“Who can know the mind of a Goddess? The priesthood is doing all we can to soothe Her back into a deep sleep,” the priest said irritably. “She began to rouse because the power failed. If you wish to blame someone, blame the Elect.”
Dorotea blamed the priests and the Elect and the Goddess. Most of all she blamed herself for taking the tunnel that day.
As penance, she insisted on taking a turn sitting vigil by her sister’s side during the long hours of False Night. The Elect healer had claimed Marta might be able to hear them, even if she couldn’t respond. So Dorotea held Marta’s hand and talked to her. Reassured her that she was safe, not lost in the dark of the tunnel with the gargoyles.
And then it happened again. Another blackout.
Dorotea froze, fearing another quake would follow, but all was still around her. Perhaps she was the only one awake in the cavern to even notice that the few lights of False Night had winked out. She waited, hardly daring to breathe, as the minutes stretched out.
In the limitless black, it felt like eternity but was probably more like twenty minutes before the guidelights flickered back to life. Certainly less time had passed than the two hours it had taken the Elect to fix the problem the first time, but Dorotea couldn’t take too much heart. A second blackout so soon after the first was a bad sign.
She licked her lips and resumed her quiet one-sided conversation with Marta. As her mind grew fuzzy with fatigue, Dorotea started to ramble, more thinking aloud than talking to her sister.
“The priest all but admitted they can’t even communicate with the Goddess. But it used to be possible in the old tales,” she murmured. When had the ability been lost?
The Goddess had been sleeping for as long as Dorotea could remember. The Goddess’s body encompassed all of Below, but Her face was visible in Cathedral Cavern. Her stone eyes had always remained closed, even on feast days. To a Goddess, a year was a mere blink of an eye. Guarding Her while She slept was part of the priesthood’s duties. At least so Dorotea had thought. But the priest had spoken as if waking the Goddess was a bad thing instead of a joyous occasion. As if they feared what She might do.
What if the priests weren’t guarding Her sleep, but deliberately keeping Her from waking?
It didn’t make sense. The priests and priestesses taught that the Goddess was merciful and benevolent. She had saved humanity when the terrible sandstorms consumed all life Above. So why was She so angry that She now caused earthquakes even in Her sleep?
If only they could talk to Her…
Dorotea’s head ached. Her thoughts felt thick and slow. This wasn’t getting her anywhere, and she was supposed to be talking to Marta. “How about a story?” Forcing cheer into her voice, she launched into her childhood favorite, the legend of how the Stone Heart Clan saved humanity when the sandstorms destroyed the world Above. Her father’s version was slightly different from the priests, emphasizing his clan’s proud contribution.
“…And the gargoyles asked the Goddess to shelter their friends, the Stone Hearts. And the Goddess took pity on them and opened up Her caverns.”
Dorotea’s jaw dropped, her heart suddenly hammering. The gargoyles asked the Goddess. The gargoyles, being made of Stone, had a special ability to communicate with Her. They could find out why She was angry. They could ask the Goddess to heal Marta.
And that was when Dorotea began to think the unthinkable.
Chapter Two
Courier—
In Which Audrey Falls into Disgrace, After Avoiding a Fall of a More Serious Nature
Air World
Audrey studied her half brother’s pale face, torn between sympathy and impatience. “You have to tell him.”
He grimaced. “I know, I know, it’s just—” Grady ground to a halt both verbally and physically in the middle of the cramped airship corridor. “How can I? He’s the Admiral.”
“And you don’t want to disappoint him. I know. But—”
“No, you don’t know.” He rounded on her, expression fierce under his mop of red hair. “You can’t know. You’re not his son, or his bastard.”
Audrey recoiled. Not from the indelicate word—she knew quite well what bastard meant and had for years—but from Grady’s anger. Hurt arrowed through her. Her three-years-younger half brother was also her best friend.
Her mother would be horrified to learn that she’d ever so much as spoken to Grady.
