“On the contrary,” Alamar said. “I think you do know. Just as you know how to vote. Take the yacht out, Sol.”
“Is this a bribe?” Sol asked bluntly.
“Of course not. You’ve already refused it and it would be pointless now, anyway. Just go for a drive.”
The driver stood down from the back of the vehicle, holding the step down for Sol.
“I can’t drive one of these.”
“Nonsense. You can fly a dirigible, therefore you can drive a land-yacht.” Alamar pushed him toward the driver’s seat.
Grumbling, Sol got up into the vehicle and settled into the padded, leather upholstered seat. It moulded around him, holding him securely.
“Wheel,” Alamar pointed out needlessly, “and throttle. Just don’t stress the engine and you’ll be fine. Don’t go through the city, you’re not ready for the streets. Take the road to the left outside of the council hall grounds. It’ll take you to the rear gates and you can happily tear up the turf of my pastures.”
“Let’s do this,” Sergio said, settling into a seat at the very front.
Sol gripped the wheel and throttle, feeling the hum of the engine beneath him. He felt a little twinge of worry, remembering Selestino’s dirigible falling out of the sky, an orange ball of flames. But this wasn’t a dirigible, it wasn’t in the air with nowhere to go to if something went wrong.
“All right,” Sol said. “Just a quick drive.”
Alamar stepped back, laughing. “Trust me, it will be quick.”
“Eloisa!” Sergio waved her into the yacht. “We aren’t about to leave you behind.”
Frowning, Eloisa clambered into the yacht, fussily tucking her satchel and book under one of the seats. She sat down close to Sol, her disapproval evident in her stiff shoulders.
“Relax,” Sol said to her, pushing the throttle forward so the engine whined. “We’ll be fine.”
The Earth Mage looked at him, lips pursed. “What could possibly go wrong?”
#
“Saint Sevastian!” Sergio grinned so wide his face threatened to split in two. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Shaking in a good, exhilarated way, Sol laughed. “Better than cliff diving?”
“Much.”
“Better than a dragon-ship running before a storm?”
“Incomparable to this.”
“Better than sex?”
Sergio stalled, mouth open, thinking. “Yes. Yes, I would say better than sex.”
Eloisa scowled. “Then you must be doing it wrong.”
Sol and Sergio stared at her, then burst out laughing. The Earth Mage, windswept in the most unflattering of ways, glared at them. Sol had no doubt they looked just as bad; hair whipped into unfathomable knots, clothes askew, faces beaten red by the wind, but Eloisa’s indignation made the eventual discomfort of brushing his hair worth it.
The land-yacht had exceeded everything Alamar had claimed. They had done as he’d suggested and torn up his pastures, pushing the vehicle to ridiculous speeds. The engine had screamed but never overheated, responding to even the lightest touch on the throttle. Sol had almost capsized them in the first few corners, but he’d grown used to it quickly and relaxed into the thrill. Sergio had whooped and hollered in encouragement while Eloisa had held on for her life and frowned at them both.
Only the lowering sun had made Sol ease back, slowing the yacht and heading back to the palace. At the gates, a guard refused to let them back in, saying Duke Ibarra had left strict instructions Sol was to take the yacht for the night and return it tomorrow. Grinning like a little boy before a plate of sweets, Sol had driven the yacht to the manor and reluctantly got out of it in the courtyard.
The whole household had turned out to greet them, exclaiming over the muddy but impressive vehicle.
“If he offers to give you this again,” Sergio said to Sol, slapping him on the back, “you will be accepting it.”
Sol tried not to agree.
Muttering, Eloisa stalked into the manor, tugging her fingers through her dishevelled hair.
“She loved it,” Sergio assured Sol as they followed her, leaving the younger staff members clambering over the yacht. “But like most women she must feign dissatisfaction with anything we men think fun.”
“No, Serg. She hated it.” Sol’s happiness slackened a touch. All through the afternoon, he was certain the Earth Mage suspected trouble. Why she felt that way, he wasn’t sure, but he would talk to her about it tonight when he asked for her thoughts regarding his ‘undecided’ status.
