by Frank Tuttle
The passageway began to curve, following the outline of the Intrepid’s gas envelope. The electric lamps set along the bulkhead at regular intervals flickered and then flared to life, revealing more chaos at every step.
People shouted and held onto each other, or knelt and quietly swapped undergarments as they tried to sort out the contents of their spilled luggage.
Ahead, the curving walnut passageway ended in a pair of sturdy brass-trimmed doors, each half a circle, each side flanked by stern-faced Palace guards.
The guards were holding a dozen strident complainers at bay.
“Young man, I am the Lord Mayor of Tirlin and I say let me pass!” shouted a red-faced man in a bright yellow waistcoat. His top hat was crushed, and his backside dripped with what appeared to be the remains of a flattened apple pie. “Let me pass!”
The impassive guard saw Meralda, gently pushed the sputtering Lord Mayor aside, and stood at sudden rigid attention.
“Chief Engineer,” he said. His companion threw out a brief salute and opened the door to the bridge.
Meralda swept inside, Mug sailing over her shoulder, before the Lord Mayor could launch himself through the opening.
The Intrepid’s bridge was laid out in a half-circle. The front bulkhead was glass, set into a steel frame that vanished against the inky night sky. The glass extended up, over Meralda’s head, until the airship’s envelope blotted out the heavens. The glass also extended below, meeting the polished cherry deck, leaving Meralda with the brief but uncomfortable sensation that she was standing on a railless platform high amid the clouds.
Jutting out from the center of the bulkhead behind her was the open frame the airmen called the reach. Set into the reach was the Bubble, a large curved glass tube filled with a bright yellow fluid. A single large bubble rode at the top of the curve.
Meralda smiled at the black-clad young man staring at his elevation glass. He nodded back, but his eyes never left the bubble, and his hands never strayed from his levers.
Ahead of the helmsman stood the rudder man, his hands on the brass wheel that would steer the Intrepid left or right, controlling the set of the enormous rudders at the ship’s aft end.
Ahead of them both sat the gas man, bathed in the glow of his slanted instrument panel. Dials and lights–all designed or improved by Meralda–glowed and moved. Meralda stepped to stand behind the gas man and glared at the dials that indicated the temperature and stability of the flying coils.
“There,” she said, stabbing the dial marked REGULATOR TEMPERATURE. “That should be reading a hundred degrees. It shows twice that, and it’s rising.” Meralda turned to the seated watch officer. “Order the regulator bin to be flooded with water.”
The watch officer, a grizzled Alon whose name Meralda couldn’t recall, reached for his speaking tube and spoke into it.
After a moment, the needle began to fall.
“I demand to know who ignored my instructions for a ten-hour burn-in, and why,” she said. “If the regulators had shorted, we’d have risked a fire.”
The hatch on the other side of the bridge opened. The watch officer stood quickly and blew a short blast on a whistle.
“Captain on the deck,” he said.
The bridge fell silent as the Intrepid’s Captain marched to stand at the ship’s glass-sheathed prow.
“Captain—” Meralda began.
“Good evening,” he said. “I am Captain Fairweather. I’ll be forgoing the scheduled ceremonial remarks because I have a ship to fly. You have questions. Ask them of the King.”
With that, he nodded curtly, shoved an unlit pipe between his teeth, and marched back out the bulkhead.
“What did he mean, ask the King?” Mug wondered, in a too-loud stage whisper. “Yvin is safe at the Palace, eating custard and wrecking the economy.”
The watch officer blinked, and came to attention.
“Er, King on the deck,” he said, as the bulkhead opened again and Yvin II, King of Tirlin, stooped as he passed beneath the frame.
There was a collective gasp around the room. The navigator broke his pencil lead. Only the elevator operator and the rudder man appeared to be unconcerned by the unexpected arrival of the King.
“Well I’ll be an ornamental shrubbery,” Mug said.
“Hush,” Meralda hissed nervously.
The King met her wide-eyed gaze and winked.
