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

by Martha Wells

  “Yes, a little.” He turned to her in relief. “What is going on here?”

  “He’s cheating you.” Tremaine jerked her head at the crewman. “Passage on the ship is free for anyone, not just the Rienish.”

  He took a breath and nodded. “I thought it must be so.” He gestured to the men in disgust. “But I didn’t know what attitude the authorities aboard would take with such predators.”

  “I don’t know either,” Tremaine admitted. “But I suspect it will be harsh.” She switched back to Rienish. “Florian, can you find a telephone and ask for someone to come down and take these idiots off our hands?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry,” Florian said, biting her lip. The angry color was starting to fade from her cheeks. “I could have done that better. I just…Stealing from people when we don’t know what’s happening in Ile-Rien—”

  Tremaine nodded grimly. “I know.” She really did understand. It’s not that we don’t know what’s happening back home, it’s that we probably know all too well.

  Chapter 11

  Karima has said to beware of Pasima’s motives. She is not the woman to send on a journey of alliance, that it should have been someone older, like Deliana or Marenyi, with stronger ties to the councils in Syrneth. Halian agrees, and tells Gyan that Pasima will watch what the ally-wizards do, and try to make ill out of it.

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

  V. Madrais Translation

  Tremaine and Florian caught up with Ilias and Giliead just in time for the loudspeaker to announce a lifeboat drill. Tremaine hoped to avoid it, but sailors were herding everyone out on deck, and pretending not to understand Rienish didn’t work.

  The crew had been organizing the refugees into groups and giving them a boat station to go to if the ship’s alarm sounded. Tremaine thought it was more for morale than anything else; if the Ravenna sank in this world, there was no friendly shipping to respond to distress calls, and though the boats could travel long distances, few would make it all the way back to Cineth. Reaching Capidara would mean using either Arisilde’s sphere or the one Niles had made to go through the etheric gateway, and trying to get all the scattered boats together for that in the confusion of a Gardier attack would be a nightmare. Not like there’s any friendly shipping left in our world, either, she thought tiredly.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, all the Syprians had been assigned to the same lifeboat station. Tremaine hoped to get through it quickly, but it took both Florian and the earnest young officer in charge of their boat to convince Pasima that throwing the davit’s release lever to swing the boat out into position and lower it wouldn’t constitute using a curse.

  Tremaine considered the two Syprian women, Pasima arguing with polite vehemence with Giliead and Florian, and Cletia standing at her back, looking at the other passengers thoughtfully, the wind tugging at her bright hair. It occurred to Tremaine that if Ilias hadn’t gotten the curse mark, he would have expected to marry someone either tall and darkly beautiful or small with hair the color of clover honey. She wondered how he felt about being stuck with a rather drab specimen of Ile-Rien’s demimonde. She grimaced at herself. But you got what you wanted regardless of anyone else’s feelings, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?

  Finally, Giliead glowered at Pasima, saying, “I’m telling you it’s not a curse, that’s how you know it’s not a curse.”

  Pasima glared back, undaunted. “I have heard that you can’t see some of these people’s curses. What if this is one of those?”

  Giliead stared at her, eyes narrowed, breathing hard. Ilias groaned under his breath and rubbed his eyes. Tremaine buried her head in her hands. The magazine stories and plays she had written had all been desperate adventures but the characters had moved through them effortlessly, unaffected. In reality what you got was tiresome arguments and exhaustion and people pulling you in a dozen different directions and demanding you stop for a godforsaken lifeboat drill when you had to stalk the spy/sorcerer/creature who had tried to get your stupid worthless prisoners.

  After they escaped, Tremaine persuaded Ilias and Giliead to stop for a hasty meal, then they continued the search. They roamed the lower decks, padding down miles of carpeted corridors and metal-floor passages, looking at empty rooms, empty storage areas, and rooms filled with confusingly noisy machinery until Tremaine’s feet were ready to fall off.

  “It’s like the caves under the island,” Florian said at one point, pressing the heels of her hands over her eyes in despair. “Except with seasickness.”

  And they still had more to search.

