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

by Martha Wells

  Nicholas eased forward, his steps silent on the stone floor. Giliead slipped past Tremaine, moving to flank him. Ilias started to follow but Giliead threw him a look and he shifted to the side instead. Nicholas took note of their movements with a slight turn of his head, but didn’t object. He motioned toward the center partition. It blocked off an area directly under one of the electric lights. Giliead faded back, circling around the wooden walls, and Ilias took the other direction.

  Ilias did a quick tour through his side of the big chamber, peering around the flimsy partitions, quickly checking the shadowy corners. He met Giliead again at the back, near a stone staircase that curved up to meet an opening in the roof. Giliead started up and Ilias hurried in his wake, both of them emerging into wind and darkness. The roof was a huge space, topped with a low parapet wall, but the flying whale that hung above dwarfed it. It might have been his imagination, but the huge shape outlined against the lighter darkness of the sky looked bigger than the other flying whales. The blocky outline of the crew compartments, snugged up against the belly, was much longer and there was a second small compartment hanging below. The boarding ramp was attached to it, stretching down to rest atop a pyramidal stone platform.

  There was no sign of life on the roof, no other structures to conceal a Gardier, and the whale itself had no wizard lights lit inside it. Giliead went to the stone platform, stopping to listen for curses, then climbed the steps and went up the ramp. I can’t believe we’re doing this again, Ilias thought in exasperation. Trusting themselves to one of these things was mad, but it seemed it really was their best way to escape. Giliead reappeared in moments, motioning that it was all clear, and Ilias turned back to the stairs to tell the others.

  Nicholas waited a moment, giving Ilias and Giliead a chance to search the room, then advanced toward the side of the nearest partition where a makeshift door stood open. Tremaine followed, trying to keep her steps quiet.

  As Nicholas moved into the doorway, Tremaine hung back, leaning to see around him. She caught a glimpse of a man seated at a table, the surface spread with pages of intricate diagrams and drawings. Holding them down like paperweights were dozens of crystal shards. Here we go, she thought. This man surely had enough knowledge to make this whole mess worthwhile.

  Ilias returned to her side, softly enough to make her jump, and leaned against her to breathe into her ear. “He’s alone. The flying whale is tethered to a stone platform on the roof.”

  Tremaine saw Nicholas looking back at her with a raised brow. She nodded and he turned, taking the last step through the room’s doorway. Speaking in the Gardier language, he said, “Benin. Working late, I see.”

  The man looked up, startled. “Adram?” Then he saw the pistol in Nicholas’s hand and his face went still. He looked past him, his eyes finding Tremaine and Ilias in the shadows. “What is this?”

  “Sorry to spring this on you, but I’m afraid my status as a Rienish criminal who sought political refuge was a fabrication,” Nicholas told him, cool and just a little amused. “Stand up, please.”

  Arrogant bastard, Tremaine thought, annoyed all over again at his calm. At least he was on their side. She glanced away as Giliead came down the stairs, took in the situation and joined them. He said softly, “I didn’t search the whole thing, but it was all dark, there didn’t seem to be anyone aboard, and there was no curse crystal in the steering cabin.”

  “The airship doesn’t look occupied,” Tremaine translated into Rienish for Nicholas. “And there was no crystal.”

  Nicholas nodded an acknowledgment and asked Benin, “Is there anyone aboard the prototype?”

  “No, my assistants have all gone to rest.” Benin had pushed back his chair and stood, staring at Ilias and Giliead in a kind of aghast curiosity. “What—who are they?”

  “Syprians—partisans acting for Ile-Rien in the staging world,” Nicholas replied easily. “Take that dispatch bag on the floor and begin filling it with those papers, please.” He turned his head slightly to tell Tremaine in Rienish, “Send the others up the stairs to the mooring platform. I suggest you hurry.”

  Tremaine stepped back, waving urgently to Dubos at the door. He started toward them, the others following. Cimarus stopped in the doorway to act as rear guard, but Tremaine was relieved to see Basimi wave him on and take his place. If anyone charged the door, his rifle was going to be of more use than Cimarus’s sword.