Yvin was dressed in the plain brown pants and off-white shirt of an Air Corps airman. He wore a working man’s battered shoes and a plain black leather belt. His hair was cut so short Meralda saw, for the first time, the royal bald spot that was just beginning to surround the top of his head.
Once inside the bridge, Yvin took Queen Pellabine’s hand.
“Oh it’s lovely!” she said, her smile wide and bright. She too was dressed plainly, in a severe black skirt and simple white blouse. “It’s just as you described it, dear!”
Yvin smiled and gazed about the bridge like a proud chef about to gorge himself.
“It is indeed a worthy craft,” he said. “Worthy of the history she’ll be making. Welcome aboard, all. My apologies for our abrupt departure from the Park. It was necessary, I assure you.” He looked directly into Meralda’s eyes as he spoke the words. “Mr. Conners. I hope no serious injuries have been reported?”
The watch officer spoke. “None, um, Your Highness. Scrapes and bruises. The galley reports a crate of celebratory wine was smashed.”
“Pity about that,” said the King. “But we’ll be dumping every last scrap of the provisions we took aboard as soon as we’re over the Lamp.”
“We will, sir?”
Yvin frowned. “I’m afraid so. All of it, down to the last onion. The water too.”
His announcement was met with gasps and mumbles.
The King shrugged and leaned down as his Queen whispered in his ear.
Meralda felt eyes turn toward her.
Meralda took a breath and considered her words. “I wasn’t aware you would be joining us, your Majesty.”
“That was rather the point,” said Yvin. “Come now. You didn’t really expect me to let you lot go off and make history while I stayed in the Palace and ate puddings, did you?”
Meralda shot a sideways glare at Mug. “I suppose not. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we are honored to have your Highnesses aboard.”
Queen Pellabine laughed. “You should be a diplomat, dear. We’re honored to be here, aboard such a lovely vessel. I’m sure our voyage will be nothing but pleasant.”
“Pleasant and hungry,” piped Mug. He turned his green eyes toward Meralda. “Ask him why we’re dumping our provisions into the river.”
“Because they’ve been poisoned, of course,” replied Yvin, suddenly serious. “There are people opposed to this voyage. People willing to engage in heinous acts to prevent us from crossing the Sea.”
“Poisoned?” asked Meralda. “All of it, and the water too?”
The King shrugged. “Every morsel, every drop of our provisions passed each and every test our security services could devise. But I can think of no better way to end our flight prematurely than by poisoning our larder. So into the Lamp it goes, declared safe or not. We’ll take on fresh supplies at the coast. I do hope everyone enjoys potatoes.”
His small blonde Queen rolled her eyes. “You’ll do better than potatoes, Yvin dear, or I’ll take over the mission myself,” she threatened. “Ignore him, please. He’s being dramatic.”
Meralda frowned. “We took on a dozen crates of gifts for the Hang as well. Treasures, from all over the Realms.”
“We did indeed,” replied the King. “Jewels. Books. Paintings. Magical wonders of every description. Left at the dock, under a tarp, to be hauled out into an open field south of the city where they can pester sheep if they’re cursed.”
“The Alons will be furious.” Meralda’s eyes widened.
“The Alons are always furious,” the King replied. “Being furious is their national pa
stime. They should thank me for giving them something new to shout about.” The Queen kicked her husband swiftly in his shin.
“The Alon Queen herself agreed to the plan,” he amended. “She’s aboard too, by the way. I need not remind you all to extend to her every courtesy, do I?”
“You might remind yourself of that first, dear,” the Queen snipped. “You promised me a coffee. Let’s go, shall we? These good people have an airship to fly.”
The King grunted. “Very well. Mage Ovis–I mean, Chief Engineer Ovis, please join us for our morning briefing, seven sharp. Everyone else, keep us out of the treetops. Good evening.”
With that, the King and Queen left the bridge, leaving stunned silence in their wake.
* * *
“But what if it is poisoned?” Mug whispered. “The coffee is the first thing they’d dose, you know that.”
“Shh,” Meralda froze as footsteps sounded beyond the cargo bay’s wide double doors. Mug set his flying cage down quickly, lest its buzzing give the pair away.