  At one point Giliead halted abruptly, turned, and led them through a foyer packed with stacked tables and chairs to a pair of embossed leather doors. He stopped with one hand on the bronze handles, looking down at Tremaine expectantly.

  Her mouth quirked. This was the main ballroom, one of the largest chambers in the ship, and she knew what had drawn Giliead here. “The spell circle is in this room. It’s harmless without the sphere to make it work.” She sorted through the keys and unlocked the door.

  The dark wood paneling and red velvet drapes, the unlit crystal sconces made the large space rich and shadowy, like a treasure cave. There was a stage at the far end for use when the room doubled as a musical theater, and all the tables and chairs had been stacked out in the foyer.

  The circle had been permanently painted onto the marble tile, and it was much larger than the one that had been placed in the boathouse at Port Rel or the first one Tremaine had seen in the Viller Institute’s old quarters. It enclosed most of the long rectangular room, leaving only a few feet of space along the walls. Little ward signs circled the enameled red support pillars to exclude them from transport when the spell was initiated for someone within the circle. Extending the spell’s parameters outward was what allowed a sorcerer with a sphere to send the entire ship through the world-gate.

  Florian was watching Giliead’s rapt expression curiously. “What does it feel like?”

  “It’s waiting,” he said slowly. “There’s nothing in it now, but it smells of curses. The curses come into it from everywhere, they’re attached to it by little lines of light.” He looked down at Ilias, one brow lifted.

  Ilias gave an exaggerated shudder. “I’m glad I didn’t know that before. Let’s go.”

  It was dark outside and blackout conditions were in effect in all the outer rooms of the ship when Giliead called a reluctant halt. They went back up to the deck just below the main hall, to the foyer with the four openings to the major cabin corridors. The steward’s office was closed, no light showing through the etched-glass windows. There was a doorway open to a small bar lounge, but the windows were covered with thick curtains and the light in the foyer was limited to one small table lamp.

  Tremaine leaned on the stair’s cherrywood banister, wishing she could live without feet. “You going back to your cabin?” she asked Florian around a yawn.

  “Yes, I think I can use some sleep.” Florian rubbed her eyes wearily. “If I can get any. I’ve got two roommates. One’s very beau monde, and she lost her fiancé early in the war, the other’s older, but she lost her husband only a few months ago.” She gave Tremaine a bleak look. “They think I’m too lucky.”

  Tremaine rolled her eyes. “Tragedy doesn’t prevent people from being bastards, does it?”

  “No.” Florian snorted in helpless amusement, then had to lean against the paneled wall to steady herself. “I think we’ve come up with a new motto for the ship’s banner.”

  “It’s better than ‘drowning’s not such a bad way to go.’ If you need a place to sleep, you can come to our cabin.”

  “You have a lot of people in there already, and I can handle this.” She smiled. “But thanks.”

  Tremaine watched her go down the hall, and turned, yawning again, to find that Ilias and Giliead had vanished. She swore wearily. But after a moment she heard a thump and a strangled yelp.

  Oh, fine. She started do
wn the corridor cautiously, hugging the wall. Now they find something.

  Suddenly Giliead bolted out of a room several doors down, skidded to an abrupt halt, his head cocked to listen. Then he took long strides to another door on the far side of the corridor, paused at the entrance, and slipped inside.

  Swearing silently to herself, Tremaine advanced, trying to put her feet down quietly. When Ilias stepped out of the narrow cross corridor, she jumped a foot in the air.

  Intent on something else, Ilias barely glanced at her. Motioning for her to follow him, he stepped silently to the doorway Giliead had vanished into.

  Her heart pounding, Tremaine poked her head into the unlit room cautiously. It was a children’s playroom, the walls painted with a jungle scene filled with parrots, flamingos, dancing bears and penguins and other unlikely combinations of animals, the colors dim in the shadows. The toys were long gone but the low wooden cabinets that had held them still lined the far wall.

  Giliead was sitting on his heels in the middle of the tiled floor, staring into a dark corner. Ilias had moved to the opposite wall, easing down to sit back against it. Before Tremaine could ask what the hell they were doing, she saw the figure crouched in that dark corner.

