Emilie & the Hollow World

by Martha Wells

  “When did you overhear this?” Barshion asked, still watching her skeptically.

  “When you were in that lounge with the porcelain stove. I was in the steward's cubby,” Emilie said, glad she was able to prove it. She was a runaway, not a liar.

  “Oh, yes.” Barshion sat back with a sigh. “We did discuss it there. And only someone who was hiding in the steward's cupboard would know that.”

  Mollified, Emilie felt the tension in her shoulders relax. At least Barshion was willing to admit that she was telling the truth. And she really didn't want to talk about herself anymore. She looked at Kenar, reminded of all the questions she wanted ask him. “Are all the people down in the Hollow World like you?”

  “No,” Kenar said, absently, looking past Emilie and Miss Marlende, at the port. “The Cirathi are explorers, traders. We travel far, and see many different places and kinds of people. We learn languages with great speed, compared to others; I learned Menaen from Dr. Marlende and Jerom and the rest of their crew, before coming here.” His voice turning wry, he added, “Lord Engal finds that suspicious.”

  Miss Marlende said wearily, “Sometimes I think he finds everything suspicious.”

  She was looking out the port too, and Emilie turned and saw the water beyond the rail was now dark as pitch, impenetrable by the ship's lights. There was nothing out there to betray that they were traveling through water, not even bubbles. A shudder crept up Emilie's spine. They must be very deep underwater, already, and some distance out to sea. And we're going even deeper.

  Dr. Barshion stood, moving to the port. With a trace of concern in his voice, he said, “The bubble seems to be holding.”

  “Seems?” Miss Marlende lifted her brows. “If it wasn't, I think we'd know by now.”

  Emilie realized the faint sensation of falling, and of forward motion, had ceased. “It doesn't feel like we're going down,” she said. But it was growing colder in the cabin, and moisture trickled down the inside of the port.

  “The bubble - the spell protecting the ship and allowing us to breathe - compensates, so we don't feel the weight of the water above us,” Barshion told her.

  “Or we'd be crushed like an egg,” Miss Marlende explained.

  Emilie nodded. She hadn't thought about the weight of water before, except when she was trying to carry it in a bucket, but now it seemed obvious that all that water above them must be very heavy. Heavy enough to bend or break metal and glass. “How will we get to the Hollow World, again?”

  “There are fissures in the sea floor,” Miss Marlende said, her face thoughtful. “Deep ones that lead all the way through, connecting the outer layer of the world with the inner. Passing through them would be impossible, of course, except within the aether currents.”

  “Most of this, of course,” Dr. Barshion said dryly, “Is theoretical.”

  Kenar snorted quietly. Apparently it wasn't theoretical for him. “But Dr. Marlende did it, didn't he?” Emilie said.

  “My father took a different route,” Miss Marlende told her. “He used an airship, and went down through the extinct cauldron of Mount Tovera, on the island of Aerinterre. Kenar took the same route up. The trip has never been made by sea, before.”

  That wasn't encouraging. Emilie was still having trouble believing she was here. It had all happened so fast. She asked Kenar, “But why did you come here? I mean, I know it was to get help for Dr. Marlende, but why...? It must be a long way.”

  Kenar said, “I owed him a favor.” He turned away from the port and said, “So why does a young girl of good family from the country flee her home?”

  Emilie thought, Uh oh. The others hadn't bothered to ask, so she had been hoping to avoid the subject entirely. “I wasn't fleeing,” she said, to buy time. It was a complete lie, she had been fleeing, but the last thing she wanted to do was explain why.

  She was saved from further questioning by Dr. Barshion, who said in frustration, “There must be some word by now...”

  He went to the door and opened it, and began to interrogate the guard about where everyone was and what was happening. Miss Marlende moved closer to listen, then turned away, muttering to herself in a disgruntled fashion. She said, “It sounds as if we'll be here for a while. They think there might still be some intruders on the ship.” She walked back to the drinks cabinet, frowning at it. “I'm desperate for tea.”