Reminded of the unpleasant vote still ahead of him, Sol went to his room to clean up. Getting a brush through his hair was just as difficult as he’d feared, resigning himself to a bath to see if that helped. He was half undressed when the door to his room burst open.
Eloisa slammed the door shut behind her, scanning the room with her quick, bright eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Sol demanded.
“I just checked the pond,” she said, breathless. “There’s a message from Abbess Orellana. She wants you out of Ibarra immediately.”
Sol’s heart plummeted to his knees, all the joy of the afternoon evaporated. “Is it Aracelle? Sebastian?”
Eloisa shook her head. “I don’t think so. It only said to get out of Ibarra now. Saint Sevastian said you were in danger if you remained.”
Could his vote of indecision have angered someone to the point of hurting him? But Isabel was right. His vote meant nothing. He was just stalling the inevitable. Yet he couldn’t imagine any other reason he would be threatened.
Eloisa went to his closet, pulling out a shirt and dark cloak. “Please, Duke Deleon, we have to leave now.”
Sol nodded. “Alert Sergio. Have him gather the constables. Tell him to order the manor emptied. I don’t want anyone here if whoever’s after me shows up.”
“What do I tell him about how we got this information?”
“Tell him the truth. I trust him.”
Eloisa stared at him and he suddenly remembered how young she was, how inexperienced. She trembled with fear, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
“Eloisa, it will be all right. Orellana got the warning to us in time. Trust me, this is more warning than I had in Alarie and I survived there.”
Her worry deepened. “What happened in Alarie?”
Cursing himself for saying the wrong thing, Sol pulled his shirt on. “I’ll tell you when we’re safe. Hurry, go to Sergio. We’ll meet downstairs in the study.”
Eloisa nodded and ran from his room.
Sol let out a long, slow breath, trying to calm his racing heart. Telling himself this wasn’t like Alarie didn’t help. After years of running and hiding and finally making it home safely, he’d thought he would be able to forget that feeling of being hunted, of not being able trust anyone. It was frightening how quickly it all came back.
He was moving before a clear thought formed in his mind. From the drawers he took several small pouches of coins, slipping them into different pockets. Joining the ever present single-shot, easily concealable pistol were two six-shot revolvers, a rifle with a shortened barrel and as many knives as he could carry without slicing himself. Throwing on his cloak, he raced down to the study.
There, he broke the false bottom on a drawer and retrieved the seal of Roque and several wands—thin, glass cylinders containing elements of magic. They were highly illegal. Only mages and Named practitioners were allowed to wield magic. The wands were a rough, short-lived version of an implant. By breaking the glass and cutting himself with it, Sol would possess any magic placed into the wand for a limited amount of time. He wrapped them in a velvet cloth and tucked them away in an inner pocket of his cloak.
The door slammed open and Sergio barged in. “What the damn is going on, Sol?”
“I’m not sure.” Sol eased back on the hammer of the revolver that was suddenly pointed at his cousin. “Don’t surprise me like that again.”
Sergio stared at the slowly lowering weapon in Sol’s hand, then grinned. “Nice. Maybe being paranoid is good for something.”
“Kept me alive in Alarie. Are the men ready?”
“Gathering in the front yard. We’ll take the yacht. It’s the fastest means of escape we have.”
“No!” Eloisa barrelled past Sergio. “The yacht is de Ibarra. We don’t know that we can trust it.”
“I don’t know that we can trust you, Earth Mage,” Sergio snapped.
Eloisa bristled.
“Enough,” Sol said calmly. “Sergio, Eloisa is right. We can’t take the yacht.”
“If something was going to go wrong with the yacht it would have happened this afternoon,” Sergio growled.
“Granted, but the yacht is highly conspicuous. If we race away in it, we’ll leave a hundred witnesses. We’ll take the dirigible. Another airship in the sky will mean little to anyone.”
“An airship with the de Roque dragon all over it.”
“Take off the insignias.”
Understanding reached Sergio’s eyes. “I always wondered why you insisted on having removable plates.”
