Lynella felt herself losing control. It seemed so natural to let her whole mind flow in where it would be powerful and free. She was slipping in and out of reality but, in one last moment of sanity, she saw a way out. Driving all of the energy down into the huge ring beneath her, she was able to drain the whole system above it and escape. Even this far from the source, the effect of it was sufficiently strong for the surge of energy in the base ring to cause the ship to lurch violently upwards, before dropping down and sending waves out across the lake and rocking violently. The handcarts could be heard sliding around and crashing into everything that lay in their path.
‘Is anybody hurt?’ Lynella asked at last, putting the light back on in the cabin to see the rest of the party looking shocked as they regained their balance. Nobody could think of a reply. ‘I had to do that to get out. Help me to get these rings off the top so it won't happen again.’
As they worked, Lynella found herself trying to make mental notes of the positions of the rings. She felt as if a part of her was being taken away. Adam saw this and threw the smaller ones into the lake. Soon, they had steady lights throughout the ship.
The wind was starting to get up again. It was catching the monk's cabin and blowing the ship along backwards. They gathered back in with Lynella, feeling helpless. Only Adam remained outside pacing up and down the deck. ‘If we're going to get to the other end of the lake, we're going to have to sail it,’ he called in through the doorway.
The dawn revealed an ominous looking summer squall building up behind them to the southwest. Ahead, the rocky slopes of the mountains came right down to the lake. Even the tree cover was sparse among the debris and boulders which lined the shore. With a substantial reach, the wind, when it came, was blowing up large waves which were breaking against the rocks. The deck had been cleared, the handcarts thrown over the rail and the hatch lids closed and secured. Angus and James were looking at the two jibs that they had raised.
‘Pull them in harder!’ Adam shouted down. He was standing on the deck above the monk's cabin, wrestling with the ship's wheel.
They braced themselves against the rail, and hauled on the rope with all of their considerable strength. The blocks creaked in protest; the corner of the sail came in; the ship heeled slightly.
Angus ran back to Adam, ‘That's the first time I've put a sail up. That should get us there, shouldn't it?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Adam gave no reply, but continued staring at the rocky shore with intense concentration. Angus followed his gaze, looking at the features of the desolate landscape they were passing.
‘We're still getting closer,’ he said.
‘That's what I said,’ Adam replied. Although the two jibs had turned the ship and Adam was holding it on a heading away from the shore, it was riding high in the water with its holds half empty and was being blown sideways towards the rocks faster than the two small sails could get it away.
‘Raise it!’ Adam said, pointing at a sail on a boom swinging back and forth across the deck in front of him, with the lighting globes still swinging crazily beneath it. Angus hesitated, he could see no other option. Climbing up the mast, he started out along the boom. Each time the ship rocked, he swung out over the water, only to be snatched back as the ropes came taut. The lamps were held by a seemingly endless number of fine strings around the boom, with knots that had pulled too tight to unfasten. He cut with his knife, letting the globes fall to smash on the deck or disappear without trace into the foaming waves.
The wind stiffened, the ship was gathering speed, moving almost parallel to the coast. The far shore grew more distant and the waves, gathering power across the ever-increasing reach, made it corkscrew violently as they battered into it.
Angus held his knife to a rope that was wrapped around the boom, holding the sail down to it. He looked up again. Standing at the wheel Adam give an almost imperceptible nod and a puzzled shrug of the shoulders.
Seeing the rocks ever closer, Angus decided to risk it. The rope was tight and parted with a snap, rapidly unravelling in both directions. One corner of the sail came free and caught the wind which instantly snatched the rest out over the side. Immediately finding that one of the things he was sitting on was fixed to the top of the sail, he leaned across just in time for it to be hurled out wildly away from him. The next roll of the ship brought it back, the heavy wooden spar swinging straight at him. He jumped clear, skidding across the deck, landing in the pile of broken glass under the rail.
They couldn’t raise the sail until Adam turned the ship into the wind, drawing the mass of wet canvas off the rigging and leaving it flapping above their heads. They were now lying dead in the water and being blown backwards towards the rocks. Angus was bleeding badly, hauling on the ropes under Adam's impassive stare. The noise of the waves breaking against the rocks grew louder, they struggled to work faster. Finally, the massive sail was fully raised, Adam turned the ship. They slowly gathered speed.
The rocks were so close they could see every detail of the deep cracks and razor-sharp outcrops between them. Large sea birds were gathered, flying off in turn to pluck fish from the surf. Angus looked up to see Adam staring ahead with fierce concentration. Angus now saw it too, a patch of white water well out from the shore. As he watched; one of the birds came down and, rather than taking a fish from it, landed.
