The Wizard's Daughter (Sky Riders of Etherium Book 2)

by Jeff Minerd

  “That’s it,” Jon said, leaning on his axe. “We’re dead. We’re gonna die of thirst.”

  Tak sat with his father’s navigational chart on his knees, studying it desperately. After a few moments, he announced, “There is one place we can reach in time.”

  “Where?” Jon asked, peering at the map.

  Tak pointed to it with a finger. “No-Man’s Crag,” he said.

  An unhappy silence fell upon them. They had heard of the Crag. The small, misshapen mountain poked its ugly head above the surface clouds within sight of the northern Teeth. No-Man’s Crag had only one town upon it, Port Roil. It was a pirate town, rowdy and lawless, home to a loosely knit band of thieves and outlaws that called themselves the Brotherhood. The Crag was far enough away from any lawful kingdom that none of them bothered with it. It was close to the Wind’s Teeth, which was ideal for pirates, and it was just a short voyage away from the Dragonlord’s realm, which was convenient, as pirates sold their captives as slaves to the Dragonlord.

  Jon sat on the gunwale with a defeated sigh, his axe on his knees, his head in his hands. He hadn’t yet recovered his courage, and he’d had enough of this journey. He was sorry he’d ever decided to come along. The cramped quarters and lousy food. The constant talking. Nearly being killed in The Wind’s Teeth. And now they were going to try and get water from pirates.

  “They’ll rob us,” he said. “Beat us. Sell us as slaves.”

  “Maybe not,” Tak shrugged. “And if they do, they’ll at least have to give us water and keep us alive.”

  No-Man’s Crag wouldn’t be hard to find. Tak’s father had circled it in bright red ink, and jotted down its latitude and longitude. Underneath this, in bold red letters, he had written STEER CLEAR.

  EIGHTEEN

  The key to Brieze’s plan was her tent. With its canvas and wooden poles, she could construct a two-seated glider, the kind of simple flying device every young child in the Kingdom of Spire enjoyed taking to the park on a windy day. It would basically be just one large wing, she explained to the Gublins, with a seat suspended beneath it. The steering would be rudimentary, and it could only carry two at a time, but it would suffice if she flew each Gublin to a safe distance individually, making three trips.

  Gublins aren’t afraid of heights, as long as they are touching stone. During the siege of Selestria, they climbed the hundred-foot-high walls of Castle Selestria, perched at the very top of Selemont. But Gublins, who live mainly underground, do not fly. The thought of flying, of losing all contact with the earth and trusting oneself to the whims of the wind, fills them with a queasy dread. None of the three Gublins—not even Zeefor—looked enthused about the plan. But they discussed it, and agreed it was worth a try.

  If you need to turn a tent into a glider in a hurry, the help of three Gublins comes in extremely handy. They are good at making things. Their long, nimble fingers can tie knots that would amaze and baffle the most experienced airmen. They are skilled in the making and use of tools. These Gublins had plenty of tools, and needle and thread, including spider-silk thread they’d scavenged from ships, which was stronger than steel. They also had a tin of a very suitable fast-acting adhesive. Brieze made a few sketches of the glider in her notebook. The Gublins studied these, talked among themselves, asked her many questions, then went to work. She supervised, ordering tweaks and changes as necessary. The position and balance of the seat was especially important.

  In a short time, they’d fashioned a glider that looked much stronger and more airworthy than Brieze had expected. The rectangular canvas wing, framed with wooden poles, was eight feet long from tip to tip. The U-shaped, saddle-like seat was attached to the wing with ropes in the front and back. Once the glider was finished, the Gublins had to hold onto it tightly, as the wind was already trying to pull it up into the sky.

  “Nice work,” Brieze said. “I think I could fly this back to Kyo if I had to.”

  “A half-mile will suffice,” Zeelak said. “Can this flimsy thing really carry us that far?”

  “I don’t see why not. Let me take if for a test run.”

  She directed the Gublins to take hold of each end of the wing and raise it as far above their heads as possible. She stood in front of the seat and gripped the ropes. She took a running start and leapt out into the sky, pulling the glider along with her.