She stared down at her gloves. “I’m well aware that I’m just a useless daughter. You know I’d give anything to be in your place.”
“I’m sorry, Audrey.” He touched her elbow. “But I can’t tell him. Most noblemen don’t acknowledge their by-blows. This posting is the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I can’t risk jeopardizing it.”
His lower-tier mother and half siblings depended on his meager salary as a midshipman.
“Fine,” Audrey said. “You can’t tell him. So what are you going to do?”
His face paled again, turning almost chalk-white in contrast to his red hair and freckles. “Deliver the message. It must be important if he’s sending it by courier so I’ll just…do it. Somehow.”
Audrey swallowed her skepticism. Grady needed confidence right now, not doubt. “How can I help?”
He smiled tightly. “Just keep me company.”
“Of course.” There wasn’t much else she could do. Audrey had already asked Zephyr, the Harding family wind, to watch over him.
They went aft down the swaying corridor. Grady slid down the pole to the lowest deck of the airship while Audrey climbed down the ladder-like stairs in her heavy skirts. The deck was open to the wind and deserted. A row of cabinets lined one wall.
Grady pulled a green flight suit on over his uniform and donned a leather harness studded with carabiners. He strapped the message tube to his chest and signed out a grappler-gun. Audrey helped him untangle the rope ladder. He opened the round hatch—and stopped.
They were still traveling in formation: a patrol of five dirigible-class and one zeppelin-class airships and three merchant ships. The HMS Artemis would soon detach to take on escort duties to the convoy while the rest of the patrol turned back at the edge of Donlon territory. Right now, Artemis underflew the HMS Queen Winifred. Its 150-foot oblong balloon envelope was dwarfed by the shadow cast by the larger flagship’s 500-foot blimp. The rope ladder would bring Grady close, followed by an easy drop of fifteen feet.
But if a wind gust caught the ladder at the wrong time and he missed the Artemis, it was three thousand feet straight down. A death sentence three times over, once from the fall, once from the poisonous white fog that covered the marshy ground below, and a third time from starvation being lost so far from civilization.
Grady stumbled back. “I can’t—I just can’t,” he wheezed. Sweat darkened his red hair.
Audrey patted his back sympathetically.
“How can I be afraid of heights?” he asked miserably. “I’m his son.”
And Admiral Harding had one of the strongest long-winded talents in Donlon. Combined with his noble station, the ability to Call the winds to do his bidding and thus direct an airship had earned him command of Donlon’s Fleet.
Grady hadn’t received the long-winded gift. Ironically, Audrey, the unimportant daughter, had.
“Just tell him. He’ll find you another post, I promise,” Audrey said, exasperated. “You’re his son.”
“His bastard, you mean.” Grady shook his head. “Even if he does find me another post, it’ll never be as good as this one. An apprenticeship with a butcher doesn’t have the same prospects for a commoner as the navy.”
“But you’re scared of heights,” she protested. “Is this really a career you want to pursue?”
Grady shook his head, stubborn as a goat. “I’m good at navigating, best in my class. And navigators work in the pilot house behind glass windows. I like flying well enough, as long as there’s something solid under my feet.”
Unwilling sympathy rose. She could see
that he’d given this a lot of thought.
He approached the hatch again. “Push me out. If I close my eyes…”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Audrey said shortly. “You’ll hit your head or break your arm.” And fall to his death. She straightened and held out her hand. “Give me the message. I’ll do it. I’ll play courier.” Excitement fizzed and bubbled inside her. She’d always wanted to fly the Grand Current.
The Grand Current was the biggest wind in existence, a half-mile-wide river of air that wrapped around the world like a belt. It flowed from Donlon’s lonely mountain to Sipar and the other countries on the continent. Without its swift, strong winds to shorten flight times, Donlon would have been an uninhabitable rock, an island in the vast sea of marshes, too far from the grain fields of the continent to survive. With it, Donlon’s long-winded captains had the best navy and merchant marine in the world.