  Benin had recovered some aplomb. He picked up the canvas bag and obediently scooped the papers and crystals into it. He eyed Nicholas thoughtfully. “Disar said you were a spy, but…he had no proof.”

  “That’s because I’m a very good spy,” Nicholas assured him.

  Seeming merely curious, Benin asked, “You’re going to kill me?” Tremaine was wondering about that herself.

  “That would be a waste, and if there’s one thing I find admirable about your military regime, it’s the lack of waste.” Nicholas added thoughtfully, “I’m sending you with them. You’ll be well treated if you cooperate, and I suspect you’ll be given full scope for your investigations.”

  Benin met Nicholas’s eyes, as if trying to gauge his sincerity. Good luck with that, Tremaine thought dryly.

  Dubos and Cletia passed behind her, Calit stopping to stare at Benin. Cimarus caught his arm, urging him along. As Molin reached them, Giliead stepped in, sheathing his sword and taking the crystal’s box. He stopped suddenly, his face going still. “Someone’s using a curse.”

  There was nothing in Benin’s hands. “It’s not him,” Tremaine said, realized she had spoken in Syrnaic and hastily added, “Giliead says someone’s using a spell.”

  Nicholas swore, gestured sharply at Benin and told him in Gardier, “We’ve run out of time; move now.”

  Giliead looked toward the inside stairwell. “It’s down there,” he said grimly, starting forward. Tremaine saw that Basimi was just standing there, rifle held limply in one hand. She opened her mouth to say something, to tell them to run, to shout Basimi’s name, then gunfire exploded from the stairwell. Basimi’s body jerked and shuddered, then fell. Frozen, Tremaine saw Giliead dive sideways and started to realize that might be a really good idea when Ilias knocked her down.

  Tremaine sat down hard, already clawing open the knapsack Nicholas had given her as Ilias grabbed the legs of the nearest table and dumped it over, giving them some protection. Bullets split the wood above their heads and Ilias ducked lower. She looked across toward Benin’s work area and saw Giliead pinned down behind another overturned table. Nicholas had ducked inside the partition, but Benin was stretched on the floor, a spray of blood outlining his head. From behind, the loud reports of rifles sounded; Dubos and Molin firing back from the better shelter of the stone stairway.

  Tremaine pulled out an incendiary but everything suddenly went quiet. She looked up, blinking, thinking, What the hell? A mist had settled over the room, turning the electric bulbs into dim yellow blobs. She could barely see Nicholas and Giliead, only a few feet away, and she couldn’t hear any shooting.

  “They’ve got a wizard, of course,” Ilias said with a grimace, trying to look over the top of the table.

  Nicholas had come to the same conclusion. From his position behind the wooden barrier, he said, “Don’t let him see you. If he can’t see you, he can’t cast spells on you.”

  “We know that!” Tremaine snapped. She heard what sounded like Dubos shouting her name, and she yelled back, “Stay down, there’s a sorcerer in here!” Her voice sounded weirdly muffled and there was no answer. She hesitated, looking at the incendiary in her hand. If the mist was somehow solid and she threw this into it, it could bounce right back and kill them all in a highly unpleasant fashion. “Ilias, try to throw something. See if the mist is solid.”

  He glanced around, picked up a broken chair leg, and flung it over the top of the table. It bounced back, hitting the floor behind them with a clatter. He looked at her bleakly. “It’s solid.”

  Tremaine shoved the incen
diary back in the bag with a grimace. “Damn.”

  “Throw down your weapons!” a Gardier voice called from the doorway. “I know you are here, Adram. You killed my last vehicle, but I continue. I followed you here as if you left a trail of light.”

  “Oh, bugger it,” Nicholas muttered, just loud enough for Tremaine to catch.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “The damn thing left Disar and found another host,” he explained, though it still left her baffled. He raised his voice to shout, “If you come any closer, I’ll kill Benin.”

  Tremaine stared at him. We have a dead man for a hostage; how much time is that going to buy us? Then Ilias whispered, sounding horrified, “What the shit is he doing?”

  “I don’t—” Tremaine started to answer, then realized he was staring at Giliead, not Nicholas.