  The glider dipped on takeoff, but caught the wind and soared. The wood and canvas creaked. Brieze lowered herself into the seat. She grinned at the weightless free feeling, at the wind rushing past her face. She couldn’t help it. It had been too long since she’d been in the sky. The balance of the seat was good. She tested the steering, first pulling on the rear ropes to angle the wing upward. The glider rose. She pulled on the front ropes to angle the wing downward. The glider dove. She pulled and leaned left, and the glider turned left. She pulled and leaned right, and it turned right. She made a long curving right turn, steering the glider back to the small tooth, which was already hard to see in the fog.

  She returned to the summit, flying into the wind and angling the wing sharply upward to execute a stall landing that dropped her neatly among the amazed Gublins. Tak would have been proud, she thought, and it made her heart twinge. She hadn’t thought of him in forever. She felt guilty about that. What was he doing now? What would he think of her, hunting for a shipwreck in the roots of the Wind’s Teeth with three Gublins? He wouldn’t like it. He would want to be with her. Best not to think of him now, she supposed. Concentrate on the matter at hand.

  The Gublin rules required that Brieze fly Zeelak to safety first, then Zeetog, and finally Zeefor. She didn’t like this, and she explained why. It meant that she and Zeefor would have to launch the glider by themselves, without any assistance. That was much more difficult and dangerous. And Zeefor had a bad foot, which would make the launch even more of a problem.

  “Zeefor and I should go first,” she said to Zeelak, “with you and Zeetog assisting the launch.”

  “Yes!” Zeefor agreed. “I should go first. Because of my bad foot.”

  “You are lucky to be going at all,” Zeelak said. “I should have killed you for your dishonorable behavior. I will go first, as the rules dictate. Let us begin.”

  Brieze directed Zeelak to stand next to her, in front of the glider seat, while the other two Gublins held the wing high over their heads. He took hold of the right-hand ropes, she took hold of the left. He gritted his teeth. They ran and leapt into the sky. He closed his eyes and gurgled as the glider dipped. He was no happier when it caught the wind and soared. But Gublins are nimble, and agile. He lowered himself into the seat without making the glider rock.

  “You did that well,” she said.

  Zeelak didn’t open his eyes. “Get us to safety before I soil myself.”

  She flew as far away as she could, about a half-mile, until she could just barely make out the reddish glow of the small fire they had built atop the tooth so she could find her way back through the fog. She leaned and pulled on the ropes. The glider swooped low to the ground. “Jump!” she said, and Zeelak—opening his eyes and seeing solid ground not far below him—eagerly did so. He slid off the seat and hit the ground rolling. The glider, free of his weight, rose on the wind.

  “I’ll be back soon with Zeetog,” she called, steering the glider on a return course.

  The trip with Zeetog was more difficult. There was only Zeefor to assist with holding the wing aloft, so the launch was clumsier. Zeetog shrieked as his feet left the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut and babbled to himself the entire trip. He didn’t notice when they reached the spot where Zeelak waited below. He didn’t hear Brieze’s order to jump. She had to push him off. He shrieked again and curled up into a ball. He didn’t appear to suffer any damage when he hit the sand, though.

  Brieze returned to the tooth where Zeefor waited.

  She hadn’t thought about the fact she’d be alone with him. She didn’t like the way he looked at her with that one glistening, filmy bla
ck eye. She sensed unhealthy thoughts festering behind it. His long, bony fingers clenched and unclenched.

  “Come on,” she said. “Stand here next to me and take a hold of those ropes. And help me hold the wing aloft with your other hand.”

  He limped over on his bad, bandaged foot and stood next to her, but he only half-heartedly did as she instructed. The wind had grown stronger, and it tugged hard at the glider wing. Brieze struggled to keep it steady and in the right position. Zeefor was little help. He was having second thoughts about this plan—especially after seeing Zeetog take off shrieking and disappear into the sky. He twitched and grimaced and muttered to himself.

