The Abbey of Saint Agnes, located about four hundred miles north and west of Evreux, near the Bay of Faighn, and one hundred miles east of the city of Westfirth, would require a good twelve days to reach traveling by land. Sailing the skies, the Retribution could make the journey in two days. Even this was too slow for the impatient Father Jacob and much too slow for Sir Ander and Brother Barnaby, who had to put up with him.
Sir Ander spent his time performing routine maintenance on the yacht’s arsenal of weapons, a task made difficult by Father Jacob’s restless stompings about the yacht and his attempts to point out to Sir Ander that he was doing everything wrong. Sir Ander had learned early in their relationship that it was far easier to agree with Father Jacob than be drawn into an argument. Sir Ander, who was an expert on firearms, as well as being an excellent shot, nodded when Father Jacob attempted to tell him how to load the canisters that were fed into the swivel gun, and chuckled to himself when Father Jacob stalked off to instruct poor Brother Barnaby how to manage wyverns in flight.
As Barnaby had predicted, Father Jacob was incensed when the monk insisted that his wyverns had to be rested and fed after only four hours of flight. The monk suggested they spend the night in the coastal town of Predeau.
“We will waste eight hours!” Father Jacob stated angrily. “I insist we keep going. We can hire wyverns from one of the inns-”
“Fly with hired wyverns!” Brother Barnaby repeated, appalled.
His wyverns were his love, his pride and joy. They were like children to him, and the thought of abandoning his wyverns, leaving them behind in a strange place to be cared for by strangers, was too much to bear. He cast a desperate glance at Sir Ander.
“I thought you might use this time to question the sailors in some of the local taverns, Father,” said Sir Ander. “Find out if they saw anything odd or unusual in the Breath the night of the attack on the abbey.”
Father Jacob glowered and appeared about to make some caustic comment, then he relaxed and gave a wry smile.
“I do believe you are trying to get rid of me, Sir Ander.”
“All I’m trying to do is get a good night’s sleep,” replied Sir Ander. “And I can’t do that with you stomping about.”
“Talking to the sailors is a good idea,” said Father Jacob. “Brother Barnaby, land some distance from town. I don’t want anyone to see us. I will change clothes,” he added, opening one of the chests built into the bulwarks. “Can’t go roaming about the docks looking like the Angel of Death. Scare people half out of their wits.”
Brother Barnaby cast Sir Ander a grateful glance.
They camped by the Rim, close to where the Rhouse River emptied into the Bay of Faighn, a magnificent sight-water roaring over the edge of the continent, cascading into the Breath in a cloud of mist and rainbows. The river was swollen, for now was the rainy season, the time of year when rains fell incessantly in the continent’s interior for days on end, replenishing the water in the rivers and lakes and in land seas. The water fell off the continents into the Breath, creating the mists and the clouds that would then rise up and cause the rains. God’s everlasting miracle.
Just as the magic is his everlasting miracle, thought Sir Ander. Except now not so everlasting.
Brother Barnaby released the wyverns to hunt. Father Jacob, dressed in a disreputable shirt and trousers topped by a shabby jacket, headed off for the docks. On these occasions he refused to take Sir Ander, saying he would be a hindrance. The knight had no gift for acting and always looked and sounded exactly like what he was, no matter how much he tried to disguise himself.
Sir Ander did not overly worry about Father Jacob going off on his own without a Knight Protector. Dressed in shabby clothes, the priest would not be a target for thieves. The worst that might happen was that he would end up in a barroom brawl, which, knowing Father Jacob, he would actually enjoy.
Sir Ander and Brother Barnaby both slept soundly; neither of them awoke when Father Jacob returned in the wee hours with bruised knuckles and a wide grin. He had, indeed, enjoyed himself, which made up for the fact that the sailors he questioned had not seen or heard anything untoward in the Breath. He did hear rumors about Trundler houseboats coming under mysterious attack, but such tales had been circulating for years, and were generally held to be nautical ghost stories.