  Giliead, crouched behind the other table, opened the crystal’s container. She saw the crystal bathe his face in light, then he sat up, looking over the top of the table toward the archway.

  Suddenly the Gardier sorcerer cried out and the mist dropped like a curtain, puddling on the floor in puffs of white, then draining away like water. After a moment of shock, gunfire thundered from the archway.

  Tremaine fumbled out an incendiary again, pushed the thingy, pulled the lever, and stood up on her knees to fling it toward the stairwell.

  The impact knocked her backward like a punch from a giant hand. Flat on the ground, she realized the weight atop her was Ilias and the table, the wood shuddering from the impacts of more flying debris. Smoke choked her lungs and she heard the crackle of flame. God, I hope Basimi was as dead as he looked, she thought, sick.

  As Ilias pushed the table aside, she saw the front half of the big room obscured by smoke. Ilias said something she couldn’t hear and she pointed to her ears, shaking her head as she eased to her feet. Surely she would be able to hear gunfire.

  Nicholas, one arm clutched to his side, came to his feet, motioning toward the stairs. He dropped his gun to grab the bag that lay near Benin’s hand. Their companions sprang up from cover and bolted for the stairway, climbing it out of the roiling cloud of smoke, Dubos, Cimarus, Molin hauling Calit by the arm, and Cletia.

  Giliead had closed the crystal’s box and followed Nicholas. Tremaine hung back and Ilias tried to push her up in front of him, but she shook the bag of incendiaries, trying to tell him what she meant to do. He understood, or at least gave her the benefit of the doubt.

  She followed him halfway up the steps, then stopped to arm another incendiary. She dropped it into the bag, flinging the whole thing out into the room, then bolted up the steps to where Ilias waited impatiently. She took a deep breath as they came out into the clean cool night. Following the others, she and Ilias sprinted for the airship.

  Then Tremaine felt the stone paving underfoot quiver as they reached the pyramidal mooring platform. She looked back to see fire blossom out of the stairwell. That may have been a mistake. Ilias tugged her arm impatiently and she followed him up, then across the shuddering metal ramp. The hatch opened directly into a large control cabin, with a ladder in the center to access the rest of the compartments. Looking wildly around, Tremaine saw the same sort of control array as on their other airship. More importantly, the crystal’s case sat open on the floor, and the crystal itself rested in the metal cage suspended above the steering console.

  Giliead and Nicholas were already there and Dubos was at the controls. They were all bloody and bruised and soot-stained but alive. Cimarus and Cletia must have gone up the ladder since there was no room in the small control cabin; Calit’s head appeared in the opening, peering down at them. Molin, waiting by the door, said something to her. Tremaine pointed to her ears and said, “I can’t hear you.” Her voice sounded muffled and strange.

  He mouthed the words, “Where’s Basimi?”

  “He didn’t make it,” she said awkwardly, not knowing how else to phrase it. Saying it that way seemed to diminish the violence, as if he had had an operation and not pulled through. Molin turned abruptly to haul at a lever, making the ramp lift. Tremaine saw Dubos press his lips together and turn back to the wheel. Ilias stood beside her, still holding his sword, watching Giliead uncertainly.

  Nicholas leaned against the ladder, looking weary. His right arm was bleeding. She read his lips as he said, “Anytime, gentlemen.”

  “Now would be good,” Tremaine translated into Syrnaic for Giliead.

  He looked back at her, his face etched with strain. He’s not going to be able to do it, she thought, heart sinking. He looked sick.

  Then she felt the deck jerk under her feet. The gondola filled with daylight, the port opening onto a view of brilliant blue sky.

  Chapter 22

  I’m beginning to believe this is as bad an idea as it sounds, Florian thought sourly. She was crouched in the semidark of a storage room not far from Ixion’s prison. The room was warm and dank and had a lingering scent of both fuel oil and onions, which she hoped was just coming through the rattling air vent and not an indication of what had once been kept here. She had cast a concealment charm on herself to avoid anyone’s notice.

  She had waited for most of yesterday without any result except sore knees. She shifted, wincing, again grimly entertaining the suspicion that this was Ixion’s idea of amusement. She had reasoned at first that he must be telling the truth, since no one had told him about the events in the Isolation Ward and the hospital. Gerard hadn’t been convinced by this theory, however.