  Tremaine ducked her head, squinting to see. She thought it was a boy, or a very young man. She could just make out gangly legs in faded blue trousers and a bare ankle above a scuffed rubber-soled shoe, a bare wrist jutting out of a torn white shirt too small for it, the outline of a cap above the shadowed face. “Who’s this?” she asked softly, for some reason feeling compelled to whisper.

  “A shade,” Ilias told her, his voice low but matter-of-fact.

  Tremaine took that in, staring blankly at the figure in the corner. Then she stared blankly at Ilias. “A ghost?”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” He glanced up at her quizzically. “A piece of someone that got left behind?”

  “Uh, yes.” Tremaine took a step into the room and halted abruptly. It was like stepping into a meat freezer. The cold seemed to come up from the floor, as if a yawning cavern opened beneath them instead of a dusty floor tiled with alternating black and white squares. Oh yes, that’s a ghost, she admitted, swallowing in a dry throat. She sidestepped carefully toward Ilias, then crouched down to sit beside him. “What’s Giliead doing?”

  Ilias shifted nearer, his shoulder and arm startlingly warm against hers. “Talking to him.”

  “He was a stowaway,” Giliead said suddenly, making Tremaine flinch. He turned his head toward them, his profile etched against the shadow. “What is that?”

  It took Tremaine a moment to realize he was talking to her. “Someone who sneaks aboard the ship without paying.” She hoped she didn’t sound twitchy. The chill in the dim room, the silence that made even the movement of the ship seem muted, were working on her nerves.

  Giliead nodded slightly, turning back to the silent figure in the corner.

  Keeping his voice low, Ilias explained, “He told Gil he went out on one of the upper decks because he was afraid of being caught, but the wind was bad, and he fell.”

  Tremaine frowned. No one had mentioned a fatal accident. “Just recently? When they left Chaire?”

  “No, it’s been a long time.”

  Giliead said suddenly, “He remembers he doesn’t want to leave the ship, because he thinks it’s safe here.”

  Her skin starting to creep in earnest, Tremaine said softly to Ilias, “So, it’s not dangerous?”

  “Some are, some aren’t.” Ilias shook his head, still watching the creature carefully. “I don’t think this one is.”

  She was willing to believe that. She didn’t want the thing near her, but there was something pathetic about it. “How can Giliead understand him? This is a Rienish ghost, right?”

  “The dead don’t use words,” Giliead answered her again.

  It was mildly disconcerting that he could be so focused on the thing in the corner yet still listen to her and Ilias’s conversation.

  They sat there in silence, moisture from the damp chill air beading on the walls. Giliead let out his breath in a long sigh finally and got to his feet, moving stiffly. Ilias sat up, alert. The ghost stood and scuttled along the wall in the shadows, making toward the door. Tremaine couldn’t hear its footsteps on the carpet as it slipped out. The cold faded almost immediately as warm dry air from the corridor drifted in.

  Ilias pushed to his feet, reaching down to give Tremaine a hand up. “Can we do the rites for it?”

  Giliead shook his head. He looked tired, his face a little drawn, and he stretched, rolling his shoulders as if he had spent time in some cramped space. “He didn’t fall in the water, just onto the deck. They did rites when they found him.” His mouth twisted ruefully. “He doesn’t want to leave the ship.”

  Ilias looked after the ghost, frowning. Tremaine wondered, Does that mean it just stays here forever? Even if the ship sinks? She decided she didn’t want to ask. Then Ilias glanced at Giliead, brows lifted. “So shades can cross seas.” He sounded vindicated about it for some reason.

  Even in the dim light, Tremaine could see an annoyed gleam replace the regret in Giliead’s eyes. “This ship is different.”

  “So what did it say?” she put in, before the sea-crossing tangent could take them further afield. “Did it know anything about the other sorcerer?”

  “It’s seen something,” Giliead admitted, leading the way out and turning down the corridor toward the stairwell again. “It usually stays down in the lower decks, below the waterline. I could tell it’s seen your crew working down there. But whatever it saw…it made it want to leave there. And it couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. It couldn’t show it to me.”