  “We should have fed you to the Sleepers,” he said. “Then I wouldn’t have to fly in this awful thing.”

  “Let’s just get it over with,” she said. “You’ll be back on the ground in minutes.”

  “Wait a moment,” he said. “I forgot something. I’ll be right back.”

  He limped away and left her standing there struggling to control the glider by herself. She turned to look over her shoulder. He was right behind her, rummaging through the bits of equipment they had left behind to lighten their packs. But she couldn’t keep her eyes on him. She had to pay attention to the glider.

  “Hurry up,” she called over her shoulder. “I can’t hold this thing by myself.”

  And then she sensed him rushing up behind her—heard the quick flapping of his feet and a hiss of pain. Her back felt exposed and vulnerable. Instinctively, she jumped away with the glider, off the edge…

  He lunged at her with a short knife. A knife he’d planned to stick into her back. If he hadn’t been slowed by his injured foot, he would have stabbed her and thrown her over the edge before she even knew what was happening. “I won’t fly. I’ll feed you to the Sleepers!” he screeched, slashing at her legs as the glider lifted her up and away on the wind. She kicked at him. The tip of his knife stuck in her boot heel.

  Not deep enough to cut her.

  Just deep enough to yank Zeefor off-balance as she swung her foot.

  He let go of the knife, flailed his arms to try to get his balance back, and toppled over the edge.

  He screamed as he fell.

  The glider rocked and yawed, wildly off balance. Brieze had landed sideways on the seat during the panicked launch. One of her legs was tangled up in the ropes. There was no way to control the glider. It was dropping fast. She grabbed at one of the ropes above her head and pulled on it as hard as she could, angling the wing upward to try to get some lift. But she only delayed the crash by a few seconds. She and the glider hit the sand with the sounds of splintering wood and ripping canvas and rolled several yards. She disentangled herself from the wreckage as fast as she could, took Zeefor’s knife out of her boot heel, and jumped to her feet. She was maybe a hundred yards away from the small tooth. At a spot near its base, the ground boiled like water. Something thrashed there, splashing sand in every direction. She couldn’t see Zeefor. But, faintly, she heard his screams.

  She turned and ran as fast as she could, her pack bouncing furiously up and down on her shoulders. She ran blindly into the fog until she couldn’t run anymore, couldn’t breathe anymore. She dropped to the ground, gasping for air, and prayed she was far enough away from the Sleepers. She lay there for several minutes. The minutes became half an hour. She got her breath back. Nothing swam through the sand to devour her. Finally, she stood up with a groan. She took a light stick from her backpack, shook it, and stumbled around in the fog, calling out for Zeelak and Zeetog.

  The Gublins found her a few hours later. It was their keen noses that drew them in the right direction, until they could see her light and hear her voice.

  “Put that light away!” Zeelak ordered, squinting and shielding his eyes.

  “Where is Zeefor?” Zeetog asked in a panicked voice.

  Brieze took a breath and told them what happened. As proof, she showed them Zeefor’s knife, and the hole it had made in her boot heel. She handed the knife to Zeelak. Zeetog’s lips quivered. She had never seen a Gublin cry before. She didn’t know they could cry. Zeetog sat down on the sand and put his head in his heads. He burbled like a child. His shoulders shook. Fat, shiny tears slid down his face.

  Zeelak’s face was hard and expressionless as he turned the knife over and over in his hands.

  “He drew the black stone,” was all he said.

    

  “There is the ship you seek,” Zeelak pointed ahead into the fog.

  At first, Brieze didn’t see anything. But as they walked, the gray shape of a wreck emerged from the mist. She ran ahead and read the characters on the stern, using a light stick. This really was the Atagu Maru. Her father’s ship. It was more or less intact. Seventeen years was young for a wreck in the Wind’s Teeth. The ship lay heeled over on its starboard side, its keel half-buried in the sand, its deck tilted upward at a steep angle. The masts and yards were naked, stripped of every last rope and sail. Every piece of hardware and scrap of metal on the ship had been removed by scavenging Gublins. Two of the middle masts were gone, clearly blasted away by cannon fire. The ship’s rudder was shot to pieces too. And there were several cannon-blasted holes in its hull.