  “Florian, I’m sorry,” he had said, taking off his spectacles and resting his head in his hands. They were in his quarters and he was seated at the little desk, which was overflowing with books and papers. They had sailed away from the Walls that morning, with the new Gardier prisoners ensconced in the Isolation Ward, even more carefully warded and guarded than before. She knew Gerard felt that responsibility heavily. And Niles still hadn’t gotten much usable information out of either the new prisoners or the Gardier woman. “But surely you realize Ixion is not to be trusted.” Gerard sounded as if he was at the limit of his patience.

  “Yes, I do realize that, but I think he’s genuinely worried about this.” Florian paced, since there wasn’t a place to sit down for all the scrying bowls. “He’s trapped where this thing can get to him and we’re his only hope for doing something about it.”

  Gerard lifted his head. He had looked exhausted for a long time, but now he looked ill, his eyes sunken and his cheeks hollow. “I’m afraid I don’t believe this ‘thing’ exists anymore,” he said grimly. “Ixion knows Giliead is no longer on the ship; he’s simply trying to maneuver us into releasing him.”

  “But what if he’s not?” Florian threw her arms in the air, frustrated. “What if it wasn’t just a construct that you and the sphere destroyed, what if Tremaine was right, and there is a second one? Or the sorcerer who created the construct is on the ship too?”

  “I’m afraid Ixion’s word isn’t good enough,” he snapped.

  Florian controlled her irritation with effort; she knew Gerard was blaming himself for what had happened at the Wall Port, but she didn’t seem to be able to do anything about that, either. She stopped beside the scrying bowl that held a brass grommet from one of Tremaine’s boots. Even to Florian’s untutored eyes, she could see the bowl held no images. Gerard had argued for using the sphere to take one of the Ravenna’s launches back to Ile-Rien’s world, to see if the airship was trapped there. But the same reasons applied, there was still too much Gardier activity for a lengthy search in the Maiutan archipelago, the place that occupied the Wall Port region in their own world. “No luck?” she asked softly, already knowing the answer. Scrying spells didn’t work over long distances, and it was especially doubtful that they would work across the barriers between worlds.

  Gerard’s mouth twisted and he looked away. “Nothing.”

  Florian hesitated, her fingers resting on the scrying bowl’s rim. “One day,” she said. “That’s all. Just in case
it’s true.”

  Gerard was silent for a long moment, then he had shaken his head, smiling bitterly. “What else have we got to do?”

  During her long watch this morning it had belatedly occurred to Florian that Ixion had said himself that he could hear his guards’ conversation. If they had talked about the incident in the hospital, he would know everything he needed to make his story convincing. Tremaine would have thought of that. She rubbed her aching eyes. God, I wish I knew where they were.

  This airship was considerably bigger than their last one; Tremaine supposed it would make a much bigger explosion when they crashed it too.

  They searched it for stray Gardier first, climbing up the ladder from the suspended control cabin to where a series of compartments held the engines, the fuel tanks and large spaces for freight and bomb storage. It wasn’t much different from the other airships, though everything was on a larger scale. Another ladder led up to a second level with more crew areas, or so Nicholas said; Tremaine hadn’t been up there yet. Toward the bow they found the compartment that held the spell circle.

  This was the only compartment that didn’t have the cork matting on the deck; Tremaine sat on her heels to examine the symbols painted in black on the bare metal. The Gardier circle she had seen on the Isle of Storms base had had a holder for a large crystal in the center; this one didn’t. Nicholas was right, she thought with a frown. It’s just like the Ravenna’s circle. Dommen and the other Rienish who had spied for the Gardier at Port Rel must have passed on the idea to place the circle on a large ship, giving it the ability to move between worlds at will. Do the bastards have to steal everything?

  “Are we sure the crystal took us to the right place?” Molin wondered, coming to stand beside Tremaine. She was relieved his voice sounded mostly normal to her now; her ears were still ringing a little from the explosion, and with the buzz of the airship’s engines, it was hard to tell how affected her hearing still was.