“And an unmarked balloon and smaller than most. It doesn’t immediately yell duke to all who see it. Get the men to work on the dirigible.”
Sergio left as quickly as he’d entered and Sol pointed Eloisa toward the garden. “Send a message to Orellana. Let her know we’re leaving.”
She hurried out, Sol following, watching the walls for shadows, ears straining for unusual sounds.
Kneeling in the dirt, the Earth Mage put her hands on the ground. “Where are we going? She’ll want to know where to send messages.”
“Tell her only that we’re leaving. Whoever’s after us might be able to intercept the message, so we won’t tell them anything they wouldn’t already know.”
“But how will Abbess Orellana know—”
“She won’t. We’re on our own now, Eloisa. It was always a possibility.”
One the young woman hadn’t contemplated, clearly, but she took a fortifying breath and concentrated on the earth. The ground rippled and the message was away. They hurried to the small airfield tucked away in the corner of the manor grounds. The dirigible was working up to take off power, the gondola clean of all signs of the de Roque dragon-ship. Sol pushed Eloisa on board, then clambered in after her. Sergio was at the wheel, the four constables closing around Sol even as the gondola shuddered through a hasty lift-off.
It was the most agonising take off Sol had ever experienced. He sat in quiet expectation of being stopped by whoever posed a threat large enough to be felt by Saint Sevastian. Yet, they made it off the ground, and then above the walls of the manor and beyond, into the darkening sky. Through the forward windows, he could see the city falling away below and the first few stars shimmering in the deep, dark satin-blue of evening. A wispy cloud curled around the gondola, shredded by the fire magic of the engines. Then they were above the low hanging clouds, a dark speck against a dark sky, a faint glow of red as commonplace as a horse-drawn carriage on the road.
“Which way?” Sergio asked.
North. It was the first thought in Sol’s head, but he ignored it. He couldn’t run home, not until he’d discovered what was going on.
“East.” They’d fly out over the expanse of the Nava Forest, to where there was no one to see them, find a clearing to hide in and decide what to do next.
Sergio nodded and turned the wheel. The rudders shifted and the dirigible turned, ropes creaking, engines whirring.
Sol eased back, trying to relax. They were in the air, they were away from Ibarra City. The immediacy of the threat was over.
Eloisa crept to his side. “Your Grace,” she whispered, “the message didn’t specify between Ibarra City or Ibarra Duchy.”
“I know.”
“Then we should head south-west, to the closest border with Leon.”
“I wouldn’t be able to find out what’s going on in Leon.”
“But you could still be in danger.”
A grim smile curled his lips. “I think I’ll be in danger wherever I go. It’s a risk I have to take.”
It didn’t satisfy her, but Eloisa accepted it. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her hair was still messy from the land-yacht, face pale with fright, but she was calm and steady. Sol was proud of her.
Below, the last of the outer scatterings of Ibarra City slid away, revealing wide stretches of pasture and huddled clusters of cows and sheep. The moon was waning and its light barely touched the world. As the night closed in completely, all Sol could see were the stars and the occasional yellow glow of a farm house far below. Eloisa’s breathing evened out and she slid down against the side of the gondola, curled up on the seat.
It was quiet. The constables settled down, content with whatever Sergio had told them. The engines hummed almost pleasantly. Against his will, Sol found himself falling asleep. After the excitement of the afternoon and the thrill of danger at the manor, he was coming down, his body tired.
A muffled grunt woke him. Eloisa still slept, her hands tucked up under one cheek, eyes moving behind her lids in a dream. Across from him, three constables slumped, all sleeping. At the rear of the gondola, Sergio sat at the wheel.
“Serg?” Sol muttered, staggering to his feet.
Sergio didn’t move but behind him, a low, humped shadow shifted.
Sol headed toward his cousin, rubbing his sleep-fuzzy eyes. “You all right, Sergio?”
Blinking, he focused on his cousin. Sergio wasn’t sitting up. He was held up, pinned to the seat by the sword through his chest.
