The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

  "I should say so."

  The links of the belt clanked softly together. The slight noise was enough to wake the young magiwoman in alarm. She sat up, her large eyes scanning the chamber.

  "Who is here?" she asked. Keff held out her belt to her and she snatched it protectively.

  "Only me," Keff said. "I'm sorry. I wanted to see how it worked. I didn't mean to wake you up."

  Plenna looked apologetic for having overreacted to simple curiosity, and offered the belt to him with both hands and a warning. "We mustn't use it here. It is the reason that my bower is secure. We are just on the very edge of the ley lines, so my belt buckle and sash resonate too slightly to be noticed by any other mage." She swept a hand around "Everything in this room was brought here by hand. Or fashioned by hand from new materials, using no power."

  "That's in the best magical tradition," Keff noted approvingly. "That means there's no 'vibes' left over from previous users. In this case, tracers or finding spells."

  "Or circuits," Carialle said. "How does their magic work?"

  Her question went unanswered. Before Keff could relay it to Plenna, he found himself gawking up toward the ceiling. As neatly as a conjurer pulling handkerchiefs out of his sleeve, the air disgorged Chaumel's flying chair, followed by Potria's, then Asedow's. Chaumel swooped low over the bed. The silver mage glared at them through bloodshot eyes.

  "What a pretty place," he said, showing all his teeth in a mirthless grin. "I'll want to investigate it later on." He eyed Plennafrey's slender nakedness with an arrogant possessiveness. "Possibly with your . . . close assistance, my lady. You've been having a nice time while we've looked everywhere for you!"

  Keff and Plennafrey scrambled for their clothes. One by one, the other hunters appeared, crowding the low bubble of stone.

  "Ah, the chase becomes interesting again," Potria said. She didn't look her best. The chiffon of her gown drooped limply like peach-colored lettuce, and her eye makeup had smeared from lines to bruises. "I was getting so bored running after shadows."

  "Yes, the prey emerges once again," Chaumel said. "But this time the predators are ready."

  Plenna glared at Chaumel as she threw her primrose dress over her head.

  "We should never have traveled in here by chair," she snarled. Keff stepped into his trousers and yanked on his right boot.

  "That is correct," Chaumel said, easily, sitting back with his abnormally long fingers tented on his belly. "It took us some time to find the vein by which the heart of Ozran fed your power, but we have you at last. We will pass judgment on you later, young magess, but at this moment, we wish our prize returned to us."

  The two stood transfixed as Nokias, Ferngal, and Omri slid their chairs into line beside their companion.

  "Your disobedience will have to be paid for," Nokias said sternly to Plenna.

  The young woman bowed her head, clasping her belt and sash in her hands. "I apologize for my disrespect, High Mage," she said, contritely. Keff was shocked by her sudden descent into submissiveness.

  Nokias smiled, making Keff want to ram the mage's teeth down his skinny throat. "My child, you were rash. I can forgive."

  The golden chair angled slightly, making to set down in the clear space between Plenna's small bed and her table. With lightning reflexes, Plennafrey grabbed Keff's hand, jumped over the lower limb of the chair, and dashed for her own chair. Clutching his armload of clothes and one boot, Keff had a split second to brace himself as Plenna launched the blue-green chariot into the gap left by Nokias and zoomed out into one of the tunnels that led out of the bubble.

  Keff threw his legs around the edges of Plennafrey's chariot to brace himself while he shrugged into his tunic. The strap of the IT box was clamped tightly in his teeth. He disengaged it, dragged it out from under his shirt, and put it around his neck where it belonged. His boot would have to wait.

  "Well done, my lady," he shouted. His voice echoed off the walls of the small passage that wound, widened, and narrowed about them.

  "How dare they invade my sanctum!" Plennafrey fumed. Instead of being frightened by the appearance of the other mages, she was furious. "It goes beyond discourtesy. It is—like invading my mind! How dare they? Oh, I feel so stupid for teleporting in. I should never have done that."

  "I'm responsible again, Plenna," Keff said contritely. He hung on as she negotiated a sharp turn. He pulled his legs up just in time. The edge of the chair almost nipped a stone outcropping. Plennafrey's hand settled softly on his shoulder, and he reached up to squeeze it. "You were saving my life."