The next day, with the wyverns well-fed and well-rested, Sir Ander and Brother Barnaby well-rested, and Father Jacob once more in a good mood, Retribution set sail for the Abbey of Saint Agnes.
Chapter Fourteen
People term us thieves and vagabonds. Their Church would see us banned from Heaven. Their communion with God is not our way. We are the Trundlers, children of a world gone by.
Ours is a culture of two halves, the half we show the world and the half we hold in our hearts and in our words. Our people remember the old ways, the old songs and lore and the true pathway to God, long since corrupted by their church.
I am a Trundler and I am a Guardian of the Past, a Keeper of the Word.
– The Story of the Trundlers by Miri McPike, Mistress of Lore,
Never Published
THE RETRIBUTION, DRAWN BY WYVERNS, sailed the skies above Rosia, heading for the ill-fated Abbey of Saint Agnes. Lost in the Breath, the Cloud Hopper wasn’t going anywhere. Or rather, it was going somewhere, just not where anyone on board wanted to go.
It was Stephano who made the discovery that the last shot fired by Sir Richard Piefer had not missed. Piefer had not been aiming his new gun with the rifled bore at the people on board the Cloud Hopper. He had aimed at the boat, and Piefer was a good shot. Stephano, recovering from the bullet wound in his shoulder, could attest to that fact.
Piefer’s shot had struck the starboard airscrew’s propeller. Undoubtedly, he had been hoping the bullet would cause the propeller to shatter, immediately disabling the Cloud Hopper and forcing the boat to return to the docks, where he and his men could finish them off. Piefer’s plan had been foiled by the myriad powerful magic constructs set into the metal propeller. According to Rodrigo, the magic held the propeller together, kept it from breaking when the bullet struck it.
“Fortunately, the magic allowed us to escape into the Breath,” Rodrigo stated. “Unfortunately, the magic allowed us to escape into the Breath.”
“What does that even mean?” Stephano demanded.
“What it means is that we are in a good deal of trouble,” said Rodrigo. “We have drifted off course. We’ve lost sight of land. And we have no way to steer the ship.”
“But you said the bullet only dinged the propeller blade,” Dag pointed out.
Rodrigo pointed to the propeller. “Please observe. There is the ‘ding’ left by the bullet. The dent appears harmless, right?”
“Right,” said Dag warily. He knew from past experience with Rodrigo he was being led into a trap.
“Wrong!” Rodrigo said triumphantly. “The dent is not only in the metal. The dent is also in the magical constructs that strengthen the metal and keep the propeller turning. And that’s why we’re adrift.”
“A dent in the magic caused us to break down?” Stephano asked, baffled. He started to rub his aching shoulder, caught Miri’s eye, and pretended instead to scratch. “Damn bandages itch.”
He’d been lucky. The bullet had lodged in the muscle, and had not broken any bones. Miri had taken advantage of the fact that he’d been unconscious to dig out the bullet. Then she’d applied her famous poultice, a noxious yellow in color, bound the shoulder with bandages, trussed up his arm in a sling, dosed him with some sort of foul-tasting liquid, and told him to stay below and keep to his hammock.
Miri had learned her healing skills from her mother, who had learned them from her mother and so on back through generations of Trundler women. Miri was knowledgeable in herb lore and grew many of her own herbs in small containers that had their own special place either on the deck or below deck and must not be moved, no matter how many times people tripped over them.
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She used some of the herbs fresh, particularly for cooking, and cut and dried others. Lavender and rosemary hung in fragrant bunches upside down below deck. She stored the rest in crockery containers in the large pantry Dag had built for her near the galley.
One jar was filled with catnip for Doctor Ellington. The cat was of two minds regarding catnip. He was extremely fond of it, but he was well aware that the herb robbed him of his dignity. Within seconds of sniffing a pinch, he would be rolling about the floor with his four large paws in the air, cavorting like a kitten. After the effect wore off, Doctor Ellington would glare at everyone in the vicinity, daring them to suggest he had made himself look foolish, and stalk off with his tail bristling.
