybe trying to think of a polite way to ask. To forestall it, she nodded to the draped mirror. “Is Niles peeping at you again?”

  “What?” Gerard stared at her blankly. “Oh, the mirror. With these scrying bowls active, I’d rather not take any chances.” He added with an annoyed shake of his head, “Niles has other methods.”

  Intrigued, Giliead asked, “A wizard could spy on you through the mirror?”

  “A Rienish sorcerer could,” Gerard admitted. “It’s one of the spells that is useless against the Gardier, as far as we can tell. And we don’t know if they can use it against us.” He frowned at a sudden thought. “Though that was before we knew about the crystals and the…bizarre nature of their sorcery.”

  “We did find something,” Tremaine interposed before he could launch into etheric theory. She dropped into the armchair, glad to rest her feet. “Someone’s been hiding up in Third Class.”

  As she explained what they had found, Ilias took another cautious step into the room and sat down on the rug.

  Gerard’s brow furrowed. “That still doesn’t tell us whether he came aboard at Rel, Chaire or with the freed prisoners from the island. I need to examine that room.”

  Ilias shifted uncomfortably. But he wants to show me he’s not afraid of Gerard’s spells, Tremaine realized suddenly. It was another gesture meant to show that he would do his best to fit in to her world, somehow even more affecting than when he had demanded to know how to say Valiarde. Giliead was standing back and letting him do it, not ruining the gesture by coming further into the room, though he must realize the spells were harmless to them. Focus, focus, she reminded herself. “So what does Arisilde make of this?”

  Gerard’s frowned deepened. “He…didn’t s
eem to want to be of use.”

  “Oh.” Tremaine took that in, a little nonplussed. “He’s never done that before.” She glanced around the room again. “Where is he now?”

  “With Niles in the hospital. I’m about to go down and take over for him. For Niles, that is.”

  She nodded. When they had first used the sphere, before realizing Arisilde himself was inside it, it had taken both Tremaine’s and Gerard’s presence to get it to work. Since then it had progressed to operating by itself, or needing only the smallest nudge to initiate a complex spell. “You’re being careful with him, right? I mean, he’s been stolen once—”

  Gerard’s mouth twisted wryly. “I think it highly unlikely that he will be stolen again. I hate to think what would happen to anyone who tried.”

  Tremaine saw Ilias exchange an enigmatic look with Giliead. She pushed herself to her feet. “We’d better get on with it, then.”

  Gerard ran a hand through his hair, nodding absently. “I’ll let Niles and Averi know about the room you found.” He gathered up a couple of the volumes on the bed and one of the notebooks, then followed them out into the hall, locking the door behind him.

  By handing Tremaine the books while he pulled his jacket on, he managed to detain her while Ilias and Giliead wandered on up the quiet corridor. It wasn’t until he said, “Well, and how are things going?” in Rienish that she realized she had been adeptly maneuvered into the private conversation she had wanted to avoid.

  Deliberately misunderstanding, Tremaine threw him a puzzled look. “What things?”

  He gave her a mild glare and made the question a pointed, “Are you two getting along?”

  Giving in, she shrugged wearily. “So far. It’s been less than half a day, Gerard, not even I could mess it up in that short amount of time.” She decided not to mention that she almost had.

  He sighed, stopping at the narrow passage that connected the two main corridors. “I don’t mean to pry, but—”

  “Yes, you do mean to pry,” Tremaine assured him.

  “Yes, I do, but—” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just worry about you. Needlessly.” He patted her on the arm. “I’ll be down in the hospital with Niles.”

  Tremaine watched him go. She hoped he was worrying needlessly.

  Lengthening her stride to catch up to Ilias and Giliead, she began, “You know, I think we should—” She stopped as she found them in a vestibule, contemplating three closed doors.

  From Giliead’s concentrated expression, they had found something interesting. He said, “There’s been a curse here, not long ago. It’s fresh and strong.”

  “Can you tell what it was?”

  He shook his head, trailing a hand cautiously around the doorframe. “Your curses are so different.”

  “Right.” Tremaine turned, seeing they had an attentive audience. Two young Rienish women in traveling dresses and a young Maiutan woman in oversized canvas pants and a sailor’s uniform shirt were seated on stools in the vestibule across the corridor, with a china coffee service laid out on a footstool. Apparently this was the hour in upper-middle-class society where one had coffee with one’s neighbors, even if one’s neighbors were Maiutan ex–prisoners of war. “Excuse me, but do you know who has these rooms?”

  “Bisrans.” The older matron set her cup down on the tray with the air of someone who had just been waiting to be asked that question. She explained, “We were told they escaped from Adera and were being held at Chaire. They don’t speak to anyone, but you know Bisrans.”

  “They’re in one of those sects,” the other Rienish woman put in. “The one where they dress so badly.”

  Tremaine translated this into Syrnaic, leaving out the sartorial comment. Ilias rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Those men we saw near the healer’s rooms?”

  Tremaine nodded. “Exactly. I need to check with someone to make sure, but if one of the Bisrans is a sorcerer, he hasn’t said so.” She eyed the array of closed doors. Now we’re getting somewhere.

  Giliead took that in, considering it. “Did the women see anything odd, anything that might have been a curse?”