With a loud, reverberating crack, the man behind Sergio broke through to the engine compartment. The red glow of fire magic poured out of the hole and the grind of the mechanisms burst into the gondola like a clap of thunder. Sol winced, covering his ears, unable to block out the sound completely. He felt the gondola rock as the constables came awake and surged to their feet behind him.
Outlined in red, the saboteur stood. It was Constable Jacobo, one of Sergio’s most trusted men.
“He’s making me do it,” Jacobo said, his tone anguished. “I’m so sorry, my lord.”
“What are you doing?” Sol asked, taking a slow step toward him.
Jacobo flinched and lifted his hand, showing Sol what he held.
“No,” Sol shouted, lunging for the sledgehammer.
Without a word, Jacobo swung the hammer down toward the casement of the engine.
#
Alamar watched the distant fireball blaze across the night sky. Its forward momentum drove the burning dirigible into a long, slow, downward arc until every last measure of energy was converted into the destroying heat of fire. Then it dropped like a stone.
He closed the curtains and sipped his wine, contemplating the thick, rich burgundy shade of the liquid. Deleon had been good to Aracelle, and he made a fine drop of wine. It was a pity, but it had to be done.
Chapter 14
The human body was an amazing thing. Hardy and resilient. Less than a full day since the ambush in the tunnels the soldiers left untreated were starting to heal without aid. Small cuts were closing, abrasions scabbing over, sprains easing. Given time, all of them would heal on their own. Some functionality might be lost, but they would lead full, happy lives.
Gabe was of two minds about this. On one side, it helped him immensely. Much of his magic was expended on beginning these healing processes, but once begun, it only took a little nudge from him to speed it up. What might take days to heal would only take a few minutes, what might take weeks, an hour, and what could have disabled a person for months was gone in a day. Finishing what nature had begun was simple and didn’t leave him aching with echoed pain.
On the other side, though, it made him wonder what the point of bone magic was. Oh, there were lives he’d saved from certain death, yes, but in the end, he wondered if he really made a difference if most of what he could do, n
ature took care of without him. Many people didn’t believe bone magic was a true magic. Luz hadn’t possessed it and unlike the other four castes, bone magic could do nothing that didn’t occur naturally. Even saving someone who would have died without intervention involved little more than simply speeding up one part of nature in order to beat another. Seal the wounds so the person wouldn’t bleed out, rid the body of a toxin quick enough it didn’t affect the organs. In truth, Gabe did nothing time and luck couldn’t do.
Some people, like Duke Ibarra, were very vocal in their denunciation of bone magic. They called for the church to strike it from their canon. If that had happened before the incident in the stables, nothing would have protected Gabe from certain death. Only the fact the church ratified his magic had stalled Abbess Morales long enough to let Duke Ibarra concoct this alternative punishment. And if Ibarra hadn’t sent him here, Gabe would never have been forced to acknowledge not only his own limitations, but the reality of what he called magic.
The morning had gone well. He and Agata had seen to the untreated wounded, completing what a night of rest had begun. Then Manuel had bought word from the command tent that it looked as if, overnight, the Alarians had pulled back from the front. Colonel Cabrera had cautioned against early celebrations, but Tejon Company had breathed a sigh of relief. None more so than Gabe and the Sacerdios. The previous night had been one of the worst they’d experienced, all of them coming closer to their personal limits than ever before. Gabe especially could not stop thinking about Nothing.
He didn’t for a moment believe the man had been the mythical Immortal Soldier. That was just a moralistic church tale Gabe had never paid much attention to. What bothered him was that he’d capitulated to the demands of the military. He’d let the man die, but there was nothing he could have done. There had simply been too much damage, too much missing. All Gabe had done was what he always did. By administering the huge dose of opio, he’d simply sped up what was happening naturally.
Gabe took a long draw on his cigarillo. Even if what he did wasn’t magic, it was still important. People depended on him to set broken bones, to cure their cough, to deliver them of healthy babies. This entire protective campaign would collapse on itself without Bone Mages. That meant his opinions and ideas were important, saints damn it!
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