The guards passed by without entering though, and soon Meralda risked using her tiny magelight–a gift from Donchen–to search the ranks of crates and tins for the coffee she herself had purchased and brought into the airship.
“Apples,” she whispered, frowning at the box. It’s not that large, or that heavy, she decided, and she put it quietly down on the floor beside her. Oh, and look–a hoop of lovely Calloford cheese.
“Mistress, are you looking for coffee, or stocking a grocery store?” Mug said.
“It’s going to be a long voyage,” replied Meralda. “Ooh. Chocolates!”
“Going to be a lot longer in the brig,” Mug said. He hovered just at the edge of the light cast by the magelamp.
“We don’t have a brig,” Meralda said.
“Oh,” replied Mug. “In that case, see if you can find a bag of mulch in all that.”
“There you are!” Meralda said, reaching above her head for the box which bore her own careful handwriting. “Coffee! A nice Rivet Street medium-dark blend. Five dollars a tin. You’re far too good to be wasted on any river.”
She added the box to the ones already stacked about her feet.
“Wonderful,” Mug observed. “Now all you have to do is haul all that up two decks and across the whole length of the airship without being seen.”
“I most certainly will not,” Meralda said. She produced a short, worn latching wand from her pocket and touched it to the box of coffee.
The letters identifying the contents curled and peeled away from the box, leaving the surface unmarred. Meralda put the wand away, produced a fat marking pen, and wrote the words MAGICAL INSTRUMENTS, MAGE OVIS, HANDLE WITH CARE on its face.
Mug chortled. “Mistress, I’d say you’ll never get away with it, but frankly, I think you will,” he said, as Meralda removed box labels and then repeated her new marking on each container.
“I’ll stack them outside, and have the Bellringers bring them to my room,” she said. “If my mischief is discovered, I’ll blame it all on you.”
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done today,” Mug replied, before sailing hastily toward the doors. “I’ll go fetch the lads, shall I?”
Meralda grinned, and cautiously opened the doors.
* * *
Meralda awoke and rubbed her eyes. Light, faint and grey, leaked past the stiff shades that covered the porthole at the front of her cabin.
Meralda padded sock-foot to the porthole, picking her way through the boxes and crates of treats she’d liberated from the cargo hold the night before. Once at the porthole, she lifted the shade and peered out into the sky.
A few stars remained, though the sky was caught between the deep black of night and the first blush of day. Meralda gasped when she realized the faint hints of movement she saw were clouds rushing past the Intrepid’s hull, only a few yards below.
The vast, unbroken bank of clouds appeared to rise and fall as it slipped past. Now and then, a few wisps of vapor would rise above the rest and be sent curling and spiraling in the wake of the Intrepid’s polished hull. The flight left a wake like a boat, only this wake was across the sky.
“Good morning, Mistress,” Mug said as he steered his flying cage toward the porthole. “What has you transfixed?”
“Look and see,” replied Meralda, moving aside. Mug hovered near the glass, his cage’s tiny flying coils humming. He sent his blue eyes through the bars of his birdcage and whistled.
“That’s beautiful,” he said after a moment. “I’m almost glad I came.”
Meralda laughed. “Careful. You nearly displayed enthusiasm.”
Mug’s tendrils played at the tiny silver levers affixed to the cage’s side, and he bobbed away from the porthole, coming to rest on Meralda’s desk.
“Not a chance,” he said. “So what’s our agenda for the day? Will I be joining you on the bridge? Lots of nice glass up there. I’m eager to sample a bit of high-altitude sunlight.”
“Later,” Meralda said. “I need to finish unpacking.”
“You unpacked last night,” Mug said. “Mostly, you unpacked the cargo hold.”
A soft knock sounded at her door. Meralda grinned and pushed back a stray lock of hair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, as she shook the wrinkles out of her dressing gown. She pulled it over her head and made for the door. “Now hush.”
Meralda opened the door to reveal the Bellringers, both in uniform, both smiling identical smiles and shifting their weight from right foot to left and back to right again, in perfect time.