Grady protested, of course. She was a girl and an untrained civilian. It was dangerous. She shot down his arguments. She’d spent more time on airships than he had, the wind didn’t care about her gender, and she was older than he was, seventeen to his fourteen.
While Grady guarded the stairs, she shucked off her dress and petticoats, stuffed them in the cabinet, and pulled the bright green flight suit overtop her chemise. Then the harness.
The suit had been too big on Grady. On her it was tight, squashing her breasts flat and showing two inches of ankle. Audrey slung the courier pouch across her chest to disguise her breasts. She studied her reflection in the back of a brass wind gauge. Except for her hair, she looked like a boy!
Removing the military-issue knife from the holster attached to the harness, she fanned out the blades until she found the scissor attachment. Without giving herself time to think about it, she sheared off her hair. The wind blew the loose curls overboard. Mother would be horrified, of course, but Audrey had been dying to try out the new style anyway.
Dismay threatened when she finished—her hair looked nothing like the cap of bobbed curls popular with the stylish set. She did, however, look more like a boy—a ragged, beanpole of a boy. She lifted her chin defiantly. Her hair would grow out eventually.
Grady gaped at her when she called him back down. “What did you do?”
“It’s the latest fashion,” she told him haughtily. She picked up the end of the rope ladder and fastened two carabiners to the third lowest rung.
“The latest style is looking like you’ve a mop on your head?” he asked. “I’ll never understand you noble folk.”
Audrey glared at him. “Do you want my help or not?”
He groaned. “This is such a bad idea.”
“No, it isn’t.” She put on her goggles. Hers were a ladies’ pair, with oval rather than round lenses, but shouldn’t attract too much notice.
He blocked her way. “This is crazy. I can’t let you do this. If he finds out, the Admiral will kill me.”
Audrey felt a spurt of panic. “Don’t funk out on me now!” Couldn’t he see that she wanted to do this? Craved the adventure?
If she’d been born a boy, this would have been her midshipman posting, her job. Determination flooded her. She would never get a chance like this again.
Grady stood determinedly on top of the hatch, preventing her from unlatching it and using the rope ladder. She backed up and assumed a hangdog look. “But I cut my hair!”
Grady winced. “I didn’t know you were going to do that. It was cowardly of me to agree to this, but it would be even more cowardly if I let you do this.” His chin lifted. “I’ll deliver the message.”
While he spoke, she had continued backing away until she was leaning against the deck wall. It reached her hips but was open above it. The breeze tugged her short hair and whispered in her ear as if urging her on. She glanced over the edge and saw that the currents had pushed The Artemis slightly to the east. It was no longer centered directly below them.
The Grand Current wrapped around both ships, but there were smaller eddies and subcurrents within the half-mile-wide river of air. Navigating them took talent.
Grady would have had to call the bridge for a course correction, but she could still make it, because the winds favored her.
Grady held out his hand. “Give me the message tube.” His lips were colorless, pressed together in a thin line. He’d rather die trying to be a courier than admit to their father that he lacked the family talent.
Boys could be so stupid.
“No.” She grabbed the bottom of the rope ladder, to which she was still latched, and flipped backward over the rail into the huge wind stream.
The Grand Current immediately caught and buffeted her, blowing her out behind the flagship at the end of the rope ladder like a long tail. Her arms lost their grip, and her harness jerked, but the carabiners held, arresting her fall.
She grabbed hold of the sides again and made a seat of the bottom rung of the ladder. Audrey allowed herself to glory in the thrill of swinging on it for a few minutes before getting on with the business of playing courier.
Because she’d gone over the rail instead of through the hatch, she was off-center, and the ladder didn’t dangle down as far. She couldn’t simply drop from where she was.
She Called the wind. “Zephyr, heed my voice and answer.”
A medium-strong breeze answered at once. Audrey wasn’t allowed to Call the more powerful winds, but her father had taught her how to Call Zephyr years ago.
The friendly Air spirit swooped and swirled around her.
