by Paul Collins
According to a signpost that zipped past, Mordicar was only thirty miles away. Fa’red eased the organic contraption into the air again, but the wings were almost spent. Although they were now fast enough to leave the cavalry behind, the wings were incapable of lifting them more than a hundred feet off the ground.
The light rain cleared at last and Fa’red caught sight of a long, low wall in the distance. He instructed everyone to strap in and hold onto their pommels. The Preceptor had already established a firm grip on his pommel during the thunderstorm, and had no intention of letting go.
Fa’red selected a level, ploughed field, then set the legs running early to warm them up before they had to bear a load. They touched down but the cold, weary legs stumbled and slipped on the rough surface. The airliner fell, tumbled end over end, and came to rest in the stagnant waters of the Duke of Mordicar’s palace moat.
Slowly, Fa’red folded back the exhausted and bruised wings. Next, he engaged the shaking legs and waded out of the moat. Folding the legs, he allowed the shed to set roots at the edge of the moat.
The Preceptor took a deep breath and managed to smile. ‘A novelty invention at best, Fa’red. I’ll not be ordering a …’
‘Squadron?’ Fa’red suggested. ‘A pity. Once I have its minor faults ironed out, I think the airliner could well be a mighty fighting machine. And, of course, a great time saver. We left at the tenth hour of the morning, and we are now at the fifth hour of the afternoon. A wonder of magical and mundane engineering, would you not agree?’
‘But where is the Passendof battalion?’
‘We will send word for them at your command, your Majesty.’
‘Do it now,’ said the Preceptor.
‘It will require exquisite timing, Preceptor. If a battalion of your lancers crosses the border it will be deemed an act of war.’
‘Yes, but in the meantime I am in enemy territory without an armed man at my back. And the whole point of this obscenely dangerous flight across the continent –’
‘I have, of course, considered this,’ Fa’red interrupted. ‘Apart from myself, I have several special agents who have infiltrated the Duke’s palace. At my command they shall declare themselves and be your personal guards …’
His voice trailed away under the Preceptor’s glare.
‘The door,’ said the Preceptor.
Linnet held it open for him, then remembered Fa’red’s training.
‘Thank you for choosing to fly with the Fa’red Airline between D’loom and Mordicar, rather than taking the hard and horrible road option. We hope that you will – mind the step!’
The Preceptor missed the rung and fell flat on his face. He recovered quickly, avoiding anyone but Linnet seeing his fall.
A hesitant guard carrying a spear walked slowly from the nearest gatehouse. Presently he reached hailing distance.
‘An unusual mode of transport,’ he said. ‘And it looks all banged up.’
‘A quaint expression, Preceptor,’ said Fa’red, brushing dirt from his shoulders. ‘Isn’t that what they do to impudent commoners? Usually with metal spikes through hands and feet.’
The guard’s smirk vanished. ‘Sorry, Preceptor, thought you was a servant. We was told to expect you, and the chickenliner.’
‘Airliner,’ Fa’red corrected. ‘Have twenty bags of chopped fruit and ten bags of chicken feed brought here, along with some other materials that Flight Engineer Coster will tell you about. We need the airliner ready to take the Preceptor back to D’loom as soon as the need arises.’
‘We shall have words on that count,’ the Preceptor said. He accepted his saddlebags from Linnet, and shakily set off for the palace drawbridge.
‘So did you enjoy your journey, Preceptor?’ asked the guard, trying to be diplomatic.
‘About as much as you would enjoy being boiled in oil,’ replied the Preceptor. ‘A fate which you can avoid by keeping your mouth shut.’
Fa’red winced. ‘I had hoped the Preceptor would have enjoyed his flight,’ he said to his cabin crew.
‘He was sick,’ Coster said. ‘All over the side of the barrel.’
‘Sort of … air sickness,’ Linnet said, with the annoyance of someone whose job it was to clean up the mess.
‘And all down the back of my coat and saddle,’ said Fa’red. ‘The pair of you would be best to forget that moment of weakness in the Preceptor’s life.’