  “The steward's cubby should have a tap and a gas ring,” Emilie said, glad to show that she was a little useful. She didn't know much about aetheric magic, but she could do tea. “We can make some, if there's any here.”

  Miss Marlende went to ransack the cabinets in the cubby, while Dr. Barshion argued with the guard, Kenar watched the dark water, and Emilie found some mugs and tried to get over the strangeness of doing something so normal in the oddest place in the world.

  Emilie made tea, which everyone drank but Kenar, and waited. Miss Marlende and Dr. Barshion talked about aetheric currents in technical detail, with Kenar joining in occasionally. Emilie tried to listen, because some of it was interesting, but it had been a long hard day, and the couch was soft and comfortable. After a time, she drifted off to sleep.

  She woke abruptly when the deck shuddered, a vibration that traveled up through the couch and rattled Emilie's bones. She sat up, startled wide awake. “What was that?” The wall clock said she had been asleep almost three hours.

  The others were sitting bolt upright, frozen, listening hard. Staring out the port at the bubble, Dr. Barshion said, “I don't know. It's not a terribly good sign.”

  Head cocked to listen, Kenar said, “We hit something?”

  “I don't think so.” Frowning anxiously, Miss Marlende added, “Perhaps it's just an aberration in the flow-”

  The deck shuddered again, more violently, and Emilie's heart dropped to her stomach. She swallowed hard, very aware again of the water pressing in on their fragile bubble. Dr. Barshion strode to the door and pulled it open. The sailor-guard was braced against the wall, looking uneasy. Dr. Barshion said, “I must be allowed to go to the engine rooms. If there is some sort of interruption to the aether current-”

  The sailor was saved from the decision to disobey his orders by a thunderous shout from the other end of the corridor. “Barshion!” Lord Engal demanded, “Where the hell are you?”

  “Here!” Dr. Barshion stepped out.

  “Come along, we've got a problem!”

  Barshion hurried away, Miss Marlende and Kenar right behind him. Emilie followed, having no intention of being left behind.

  Lord Engal led them down the first stairwell, saying, “Abendle doesn't believe the problem is in the protective spells, but in the motile itself.”

  Barshion said, “By 'problem' he means...?”

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Engal glanced up at him, his face grim. “He thinks it's not getting enough power from the conventional engines.”

  “What's the motile?” Emilie said, keeping her voice low. Her knowledge of the interior workings of steamers ended at Lord Rohiro's fictional pirate ships.

  With an impatient glance at her, Miss Marlende replied, “The motile is the engine that my father invented. It lets us travel in the aether by taking in the aetheric stream and expelling it for locomotive power. The aether helps protect the ship from the pressures and forces outside the current, as we travel through the fissure.”

  The sound of clanging, banging, and the chug of the engines grew louder until they reached a lower deck with a stained metal floor, low ceilings, and warm damp air. Lord Engal turned down a corridor and led them past several metal hatches. Passing one, Emilie got a glimpse of a room filled with mist and smelling thickly of wet earth and green plants. She stopped, startled, peering inside. All she could see were clusters of white things like balloons, or like stuffed sheep's bladders. An older crewman in a disheveled uniform was poking one with a dubious expression. The others were leaving her behind and she hurried after them, asking Kenar, “What's that room for?”

&n
bsp; “It's part of the spell that cleans the air inside the bubble,” he said over his shoulder. “I don't know how it works, either.”

  The air was growing warmer, and, from the clanging and chugging that seemed to be coming from the deck below them, Emilie thought they must be just above the boiler room. Then they came to an open hatch. Dr. Barshion and Miss Marlende followed Lord Engal inside, but Emilie stopped on the threshold with Kenar.

  The cabin was filled with big pipes and tubing, all connected to a round plinth in the center with a large copper dome atop it. Dials and knobs surrounded the base of the plinth, and two crewmen stood there, tools scattered on the floor around them, pointing to the dials, arguing. They stopped as Engal stepped inside. “Any luck, Abendle?” Engal asked.