  "Oh, I do not blame you, Keff," she said. "If only I had been thinking clearly. It is all my fault. You couldn't know what I should have kept in mind, what I have been trained in all my life!" Her hand tightened in his, and he let it go. "It is just that now I don't know where we can go."

  The posse was once again in pursuit. Keff heard shouting and bone-chilling scrapes as the hunters organized themselves a single-file line and attempted to follow. This tunnel was narrower than the ones underneath Chaumel's castle. A fallen stalactite aimed a toothlike pike at them, which Plenna dodged with difficulty. She scraped a few shards of wood off the side of her vehicle on the opposite wall. Keff curled his legs up under his chin away from the edge and prayed he wouldn't bounce off.

  "Usually I enter on foot," Plenna said apologetically. "A chair was never meant to pass this way."

  Keff was sure that Chaumel and the others were figuring that out now. The swearing and crashing sounds were getting louder and more emphatic. If Plenna wasn't such a good pilot, they'd be coming to grief on the rocks, too.

  "Can't we teleport out of here?" Keff asked.

  "We can't teleport out of a place," Plenna said, staring ahead of them. "Only in. Almost there. Hold on."

  Keff, gripping the legs of her chair, got brief impressions of a series of vast caverns and corkscrewing passages as they looped and flitted through a passage that wound in an ever-widening spiral without the walls ever spreading farther apart. To Keff's relief, they emerged into the open air. They were over a steep-sided, narrow, dry riverbed bounded by dun-colored brush and scrub trees. He had a mere glimpse of the partly-concealed stone niche where Plenna almost certainly landed her chair when here by herself, then they were out over the ravine heading into the sunrise. Keff's stomach turned over when he realized how high up they were. He chided himself for a practical coward; he wasn't afraid of heights in vacuum, but where gravity ruled, he was acrophobic.

  He turned at the sound of a shout. Through a lucky fluke, Chaumel and Asedow were almost immediately behind them. The others were probably still trying to get out of Plenna's labyrinth, or had crashed into the stone walls. As soon as he was clear, Asedow raised his mace. Red fire lanced out at them. Plenna, apparently intuiting where Asedow would strike, dodged up and down, slewing sideways to let the beams pass. The dry brush of the deep river vale smoldered and caught fire.

  Chaumel was more subtle. Keff felt something creep into his mind and take hold. He suddenly thought he was being carried in the jaws of a dragon. Fiery breath crept along his back and into his hair, growing hotter. The fierce, white teeth were about to bite down on him, severing his legs. He groaned, clenching his jaws, as he fought the illusion's hold on his mind. The image vanished in the sweet breeze Keff had come to associate with Plenna, but it was followed immediately by another horrible illusion. She batted it away at once without losing her concentration on the battle. Chaumel was ready with the next sally.

  "Don't want them taking my mind!" Keff ground out, battling images of clutching octopi with needle-sharp teeth set in a ring.

  "Concentrate, Keff," Carialle said "Those devious bastards can't find a crack if you keep your focus small. Think of an equation. Six to the eighth power is . . . ?"

  "Times six is thirty six, times six is two hundred sixteen, times six is . . ." Keff recited.

  Plennafrey started forming small balls of gray nothingness between her hands. Her chair wheel
ed on its own axis, bringing her face-to-face with her pursuers. They peeled off to the sides like expert dog-fighters, but not before she had flung her spells at them. Explosions echoed down the valley. Ferngal's chair tipped over backward, sending him plummeting into the ravine. Keff heard his cry before the magiman vanished in midair. The black chair vanished, too. Nokias zoomed in toward them, his hand laid across his spell-casting ring. Plenna threw up a wall of protection just in time to shield them from the scarlet lightning.

  "Divided by fourteen is . . . ? Come on!" Carialle said. "To the nearest integer."

  One by one, the last three mages appeared out of the cave mouth and joined in the aerial battle. Keff couldn't watch Plenna weaving spells anymore because the webs made him think of giant spiders, which the illusion-casters made creep toward him, threatening to eat him. He drove them away with numbers.

  "How long is a ninety-five kilohertz radio wave?" Carialle pressed him. "Keff, late-breaking headline: a couple hundred chariots just left Chaumel's residence. They're all coming for you. Teleporting . . . now!"