Air spirits were ageless, but Zephyr always reminded Audrey of a mischievous child. Despite that, the wind was generally reliable, a good choice for passing messages, though she would wander off if bored.
“Are you playing a game?” Zephyr tugged at Audrey’s hair.
“Yes, and I need a push. Toward that ship.”
Zephyr obliged, giving her a solid sideways shove toward the Artemis. Audrey let the rope ladder swing out and back in a curving arc, then Called, “Again!” Two more pushes from Zephyr and the ladder was swinging through a dizzying arc. At the end of the arc, the Artemis’s large white balloon lay below Audrey.
She unlatched her harness, waited until the last possible moment, then let go.
Free fall. For a moment, she felt as light as a feather blown in the wind, as free as an unhooded falcon, and her heart soared, but it was an illusion. She weighed considerably more than a feather. She was falling.
The Artemis rushed up at her, too fast.
She missed the top of the smaller dirigible’s balloon envelope and bounced off the pillowy side, falling again before she could latch on.
A spike of fear hit her. This was harder than it looked—and Grady still had the grappler.
Frantically, she Called again. “Zephyr!”
The wind shoved her toward the moving airship. Audrey grabbed a strut and swung jauntily into the basket. Terror and elation made her giddy. Ha! A girl could do a courier’s job.
A tall officer with dark blond hair approached her, handsome in a green uniform. She couldn’t help grinning up at him.
He looked stern. “Cutting it a little close, weren’t you, midshipman?”
Her disguise was working. Audrey dipped her head and struggled to look chastened. “Sorry, sir.” She spoke in a low, hoarse voice. If she was unmasked as a girl, the consequences would be terrible for both her and Grady. She unslung the courier pouch and took out the document tube. “From Admiral Harding to Captain Dennis.”
He didn’t take it. “New to courier duty, are you? Protocol is to hand the message over directly to the addressee.”
Audrey’s face flushed. She should have realized that. Simple orders were conveyed by signal flags; only complex or secret messages were couriered over. Of course such a message would need to be directly handed over.
“Sorry, sir. Uh, where can I find Captain Dennis?” She tried frantically to remember if she’d ever met the man. Admiral Harding often had officers over to dine at their Donl
on townhouse or in the spacious family quarters on board ship. The name sounded familiar. Would he recognize her?
The lieutenant sighed. “On the bridge, of course. Come along. I’ll escort you.”
She lowered her goggles to around her neck and fell into step beside him.
“Any idea what our orders are?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Rumor has it we’re being sent to spy on the Sipars,” he probed. “They’re supposed to be building a fleet of new airships.”
Audrey made a noncommittal noise. In truth, she hadn’t paid much attention to the mutters of looming war between Donlon and Sipar—there were always rumors. For the last ten years, the Siparese Empire had been swallowing up the northern free states one by one. Sipar resented the way the Donlon merchant airships overflew their embargo and continued trading with the embattled nations. But as long as Donlon maintained air superiority thanks to their long-winded air force, there was little Sipar could do except fume.
There was no land route from Sipar to Donlon. Donlon was a lone mountain poking out of the sea of marshes and poison fog. It had begun its life as a way-stop for pirates and had grown over time into a small nation. Its convenient location as the third point in a triangle between Sipar and the northern free states had made it a center of trade.
If war had truly been looming, her father would never have allowed her to join him for this patrol cruise down the Grand Current.
Captain Dennis was older than her father, with white mustaches and a weather-seamed face. She had met him before at least once. She held her breath and proffered the document tube.
Captain Dennis barely glanced at her. He casually unrolled the message and scanned it. “Since you’re here, you might as well take a reply.” Curiously, he already had one penned and ready that he inserted into the document tube and handed to her. “I’ll overfly the Queen Winifrid and have you back aboard in time for supper.”
Audrey let out a little sigh of relief and dutifully followed the handsome lieutenant back to lower deck.
Amid Wind and Stone Page 3