  Tremaine passed the question along in Rienish, and the older woman shook her head regretfully. “We saw them all go off that way toward the dining room, while we were having coffee. But we haven’t been out here that long. My sister is getting over a fever, so we had our lunch on a tray in our room, then came out here so she could have some quiet for a nap.”

  “What did the Bisran pigs do?” the Maiutan woman asked curiously.

  “They’re Bisran pigs, do they need to do anything?” Tremaine told her, distracted. She rubbed her hands together briskly. “Is there a telephone in your room I could use?”

  Chapter 10

  Glancing around the dining room, Tremaine spotted the Bisrans first. They were seated at two tables near the corner. Their severe dark suits and archaic ruffled neckcloths would have stood out in any Rienish setting, even with the increasing shortages of dyes and materials in the last few years as factories had been destroyed and trade routes shut down. Against the Ravenna’s gold-toned wood and silvered glass, they looked almost absurd.

  There were five men, two of whom she had seen earlier outside the hospital, three women and four children. The women wore high-necked dark-colored blouses and skirts far too long for fashion. The children were miniature copies of the adults.

  The room was about half-full of refugees and off-duty crew. Dishes clattered through the propped-open serving door, and children played around the pillars. Someone had brought in some low upholstered stools and a cocktail table from one of the lounges, fashioning an impromptu Syprian dining set. Gyan, Arites, Kias, and, to Tremaine’s surprise, Cimarus and Danias were seated there. Gyan was watching them with a faint worried frown, as if something in Giliead’s manner broadcast a warning. But Arites got up and came over, saying, “Come and eat. They take stewed fruit and put it inside this crispy bread, and it’s wonderful.”

  “Not just now.” Giliead shifted him aside gently. He moved toward the Bisrans, his face holding the same deliberate concentration as when he had trailed Ixion through the ship. One of the Bisran women looked up as they approached, her eyes widening.

  “Which one?” Ilias asked, eyeing the group speculatively.

  Giliead paused, only a few steps from the table where four of the men and one woman sat. “It’s one of them. I’m not sure which.” His brow creased in annoyance. “They’re too close together.”

  Trailing after them and still munching on a bread roll, Arites said, “These people are snobs. They won’t talk to anyone, even the nice people who make the food. Why are they afraid to let their skin show? Is there something wrong with them?”

  They had all the Bisrans’ attention now. Their faces were startled, nervous or contemptuous. Tremaine said, “In a word, yes.” The two men she had seen outside the hospital were at this table, watching with cold caution. She checked the page of the hastily typed passenger list. The volunteer in the steward’s office had given it to her once Tremaine had impressed on the woman that the whole ship was liable to instant disaster if she didn’t. I’m not even sure I was lying about that.

  According to the list, the oldest Bisran man at the table was Justice Riand. Tremaine knew Justice was a title, not a name, and designated a position somewhat analogous to a Rienish High Magistrate. Except as a Bisran the man would be less bound by the conventions of law. The other three men must be his older son Bain, his younger son Damil, and a son-in-law called Carrister. The woman didn’t look old enough to be the wife listed on the manifest, so she must be one of the daughters or daughters-in-law.

  Tremaine looked up to see Giliead and Ilias watching the Bisrans with a hawklike intensity that wasn’t lost on the rest of the room; everyone had fallen silent. Careful to use Syrnaic, she asked Giliead, “So we know he did a…curse recently.” She used the generic Syrnaic word for spell, not wanting the Bisrans to have even that much of a clue what this was about.
As far as she knew, Giliead’s abilities were known only to the upper level of the Rienish command, and not even to all of them. “Is he doing one now?”

  “No.” His eyes flicked to her. “Make them talk.”

  “Right.” Tremaine eyed him thoughtfully. Near a real quarry for the first time in too long, he was single-mindedly intent on his goal, and Ilias, pacing around to the far side of the table like a lion in a cage, looked the same. She stepped up, took the one open chair at the table and sat down.

  The Bisrans all stared at her in astonished affront. Switching back to Rienish, Tremaine said with blithe confidence, “Hello. How are we all today? And which one of you is a sorcerer?”

  Staring at her, his jaw set and his face darkening with rage, Justice Riand demanded, “What right do you have to ask this question?” From the dishes on the table, lunch appeared to be soup, casserole and the apple tart Arites had complimented. She saw that their religious frugality hadn’t prevented the Bisrans from eating it.

  Giliead had moved up to stand behind Tremaine’s chair; from across the table she could see Ilias was watching his friend’s face. He caught her eye and shook his head minutely.

  Not Justice Riand. She steepled her fingers and smiled around the table. “What right do you have to be on this boat?”

  “Your military kept us in Chaire until we had no choice,” one of the younger men snapped.

  The woman was averting her eyes from Ilias and Giliead. She spoke suddenly. “Why are these filthy natives staring at us?”

  “They aren’t filthy.” That was literally true. Syprians understood plumbing and knew it wasn’t magic, so didn’t shun it as they did electric switches and other mechanical devices. They also much appreciated the novelty of hot water on tap. “We all share a suite, and I don’t think the bathroom’s been unoccupied since we left port. Also, I happen to have expert knowledge, since I’m married to one of them.”