  "We're too vulnerable," Keff shouted hoarsely. "If they get through to my mind the way they did in the banquet hall, I'll end up their plaything. If they don't shoot us first!"

  All six of the remaining mages positioned themselves around Plenna like the sides of a cube, converging on her, throwing their diverse spells and illusions. Hands flying, Plennafrey warded herself and Keff in a translucent globe of energy. Carialle's voice became suffused with static.

  Suddenly, the chair under him dropped. Spells and lightning bolts, along with the shield-globe, vanished. The sides of the ravine shot upward like the stone walls in his nightmare.

  "What happened?" he shouted. All the other mages were falling, too, their faces frozen with fear. Before his question was completely out of his mouth, the terrifying fall ceased. Keff felt his hair crackle with static electricity, and bright sparks seemed to fly around all the mages' chariots. Unhesitatingly, Plenna angled her chair upward, flying out of the canyon. She crested the ridge and ran flat out toward the east. "What was that?"

  "Didn't you pay the power bill?" Carialle asked, in his ear. "That was a full blackout, a tremendous drop along the electromagnetic lines. I think you overloaded the circuits of whatever's powering them, but they're back on line. Fortunately, it got everybody at once, not just you."

  "Are you all right?" Keff asked.

  The yearning and frustration in the brain's voice was unmistakable. "For that one moment I was free, but unfortunately I was too slow to take off! All the power on the planet is draining toward you—even the plants seem to be losing their color. Everyone is out in full force after you. Keff, get her to bring you here!"

  Like a hive of angry hornets, swarms of chariots poured over the ridge in pursuit. Scarlet bolts whipped past Keff's ear. He grabbed Plennafrey's knee, and turned his face up to her.

  "Plenna, if you can't teleport out, we have to teleport into somewhere—my ship!" She nodded curtly.

  Over his head, the girl's arms wove and wove. Keff watched the mass of chairs fill the air behind them. He prayed they wouldn't suffer another magical blackout.

  "Great Mother Planet of Paradise, aid me!" Plenna threw up her arms, and the whole scene, angry magicians and all, vanished.

  Chapter Ten

  Plonk! The chariot was abruptly surrounded by the walls of Carialle's main cabin.

  "That was a tight fit," Carialle remarked on her main speaker. "You're nearly close enough to the bulkhead to meld with the paint."

  "But we made it," Keff said, scrambling out. Gratefully, he stretched his legs and reached high over his head with joined hands until his back cracked in seven places. "Ahhh . . ."

  Plenna rose and stared around her in wonder. "Yes, we made it. So this is what the tower looks like inside. It is like a home, but so many strange things!"

  "I think she likes it," Carialle said, approvingly.

  "Well, what's not to like?" Keff said. "Are the magimen still coming?"

  "They don't know where you've gone. They'll figure it out soon enough, but I'm generating white noise to mask my interior. It's making the spy-eyes crazy, but that's all right with me, the nasty little metal mosquitoes."

  "It is not you talking," Plennafrey said, watching his lips as Carialle made her latest statement. "There is a second voice, a female's. Your tower can speak?"

  Keff, realizing the habits of fourteen years were stronger than discretion, glanced at Carialle's pillar and pulled an apologetic face.

  "Oops," Carialle said.

  "Er, it's not a tower, Plenna. It's a ship," Keff explained.

  "And it's not his. It's mine." Carialle manifested her Myths and Legends image of the Lady Fair on the main screen. With tremendous and admirable self-control, Plennafrey just caught her mouth before it could drop open. She eyed the gorgeous silhouette, evidently contrasting her own disheveled costume unfavorably with the rose-colored gauze and satin of the Lady.

  "You're . . . only a picture," Plenna said at last.

  "You want me three-dimensional?" Cari said, making her image "step" off the wall and assume a moving holographic image. She held out her hands, making her long sleeves flutter with a whisper of silk. "As you wish. But I am real. I exist inside the walls of this ship. I am the other half of Keff's team. My name is Carialle."

  The fierce expression Plenna wore told Carialle that Plenna was jealous of all things pertaining to Keff. That needed to be handled when the crisis had passed. To the magiwoman's credit, she understood that, too.