Some people claimed the Trundlers used magic in the brews and concoctions and regarded them with suspicion. Rodrigo, in particular, was convinced Miri laced her concoctions with a pinch of magical sigil and he badgered her constantly to teach him the rituals.
Miri always refused, not so much because she was determined to keep her secrets, it was because to her what she did wasn’t magic. It was a part of being a Trundler. The little rhymes Miri whispered as she mixed the potions were rhymes she had heard her mother recite, as were the little songs she sang. Each concoction had its own rhyme, its own song. Perhaps they were magical, as Rodrigo claimed. Perhaps the rhyme caused the poultice to stop the wound from putrefying. Perhaps her song caused the beef tea to strengthen the blood. If that was magic, she didn’t know how it worked and she didn’t care.
Stephano had rested in his hammock only a few hours before he was once more up on deck.
“How can I get any sleep when the lot of you are clomping back and forth above my head,” he said fretfully. “I’ll just doze here in the sun.”
Dag and Rodrigo and Miri looked at each and rolled their eyes and grinned. The reason Stephano was up on deck had nothing to do with clomping. He was their captain. He was in charge. He was responsible. He could no more lie in his hammock and let the world go by than Doctor Ellington could ignore the lure of catnip.
“You owe me five copper rosuns,” Dag told Rodrigo. “I said he’d keep to his bed for four hours. You said six.”
“You should have given him a larger dose of that funny smelling stuff,” Rodrigo grumbled at Miri.
They had docked for the night at a site regularly used by Trundlers, who were called “Trundlers” because their little boats were said to “trundle” through the air. Several other Trundler houseboats, of similar make and design, were docked, tucking in for the night. Trundlers did not sail after dark, believing this was the time demons and other evil beings roamed the Breath.
Trundlers were rovers with their own close-knit society, made up of clans. Each clan was loosely governed by the eldest member of the clan, be that person male or female. Trundlers had their own laws, which sometimes did not accord with the laws laid down by governments. Trundler laws tended to be more easygoing, taking into account human nature and human foibles.
The Trundler’s tragic history had taught them to be wary of outsiders, known as “chumps.” Rodrigo, Dag, and Stephano had been admitted into Trundler society only because Miri, a Lore Master and much respected, had vouched for them. They had spent a pleasant time last night exchanging tales and stories, food and drink with the Trundlers, and had set sail when the morning sun turned the mists of the Breath pinkish orange.
All had gone well until catastrophe struck. Miri had been steering the boat when suddenly sparks of blue fire had danced over the brass helm, followed by a horrible grinding sound and a wild flapping of sails. Miri had thought at first they’d been struck by lightning, though no storm was in the Breath. She had used some colorful Trundler swear words and frantically tried to reestablish control, but the boat was unresponsive. Nothing like this had ever happened before on any boat she had ever sailed. She had no idea what had gone wrong.
“Think of this dent in the magic as a large boulder dropped into a small stream of water,” Rodrigo said, explaining. “The water tries to find a way around the boulder and a small amount of the water will manage to slip past. Thus we had a small amount of magic to keep us going all day yesterday.
“The dent acts like a dam. Some magic flows past, but more magic begins to back up behind it. The constructs in the propeller were not able to handle the buildup of the magical energy and began to fail. That set off a chain reaction throughout the boat. Like tipping over a line of dominoes, more and more constructs failed and then everything failed and now here we are, adrift in the Breath without any way to steer the ship.”
“So fix it,” said Dag. “You’re a crafter. You must be good for something besides causing men with guns to shoot at us.”
“I would love to fix it, I assure you,” said Rodrigo earnestly. “I don’t want to be marooned in the Breath any more than the rest of you. The problem is-the magical constructs are in such a tangle I can’t figure out where one begins and another leaves off. It’s the odd way the constructs are interwoven that allowed the chain reaction failure in the first place.”
He turned to Miri. “Who laid these constructs on the boat for you? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Miri said uneasily. “The boat belonged to my parents…”
“Whoever laid the constructs is highly skilled in magic. Highly skilled,” Rodrigo emphasized. “I’m impressed. But the crafter was an amateur, untrained. No idea what he or she was doing. If you like, I can draw you a diagram.”