  “No, My Lord.” The man who answered was Southern Menaen also, with grizzled dark hair and deep lines in his face. Both crewmen looked sweaty and exhausted, as if they had been battling something down here for the past hour. “The adjustments didn't help. I don't know-”

  His voice tense, Dr. Barshion said, “Open the cover, please.”

  As the younger crewman lifted the copper dome, misty steam filled the room, though Emilie couldn't tell the source. Under the dome was a glass ball, and floating inside it was a bubble of silvery white light. Emilie leaned forward, squinting to see. It wasn't a light, it was a liquid. She could tell from the way it moved. It had an opalescent quality to it, as if it were a liquid drop of pearl. Blue light crackled under the glass, like a miniature lightning strike, and Emilie flinched.

  So did everyone else. Miss Marlende said grimly, “That shouldn't be happening.”

  “What is it?” Emilie whispered to Kenar.

  “It's quickaether,” he told her softly. “It powers the motile, and the other spells the ship needs to travel the aether currents.”

  The crackling light inside the glass flickered suddenly. The deck shuddered in response and the ship around them groaned. Emilie swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. That couldn't be good, she thought. The ship sounded as if it was strained nearly past bearing.

  Barshion checked all the dials, spoke quietly to the older crewman Abendle, and turned some of the knobs. Then he stepped back from the plinth. His expression wasn't encouraging.

  Watching him worriedly, Lord Engal said, “You look blank. I'd like to believe that's a clever ploy to frighten me right before you tell me that of course you know how to fix it.”

  Barshion shook his head, baffled. “I don't understand what's wrong- All the spell's parameters are correct, but the engine is still failing.”

  Miss Marlende took a sharp breath. “Then we've got to surface. How close to the boundary are we?”

  Engal said, “We've just passed it. We entered the fissure just off the coast and the current's carried us through, just as we theorized.”

  Kenar didn't seem surprised, but Dr. Barshion and Miss Marlende stared at Engal. “You didn't inform us,” Barshion said, startled and angry. “If you-”

  “I was rather busy; we had three dock-raiders holding out in the forward hold who decided to fight to the death.” Engal lifted his brows. “We may be past the boundary, but we're still some distance from your father's last known position. I estimate several more hours of travel, at least. If we leave the current now-”

  “But we can surface, that's the important point,” Miss Marlende said urgently.

  Barshion waved an impatient hand. “I don't think we have a choice. It's either surface intact, now, or surface later as a smashed mass of metal.”

  Engal nodded sharply. “Then we'll surface now.”

  Emilie and Kenar stepped hastily out of the way as Lord Engal plunged out of the cabin and back down the corridor. Dr. Barshion stayed behind, but Miss Marlende dashed after Lord Engal, her boot heels tapping on the metal floor. Kenar followed her and Emilie hurried after him. Boundary, fissure, surface, she thought. It couldn't mean what it sounded like. Except that it couldn't mean anything else. She asked, “We're not going back up, back to the harbor, are we? We're already there, in the center of the world? That's what the black water meant?”

  “Yes.” He sounded more relieved than worried, and she remembered they were going toward his home.

  “But so fast...” She had thought it would take days.

  “The aether currents move through water and air at a pace faster than anything could travel without magic.” He threw a quick glance down at her. “But we're here sooner than I expected. It must have something to do with the sea.”

  She meant to ask him if it had been a long journey for him, flying up through the volcano, but Engal was already pounding back up the stairs and Emilie had no breath to talk.

  They hurried after him, forward down a passage, passing a couple of short corridors lined with cabin doors. Everything was as rich as the lounge areas: fine wood, polished brass. They went up a set of stairs to the bridge, to a passage that opened directly into a chartroom. There was a big table in the center, and large cabinets for maps against the walls.

  Four crewmen were there, all in the black livery. The oldest man looked up, frowning. It was the officer who had ordered Kenar off the deck and sent him to be confined in the lounge. He said, “Lord Engal, are we-”

  “We're going to surface, Captain Belden, prepare the crew,” Engal said, moving past the crewmen into the wheelhouse.