  “Pirates,” Brieze said.

  “Our history says there was little of value in this ship when it was found,” Zeelak said. “It appears they lost a battle and their treasure was taken.” To her surprise, Zeelak and Zeetog offered to help her search. “We have experience at such things,” Zeelak said. “And the sooner we find this book, the sooner we can be on our way.”

  She told them what to look for, as Mizuki had described it to her: a book bound in dark red leather, with no title or writing of any kind on its cover or spine. “The book’s owner was an important person. He would have been staying in one of the private cabins at the rear of the ship. The book is most likely there,” she said.

  They hopped over the rail, walked up the slanting deck, and climbed down the main hatch into a narrow corridor. The Gublins hung behind Brieze, avoiding the light from her glowstick. They didn’t need any extra light to see in the dark. She led the way down the corridor to the stern of the ship. In the eerie quiet, the wood under their feet creaked loudly. There were no cobwebs, no mold or rot in the wood. The sterile environment of the Teeth appeared to have preserved the ship perfectly, just as it was the day it sank. She prepared herself to come upon a skeleton or mummified corpse in the dark, but they encountered no bodies.

  The long corridor ended in a narrow passageway with four doors, each leading to a private cabin. The doors were all open and unlocked. Some leaned, broken off their hinges. A quick glance inside the rooms revealed they’d been ransacked. Their contents were strewn about, and empty, smashed-open chests were scattered here and there.

  In one of the rooms, a dozen or more books were scattered across the floor.

  My father’s cabin, I bet, Brieze thought. “I’ll take this one,” she said. “You search the others.”

  She found thirteen books in that room, but none of them bound in red leather. And they all had titles printed on their covers and spines. They were books about science and mathematics, the physics of air travel. She glanced through each to make sure none was a journal in disguise, and she rifled through all the pages, checking for any hidden letters Kaishou might have written. She tossed the last book into the pile she’d made and sat down on the small, shelf-like bed, puzzled and disappointed. This had to be Kaishou’s cabin. She held her glowstick aloft, and her eyes hunted around the shadowy room. “If I were his private journal,” she asked, “where would I be?” The wooden bed creaked as she shifted, and the answer came to her. She jumped up off the bed, knelt beside it, and reached in under the thin mattress.

  Her searching fingers found a book.

  She pulled it out. It was bound in dark red leather. There was no title on its cover or spine.

  She forgot to breathe.

  She sat on the bed and—gently—opened
the book on her knees. The dry leather of its spine cracked. But the pages were in good shape. With trembling fingers, she flipped through them. They were journal entries, written in a precise, neat hand. She could read the Eastern language much better than she could speak it. She flipped to the last entry. It was much shorter and written much less neatly than the others. She had to guess at some of the hastily scrawled characters…

  Pirates! Two ships, well [armed?]. The captain calls for all men to fight. I wish now I had [studied?] more swordplay like my brothers. [My hands?] are shaking. I will do my best, and hope to make my family proud.

  Brieze turned the page and read the previous entry…

  It has been six weeks now, but feels more like six-hundred. I wish I had made some excuse to stay on Footmont, spend the winter there. How wonderful that would have been. I hate that every day, every hour, takes me farther away from her. I want this blasted ship to get to Kyo now, so I can finish this silly, tedious business of trading and get on the first ship back to the West. My father will not approve of Patentia, but I don’t care. I’ll leave Kyo and become a farmer if I have to. Grandma Mizuki may be more understanding. How I wish this voyage were over! I can’t even think about how long it will be until I see her again. If I did, it would drive me mad.

  Brieze flipped to a new entry, and then to another. There was more, much more, about her mother. It appeared that everything her mother had said was true about how she and Kaishou had met, the time they spent together, their feelings for each other. Kaishou’s prose grew quite purple and flowery. He even wrote poems—very bad poems—about her mother. One of them was especially passionate. In fact, it was explicitly passionate, Brieze discovered as she read.