“Oh, God!” Stephano groaned. “If he’s reduced to drawing diagrams, we’re really in trouble.”
Miri glanced around for Gythe and couldn’t find her. She thought for a moment her sister had gone below, then she saw Gythe huddled underneath a table. She sat hunched there, her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms around her legs.
Stephano followed Miri’s gaze. “Oh, no,” he said softly. “Not again.”
Gythe was pale, her face strained. She stared fearfully into the swirling mists.
“She’s always like this out of sight of land,” said Miri, regarding her sister with concern. “Leave her there. She feels safe.”
“Why does she do this?” Stephano asked, as he’d asked before when this happened.
Miri looked into the mists closing thickly around the houseboat and shook her head and frowned. “Now’s not the time to talk about it.”
Doctor Ellington jumped from Dag’s shoulder onto the table and then from the table to the deck. The cat rubbed his head underneath Gythe’s arm. She picked him up and buried her face in his striped fur.
Rodrigo had gone below for pen and ink. Returning, he spread the paper on the brass helm and began to draw. Miri left her sister in the care of the Doctor and joined the others to look curiously over Rodrigo’s shoulder.
“Let us say I am a crafter wanting to imbue this paper with magic. I lay down sigil A.” Rodrigo drew an A on the paper and drew a circle around it. “I next lay down sigil B.” He drew another sigil across from A and labeled it B. “In order to cause the magic to work, I draw a line from A to B. I now have a construct. Magic flows from A to B.
“But let us say that I drop water in the middle of the line. Like this. The ink smears, leaving a large blot on the paper. The construct is broken. No more magic. Ordinarily, a crafter would repair the break by redrawing the line, or a channeler would bridge the line. With the magic on board the Cloud Hopper, the crafter did not repair the break. The crafter bypassed the break altogether by adding more lines and sigils. So that now we have not only A and B, but also C, D, E, and F.”
Rodrigo drew sigils all over the page and lines that ran every which-way. “All very original. I’ve never seen these types of sigils before. Some of them actually elevate the magic to the level of genius,” said Rodrigo in admiring tones. “But the crafter who laid down the magic was not trained in the art, and now our boat is burdened with such a mishmash of magical sigils and constructs that I have no idea
how to untangle them. If the crafter who did this was on board, I might possibly-”
“The crafter is on board,” said Miri flatly.
They all stared at her.
“Not me,” she said, raising her hands. “Heaven forefend! I’m a fair channeler. I can channel the magic through my hands from one construct to another. But I cannot create a sigil.”
She glanced at Gythe, crouched beneath table. “My sister is a crafter and she has a rare gift for the magic, or so I’ve been told.”
“But she’s never been trained,” said Rodrigo.
“She was trained,” said Miri. “By our parents. By my uncle.”
“Drop it,” said Stephano beneath his breath.
Rodrigo ignored him. “Trundler magic…”
Miri rounded on him angrily, her fist clenched. “And what do you mean by that remark, sir?”
“Told you to drop it,” said Stephano.
Rodrigo tried to reason with her. “All I meant was that Gythe never went to school-”
“And who needs bloody schooling!” Miri cried, seething.
“Judging by the confused mess I’ve found on board this boat…”
Miri seized a belaying pin.
Stephano grabbed hold of Rodrigo. “Apologize!”
“What? Why?”
“Before she cracks open your skull! Apologize!”
“Ah, yes, well, I apologize, Miri,” said Rodrigo. He gave her his best charming smile. “I meant no offense. Truly. Tell me about Gythe and the Trundler magic. I need to understand so that I can fix this.”
Miri grew calmer. She lowered the belaying pin, much to Rodrigo’s relief, and glanced anxiously at her sister, who was still hiding beneath the table.
“Gythe loves to work the magic. Nothing makes her happier, except maybe playing the harp. She sings to herself while she works. She has such few pleasures. I encourage her. The magic soothes her, like the music.”
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