  The wheelhouse had a curved outer wall, with large ports all along it, now looking out on the black water. There was also a brass-bound wheel, a speaking tube, and an engine telegraph, for transmitting the captain's commands to the men in the engine rooms. In the center was a waist-high cabinet of polished wood, the top formed out of a heavy glass hexagon. Beneath the glass, something was glowing with a faint silver light. Engal stepped to it and carefully lifted off the top. Emilie edged closer, and saw that there were metal plates inside, rings and wheels, something like an astrolabe. He made a minute adjustment, and Emilie felt a sudden push upward, as if the deck was moving up under her feet. She stumbled, sudden vertigo making her head swim.

  Kenar and Miss Marlende went to the railing at the front of the wheelhouse. In the chartroom the captain was frantically giving orders to secure the hatches, batten down this and that.

  The water was growing lighter, and Emilie made out the shapes of rock, like a cliff face, a short distance off their bow. She gasped, suddenly realizing just how fast they were moving. Faster than the fastest train, as fast as falling down a cliff, only in reverse. It was the most exhilarating sensation, like how she had imagined flying.

  Then the rock fell away and the light was turning blue-green, coloring everything inside the wheelhouse. The ship was moving up through something that looked like an underwater forest, tall stalks of frilly seaweed bending away from their bow and the bubble of magic protecting it. Emilie moved along the port, fascinated, watching the quicksilver flashes as fish raced away from the intrusion.

  She could tell the ship was slowing down; bubbles rushed up past the ports as they left the seaweed forest behind. Emilie felt the deck push at her feet again, as if the ship had been lifted on a wave. Her heart pounding, she stepped forward to grab the rail.

  A bell rang somewhere in the depths of the ship and Captain Belden took the speaking tube, saying, “All hands, brace for surfacing.”

  And then the ship rolled over onto its side. Some people staggered, but no one fell. Emilie held onto the rail, gritting her teeth against the urge to scream. Water rushed past outside, the whole ship bobbed upright like a wooden toy in a pond, and Emilie wished she hadn't eaten that sausage roll back at the tap house. But then the motion gentled, and they were floating on fairly low waves. Emilie stared out the port, but couldn't see anything past the golden bubble.

  “We did it,” Miss Marlende said, awe in her voice.

  Kenar let out his breath in a hiss, then leaned on the railing. His shoulders slumped in relief.

  Miss Marlende turned to Lord Engal. Sounding a little breathless, she asked, �
�Should we lower the spell bubble?”

  Lord Engal looked down at the device inside the plinth. “From what Barshion said, I don't think we'll have to. It was about to shatter at any-”

  Past the port, the golden light of the bubble dissolved, and they were looking out over a sea.

  There is a sky, was the first thing Emilie thought. It was a crystal blue, bright and pure, streaked with the white of clouds. And the water under the ship was clear as glass. She could see a school of blue and yellow fish, flickering some distance below the surface.

  “What is this place?” someone whispered in astonishment.

  Emilie turned to look out the other side of the port, and drew in a breath of pure wonder. They were floating past a flooded city.

  She moved to the railing, staring in amazement. It was spread out all across the starboard side, all made of gray-white mottled stone. The tops of square pylons, columned walkways, and towers with odd spiral curves gleamed above the expanse of clear water. Tall feathery trees stood in the sea, waves lapping against their trunks, their soft emerald green foliage vivid against the sky.

  Emilie looked up at Lord Engal, standing next to her, and said, “It's beautiful.”

  He glanced down at her, smiling, then took a second startled look. His brows drawing together, he said, “Who the hell are you?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next several minutes were problematic, at least for Emilie. She had thought Lord Engal looked like a shouter, and he proved her right, railing on about spies and stowaways and wasn't anybody guarding the ship, as Miss Marlende repeated Emilie's story. To her credit, Miss Marlende continued doggedly, despite the noise and interruptions. At the end, Lord Engal turned to Emilie and demanded loudly, “Why shouldn't I throw you overboard?”