‘Forget what?’ asked Coster. Looking up at the airliner, he said, ‘Where did you get the unusual words for this machine and its operation?’
‘When I was recovering from the burns that blight my body, I spent time in a great physician’s castle in some strange paraworld. They had entertainment boxes above each bed. They showed pictures and made sounds, like a little theatre with a stage. That is where I got the idea. More than that is not your place to know.’
Chapter 13
THE BOOK OF ALCHEMORUM
Jelindel woke to the sound of a commotion on the docks. The night’s adventures had been a strain, and she felt stiff and sore. She staggered up the stairs and shielded her eyes against daylight. The tide had not yet turned. The guard was still stationed at the end of the gangplank.
‘Are you sure you didn’t steal anything from that outraged husband last night?’ he asked. It was near the end of a twelve-hour shift, and his earlier joviality had thinned.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jelindel.
‘The Senior Constable and his men arrived about a quarter hour ago. When I asked what was going on, the guard down there said a very rare and dangerous book had been stolen. Did you take it?’
‘Don’t be daft. I’ve never seen a book smaller than twelve inches high. Was I carrying anything as big as that?’
At that point the Senior Constable and a squad of ten guardsmen approached the ship and demanded to see the captain. A very sick-looking Captain Porterby came out, wearing his night-smock. He had a few words with the Senior Constable, and then approached the duty watch officer.
‘Best get everyone above decks,’ he muttered. ‘Some rare book’s been stolen.’
‘What does it look like?’ asked Jelindel.
‘Look like? Two covers, pages in between – how am I to know? Magic,’ he said. Captain Porterby was fast becoming flustered, the complete antithesis to the debonair captain of last night’s stories who had single-handedly routed a fleet of blackguards. ‘Forget the book, Jaelin. The constabulary seems to think that we have a master thief on board. Perhaps two – but definitely one.’
‘No more so than the town itself,’ Jelindel said good-naturedly.
The officer rang the ship’s bell. After some minutes the nineteen crew and one of the passengers were on deck. It surprised Jaelin that Larachel was already back on board. He was standing with his hands behind his back near the beakhead. Most passengers came aboard at the last moment and left the minute that the ship docked.
Satisfied he had the crew’s full attention, Captain Porterby nodded curtly to the first mate. Henrik Ju’shron stepped aside and beckoned the Senior Constable and his men up the gangplank. Although Hazarian law extended five leagues beyond the shoreline, it was still politic to request permission to board visiting merchant craft. And Henrik Ju’shron was a stickler when it came to protocol.
The Senior Constable wasted no time. ‘All right, men. You know what to do.’
His squad scattered about the Dragonfang like sniffer dogs on the scent.
While five guards searched the Dragonfang, the other five interrogated the crew. They asked whether anyone had seen a book twelve inches by ten, and three inches thick. Quite clearly nobody was carrying it. Presently the other guards returned from searching below deck.
‘Found nothin’, but someone’s thrown up in a locker,’ the sergeant reported.
‘You were told to look for a book, not vomit,’ grated the Senior Constable. He turned to the assembled crew. ‘It appears someone broke into the library of the Order of Penitents last night,’
he declared, hoping someone in his captive audience would give himself away. ‘One of the temple guards claims to have seen a sailor fleeing – and he may have had an accomplice.’ The silence lasted ten heartbeats. ‘Also stolen, from the library vault, no less, was an heirloom held in safe keeping for the estate of Se’lest D’rudar. It is no coincidence that both artifacts are connected to D’rudar.’
‘I say,’ Captain Porterby protested. ‘The tide. We must leave on the –’
The crewmen looked as if they wished the captain would keep his voice down. After another quarter hour, a High Adept came aboard and set spells to seek out the book, if it was nearby. He found nothing, which was no surprise. Spells did not work very well on water.
If Jelindel had been the Senior Constable’s mage, she would have ordered the Dragonfang into dry dock. Luckily for the thief, or thieves, she corrected herself, the Adept thought too highly of himself to be worried about the effects of water on magic.
‘No book aboard,’ he reported authoritatively.
The Senior Constable swept the crew with a withering glare. ‘And the pentacle gem?’