Between them they held a large flat parcel, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with twine. A label read simply ‘GAS PLANE CHARGER #3 C/O MAGE OVIS.’
“We have the item,” said Kervis in a whisper.
“No one saw,” added Tervis.
“Come in,” Meralda said, stepping aside. “You’re sure no one saw?”
“Yes,” chorused the brothers. “We’re sure.”
Mug snickered as Meralda closed the door. “Mistress, if these are your accomplices in mischief, you might as well sign a full confession now and save yourself the court inquiry.”
“Over there, by the desk,” Meralda said. “Yes. Perfect.”
“That has a familiar shape,” Mug said. “Mistress. You didn’t.”
“Oh yes,” Meralda said. “I certainly did. Kervis, if you will?”
Kervis grinned, produced a small red penknife, and began cutting away the twine. Meralda tore at the paper, and in a moment Goboy’s Glass was revealed.
“The King expressly forbade you to bring the Glass,” Mug said. “I was there. I heard him order you to leave it behind.”
Meralda nodded. “Do you recall what I said?”
“You mumbled something about wasting an opportunity to test the range and capability of an ancient and mysterious artifact,” Mug said. “King Blowhard took offense, got all red-faced, and blustered something about his authority and your position and you said simply ‘Yes, Your Majesty’ and went to lunch, as I recall.”
Meralda frowned. “You mean I didn’t offer a sound, calm argument in favor of bringing the Glass? An argument of such powerful wit and inescapable logic that the king was forced to accede and give permission?”
“You did not, Mistress.”
“Well, I was busy.” Meralda waved off his rolling eyes. “But look. The Glass is here, regardless. Wisdom has prevailed.”
Kervis and Tervis finished securing the tall frame holding Goboy’s Glass to the bulkhead behind Meralda’s desk. Meralda leaned forward and tapped at her reflection.
“Tower?” she said. “Can you hear me?”
Meralda’s reflection shimmered. The glass went inky black.
“I am here.” The Tower’s voice was clear but soft. “Contact is weakened to the extent expected, but remains viable.”
“Good morning to you too, Old Stones,” Mug interjected. “We haven’t crashed yet, thanks for asking.”
>
“So noted,” the Tower agreed. “I place your position as six hundred and seven miles from Tirlin. I am now revising my estimate of the Glass’s effective communication range.”
Kervis and Tervis exchanged confused looks.
Meralda explained, “We won’t be able to talk to Tower for the whole trip. There are limits, even to magic.”
“Any news from home while you’re estimating?” Mug demanded. “Have the papers gotten wind of the King’s absence yet?”
“There has been no mention of the King traveling,” the Tower replied. “Mage. I detected three small airships ascending from the Lamp immediately after the Intrepid departed. They appeared to give chase, though they were unprepared for the haste of your departure.”
“Oh?” Meralda frowned. “How far did they pursue us?”
“They gave up after a few miles. One craft discharged a cohesive volume of thermal energies toward your gas envelope. I deflected it back toward the other two airships. I fear all three ignited and were consumed in flight.”
“Air pirates!” Mug crowed. “And you shot them down!”
Meralda silenced Mug with a gesture and a look. “The nature of the thermal binding?”
“Vonat sorcery,” the Tower said. “Inelegant but effective.”
Mug whistled. Meralda looked at the Bellringers.
“Not a word of this,” she said. “Not of Goboy’s Glass, and nothing of Vonats or attacks. Can I trust your silence?”
“Also ignore the various boxes of apples and chocolates—” began Mug, who fell silent at a glare from Meralda.
Both Guardsmen nodded. Meralda sat, rested her chin on her fist, and stared into the black depths of the mirror.
After several moments of silence, the Tower spoke again. “My revisions are complete. We will be able to maintain voice contact for eleven thousand miles. It may be possible to send simple text messages for an additional thousand miles after this.”
An image of the front page of the Tirlin Times appeared in the glass. The headline read, SAMPLE TEXT MESSAGE HERE.