  "I greet you, Carialle," Plenna said politely.

  "She's a winner, Keff," Cari said, pitching her statement for Keff's mastoid implant only. "Pretty, too. And just a little taller than you are. That must have made things interesting."

  Keff colored satisfactorily. "Now that we're all acquainted, we have to talk seriously before Chaumel and his Wild Hunt catch up with us. What in the name of Daylight Savings Time just happened out there?"

  "I have never seen the High Mages so . . . so insane," Plennafrey offered, shaking her head "They have gone beyond reason."

  "That's not what I mean," Keff said. "The magic stopped all at once when we were hanging over that riverbed."

  "It has happened before," Plenna said, nodding gravely. "But not when I was in the sky. That was terrible."

  "The huge drain on power obviously caused some kind of imbalance in the system," Carialle said. She plotted a chair for her image to sit down on and gestured for the other two to seat themselves. "The drop came after the whole grid of what the lady called 'ley lines' bottomed out all over the planet. There was, for an instant, no more power to call. It came back after you all suffered a kind of blackout. Look."

  In their midst, Carialle projected a two-meter, three-dimensional image of Ozran, showing the ley lines etched in purple over the dun, green, and blue globe. Geographical features, including individual peaks and valleys on the continents, took shape.

  "Oh," Plenna breathed, recognizing some of the terrain. "Is this what Ozran looks like?"

  "That's right," Keff said.

  "How wonderful," she said, beaming at Carialle for the first time. "To be able to make beautiful pictures like that."

  Carialle ducked her head politely, acknowledging the compliment.

  "Thank you, miss. Now, this is the normal flow of those mysterious electromagnetic waves. Here's what happened when you got that blast of dust in Chaumel's stronghold."

  The translucent globe turned until the large continent in the northern hemisphere was facing Keff and Plennafrey. The dark lines thickened toward a peak on a mountain spine in the southeast region, thinning everywhere else. What remained were small "peaks" on the lines here and there. "I think these are the mages who didn't come to dinner. Now here"—the configurations changed slightly, the bulges shifting southward—"is what happened when you escaped from the dinner party. And this next matches the moment when you teleported to Magess Plennafrey's sanctum sanctor
um."

  The purple lines performed complicated dances. First, a slight bulge opened out in lines near a river valley in the southernmost mountain range of the continent, corresponding to a slight drop in the forces in the southeast. Chaumel's peak was nearly invisible amidst the power lines, until the mages dispersed to points all over Ozran. Occasionally, they reconverged.

  "This big spike indicated when the eight mages found Plennafrey's hidey-hole," Carialle said, narrating, "followed by the big one when everyone came to see the fun. Here comes the chase scene. A huge buildup as the others left Chaumel's peak. And—"

  Abruptly, the lines thinned, some even disappearing for a moment.

  "That has happened before," Plenna repeated. "Not often, but more often now than before."

  "Absolute power corrupts, and I'm not just talking about political." Carialle finished the ley geographic review.

  "Can you run that image again, Cari?" Keff said, leaning close to study it. "Magic shouldn't cause imbalances in planetary fields."

  "But it does, depending on where it comes from," Carialle said. "What's it for? Why is there a worldwide network of force lines? It must have been put here for a reason." She turned to Plenna. "Where does your power come from, Magess?"

  "Why, from my belt amulet," Plennafrey explained, displaying the heavy buckle. "The sash is an amulet, too, but it was my father's, and I don't like to use it." She undid her waist cincture and held it out to Carialle.

  Carialle had her image shake its head. "I'm not solid, sweetie." Instead, she directed the artifact to Keff. Carialle turned on an intense spotlight in the ceiling and aimed it so she and her brawn could have a better look. Keff turned the belt over in his hands. Carialle zoomed in a camera eye to microscopic focus.

  The five indentations were there, as Chaumel had said, part of the original design. The buckle had been adapted for wear by some unknown metal smith at least eight hundred years ago, Carialle judged by a quick analysis. Braces and a tongue had been welded to its sides. The whole thing comprised approximately ninety cubic centimeters, and was plated with fine gold, which accounted for its retaining a noncorroded surface over the centuries. Carialle recorded all data in accessible memory.