‘Not a trace. It’s powerful, and would stand out more surely than the book. They are not of this world. Even ground into powder they retain potency. Someone who had merely held such a gem would be touched by its influence for over a year.’
A book and an heirloom – a pentacle gem, Jelindel thought. There was only one book in that library that she herself would have taken, and that was The Book of Alchemorum. The thieves must have been in the library as she crept in. What could they have seen? Nothing incriminating, she decided.
She thought of the ship’s crew. Not one had displayed any knowledge of magic. And the thieves must have employed some potent magic to counter the book’s protection spell, and those of the library. They must have also entered the building from the rear, since the spells on the dormer had been intact. Take away the crew, and that almost definitely left the trade envoy, Larachel. But who could have been his accomplice, if there had been two thieves?
The Senior Constable’s Adept wove a spell and uttered something in a foreign tongue. His dry, colourless lips parted wide and Jelindel saw a sparkling sphere flow from his mouth. It solidified above his head and swept the gathered crew, combing its icy fingers among them in search of magic.
Jelindel stifled a yawn. The Adept was becoming desperate now. Anyone with even moderate ability would have already drawn a powerful Asniclian symbol and a holy circle to avoid detection.
‘We’re wasting our time,’ the Adept said, glancing over the crewmen again. ‘Neither the book nor the gem are here.’
The remaining passengers had arrived by now, standing with their trunks by the gangplank. They too were searched, but nothing was found. Hoping to avoid the possibility of someone smuggling the stolen goods aboard now that the ship had been cleared, the Senior Constable ordered the Dragonfang to leave at once. The gangplank was drawn and the hawsers were thrown off the bollards. Hungover men crawled about in the rigging and loosened the sails as a rowboat pulled the Dragonfang clear of the pier. With full-bellied sails they were soon heading north at a good speed.
Jelindel was in the chartroom, plotting a course to Sezel, the next port on their schedule. There Larachel was to sell a shipment of barrels containing exotic pickled fruit. Captain Porterby entered the chartroom, properly dressed and looking a little less flustered.
‘Damnable business, don’t you think, Jaelin?’ he muttered, sitting down.
‘Only if word spreads that we not only have a cargo worth thousands of gold oriels, which we’ll have on board at journey’s end, but our cargo also includes The Book of Alchemorum and a valuable heirloom.’
Captain Porterby looked up. ‘Black Quell you say! I hadn’t thought of the money side. I suppose it would make sense to let us sell the cargo and then waylay us on the voyage back home. Sensible thing to do, I should suspect.’ He frowned. ‘As for the stolen items – is there anything you wish to tell me about them?’
Jelindel blinked. ‘Why should I know anything? The Senior Constable’s mage could find no trace of either on board.’
‘I’m told you returned after the fourth hour this morning, while the thief-bell was ringing. You were out of breath and very relieved to be back aboard, by all accounts. And at no stage did anyone mention the stolen book’s title.’
‘Ah,’ Jelindel said. ‘Good point. But I should make clear that I had no room to hide a book, nor did I have anything on me when I returned from shore leave. But Larachel …’
Captain Porterby waved her on.
‘Was he with you?’ Jelindel asked.
‘Er … no. Can’t say when he left, but he was in the tavern early on. And he was here this morning. The watch officer didn’t see him come aboard though.’
‘That’s significant.’
‘But nothing was found aboard.’
‘That’s significant too.’
The captain felt as if his youngest officer had just told him something significant, but he could not work out what it was. Not wanting to appear foolish, he winked at Jelindel in a conspiratorial manner. ‘Jaelin, the man could be a dark horse at that. I daresay he was in a lady’s quarters with any luck.’ He chortled at the thought.
Jelindel smiled wanly.
‘And come to that, Jaelin, where were you?’ he asked, wagging an accusatory finger.
‘I must confess that I left at the twenty-third hour. But I assure you that I am no thief.’
‘As I am sure Larachel would also claim,’ the captain said. ‘All our futures rest on the man, Jaelin. I hope he’s not a thieving scoundrel. It’s bad enough that the crew seem to respect him. There’s something uncanny about that, I must say.’