  Tremaine didn’t particularly like the sound of that. “So this is a sorcerer that a ghost can’t recognize as human.”

  “That’s just our luck,” Ilias commented dryly.

  After the ghost incident, Ilias and Giliead went down to the dining hall, which was about to close up for the night. Tremaine was tired enough that food was less important than a bath and headed back to the cabin.

  As she pushed open the broken door, she realized the rooms smelled exotic and foreign now, of strange people and worn leather and the scent of the incense the Syprians stored their clothes in. She hesitated in the foyer, deciding the last thing she needed was a run-in with Pasima. No one was in the main room, but she could hear voices coming from one of the back bedrooms. She tiptoed through to the room where her bag was to dig out the gold shirt from Karima and clean underwear, then made a run for the bathroom and barricaded herself inside.

  Later, Tremaine came out of the bathroom still toweling her hair dry to find Arites waiting to announce, “Ilias brought your dinner and went away again with Giliead.”

  “What?” She wandered after him into the main bedroom to find a tray from the First Class dining room on the marquetry occasional table. She lifted the domed cover to see potato pie, tomato cream soup, and a small coffee service. She sat down on the couch, her stomach rumbling from the smell of sweet onions and cheese. It didn’t surprise her that Ilias knew enough Rienish by now to make someone from the kitchens understand what he wanted, but nonsensically it did embarrass her that he had done this for her. She didn’t want him to think he had to act like a servant. Truthfully, she mainly didn’t want anyone else to think he had to act like a servant. That’s just you being a Vienne snob again, she told herself. Speaking of snobs, she could just imagine how Ander would comment on it. She set the cover aside on the floor. “Arites, did Ilias eat already?”

  He dropped into the armchair opposite her, shrugging genially and pulling a sheaf of ragged paper out of his bag. “I don’t know.”

  It occurred to Tremaine that she was supposed to be the head of this little family group. “What about everybody else?”

  “I did. I don’t know about anyone else.” Arites arranged his ink bottle and pens on the smoking table.

  Tremaine tasted the potato pi
e. Now she knew why the food at Port Rel had always been so terrible; all the good provisions must have been diverted onto the Ravenna. “Where are they? All the Andriens, I mean.”

  “I don’t know where Ilias and Giliead went. Gyan is with Pasima and Ander, speaking to some of your people. I think one of them was named Avil-something.” Arites considered a moment. “Avil-er.”

  Oh, goody, Tremaine thought dryly, pouring herself coffee. At least Gyan was there to watch out for Andrien interests, anyway.

  Arites smoothed a rough sheet of thick paper. “And Kias is with his girlfriend.”

  Tremaine choked on her coffee. “His what?”

  “He met a woman last night. I don’t know her name. She’s Rienish.”

  Of course. That’s why he and Arites were roaming the ship all night. It sounded like Ilias’s decision to marry a foreigner might not be as unpopular as Visolela had feared, especially with single men of poor families. “He can’t speak Rienish,” she pointed out.

  “I know.” Arites nodded earnestly. “But it didn’t seem to matter.”

  This…sounds like someone else’s problem. “He’s a fast worker,” she commented with a lifted brow, setting her cup down.

  After a moment she was aware of Arites watching her thoughtfully. Finally, he asked, “How did you know those men were thieves? To me, and to Florian too, they looked no different than anyone else passing through the hall.”

  Tremaine hesitated, trying to think how to frame a response. She could put it down to a misspent youth in the poets and artists’ cafés and the theater world, which tended to share boundaries with the older, darker and poorer areas of the city where such men were common. But that wasn’t the truth. “After my mother died, my father took me on walks through the city, and then questioned me afterward on what I thought of the people we saw.” At the time she had been used to Arisilde’s undemanding guardianship, and it had seemed just an annoyance; later she realized that Nicholas had been showing her what danger signs to look for and how to listen to her instincts. “I didn’t know it at the time, but he was teaching me how to see the difference between men like that and men who are just minding their own business.”