‘He has a way with men, yes,’ Jelindel mused. ‘Anyone who lessens their workload is bound to be popular. Nonetheless, I would double the guard on the money chest, Captain. Also, if the book was stolen by one of us, I would lay a year’s wages that it is on board. As for the gem, it could well be around someone’s neck.’
‘Pray to White Quell they will both remain hidden till we return to D’loom, Jaelin. Then Black Quell may have them for all I care.’ He patted the salt-stained armrest. ‘Well, no matter. We are away from Hazaria and after this trip, I dare say I shall never set sail again.’ He pushed himself up from his chair and left.
‘No amount of money would stop me from adventuring, Captain,’ Jelindel whispered.
Once the course was plotted, Jelindel went out on deck. Hargav was there, polishing brasswork.
‘Jaelin,’ he said mutinously, ‘polishing these dummart things is a waste of time. They dull overnight and have to be repolished. What is the point?’
‘To have them looking good in time for dinner. Did you clean out your locker bunk? The smell was pretty bad, you know.’
‘Yes, yes, it’s scrubbed clean.’
Jelindel slapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m pleased with the progress you’re making, Hargav. Just put more venom into it when you swear.’ She laughed at the boy’s scowl. ‘As for why you really polish, swab and perform seemingly meaningless chores – it’s to teach you your place. We all have our place, even the captain. One man popping out of place on a ship is like a gearwheel popping out of place in some great temple clock: both ship and clock cease to run smoothly.’
‘I can’t imagine you ever swabbing decks and polishing dummart fittings,’ Hargav said, plaintively.
Jelindel thought back to the Great Temple of Verity, and the mindless chores the sisters had set the initiates. ‘I have had my share of humility and boring chores,’ she said. ‘It’s what deckhands do, Hargav. They scrub decks, learn about the rigging and everything else about seamanship, and if they’re smart, they work their way up.’
‘Like you,’ Hargav sighed.
Jelindel gave a half smile. ‘Hargav, I was never a deckhand.’
‘I thought that I’d be out wenching in every port, carousing, learning swordsm
anship.’ He flapped the polishing rag. ‘You can’t do damage with a piece of cloth.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Jelindel said. ‘You can garrot a man with such a piece of cloth. Even a rolled up scroll can be a lethal weapon in the right hands.’
Hargav put more effort into his polishing when Henrik Ju’shron passed by. The first mate grunted approvingly and walked on.
When he was out of earshot, Hargav said, ‘What was all that about back in port? Why all the fuss about a dummart book?’
Jelindel leaned against the gunwale. Seaspray whipped and stung her face but she didn’t move. ‘The Book of Alchemorum is no ordinary book, Hargav. It is unique, and tells of an Adept 15’s life work and certain necromantic rites. It contains information that, in the wrong hands, can wreak havoc in the world.’
‘What sort of havoc?’ asked Hargav. He admired his handiwork, but already the salt air had dulled spots of the bitt’s hood. He rubbed it furiously, silently daring spume to touch it again.
‘The book is like a sword. In the hands of someone untrained, little harm would be done. But if it falls into the hands of a person who can bring out its full potential, well, that could unleash the sort of power that could bring down not only empires, but the entire world.’
Hargav quickly got up and moved to the next bitt. He smeared it with polish and began rubbing. Looking up from his task, he said, ‘If this book is so dangerous, how was it so easily stolen?’
The wind snatched at Hargav’s words and Jelindel moved closer. ‘Who’s to tell it was easily stolen? For all we know, there might have been a great fight. Lives may have been lost. It’s not something a Senior Constable would discuss with the likes of a ship’s captain and his scabby crew.’
‘I’m surprised it was not destroyed if it can bring down empires,’ Hargav said, reasonably.
‘Please never let me hear you speak of destroying knowledge ever again,’ Jelindel replied. ‘Whether good or bad, knowledge should never be lost. Power that can destroy empires can also be used to save the world.’ She looked down at the bitt Hargav had just polished. ‘You’ve missed a few patches of green, here, here, and here.’