‘It’s a line of rocks out from the shore,’ Adam shouted. ‘I can't get her round in time’
Moving at enormous speed, driving a huge bow wave they bore down on the rocks. Angus grabbed the rail. Braced for the crash. Suddenly the ship began to lift. Not slowing. Still powering forward. Rising into the air. Landing with the masts almost horizontal.
A wall of water flooded across the deck, breaking against the monk’s cabin, pouring out through the scuppers. The masts swung back into the air. Adam fought the helm round. The rocks were behind them, deep water ahead.
‘Where's Lynella? She must have gone over!’ Angus shouted, leaping up to look at the water racing past.
‘No, she did it!’ Maria cut in.
‘Did what?’ Adam asked.
‘Took us over the rocks;’ Maria continued. ‘She saved us!’
‘That's why we heeled so much.’ Adam shouted. ‘We were lifted up!’
Angus ran into the monk's cabin. Water was pouring out, taking carpets and cushions with it. But the chair was fixed, still in position. Lynella lay motionless in it with the jewel hanging lifeless on her forehead. Running to her side, Maria reached out for her. ‘She's breathing,’ she said. ‘She must have put everything into the ring but she's still breathing.’
With the squall passing over, Angus confronted Adam, ‘When I cut that rope, that thing almost killed me.’
‘The gaff you mean. Yes, it was very dangerous cutting it free while on the boom.’
Angus went white with anger, ‘But you never warned me!’
‘The life of one man is not important,’ Adam replied calmly. ‘We must get Lynella to the monastery.’
Angus’s hand went to the hilt of his knife, but then he looked at Adam, expressionless, scanning the horizon, willing the ship to go faster, and he drew back.
Soon, the next squall was building up on the horizon. ‘This one's going to be bigger. Reef it in!’ Adam shouted. With difficulty, Angus managed to find out from him that this would involve several of them climbing out along the boom again, to take the sail in to the level of a line of ties that could be seen hanging from it.
This time, the boom was even worse. Climbing on top was no longer possible with the sail up; the only foothold was a single precarious rope rigged below it. Adam watched as they climbed out into position. With the sail full, there was no deck below them, only foaming water.
‘Hold on well if we get a gust off the mountain!’
The only person who could actually hear Adam's remark was Lynella, who was standing just outside the cabin, watching the three men struggle into posi
tion.
‘What will happen if we do get a gust off the mountain?’ she asked, not wishing to know.
‘The boom will go across to the other side,’ he replied calmly, ‘Very quickly,’ confirming Lynella's suspicion that Angus was better off not knowing. She hurried forward to help Maria lower the sail for reefing.
The gust came faster than expected and, by the time Angus returned to the deck, he had been up to the waist in water several times as the ship heeled. Looking up at the straining rig, Lynella saw the topsails neatly furled on their spars clear above the sail he had been working on. She felt a strong respect for the men who had worked those sails on ships like this. She realised that Adam was one of their number.
18
The day brought many more squalls, driving them north at good speed. Adam steered them up the centre of the lake; the water was clear blue and appeared to be deep. Angus began to feel comfortable with the sure and powerful motion of the ship. Lynella was, however, soon feeling intense pain as they moved under the orbit of the Atlanta.
By mid-afternoon, they saw a small group of houses on the western shore. These were at the end of a road which led over the ridge behind them and on westward to the Eastern Kingdom and, ultimately, the source. Just as they were passing this, Lynella felt as if her mind was about to explode as Atlanta’s orbit passed directly above them. Something within her wanted to fight back. The thought of Paul being associated with this alien intrusion was difficult to cope with. She had the power to fight it and, as a mage, she felt drawn to do so.
During the afternoon, the wind steadied. They released the reefs and set the main sail on the forward mast to maintain their speed. Once again, Angus found himself climbing along a boom but this time he moved with greater confidence, taking time to remove the lighting spheres without breaking them. He passed them down to Lynella who, seeing no other place to put them, arranged them in a pile by the rail and secured them with some ropes.
To the east, the barren rocks at the base of the mountain continued uninterrupted by any sign of habitation. With the last of the daylight, they saw another settlement on the western shore. This was a small town built around a harbour. A cart full of the black ore could be seen moving slowly up the hillside, behind a pair of heavy horses away to the north-west.
‘That must be Port Jerusalem,’ Angus said. ‘It's where the ore gets unloaded for the monastery.’
They watched and waited as the darkness grew. Lynella went up onto the upper deck with Adam. She stood beside him for a few moments and then asked, ‘Can I help with some lights?’
‘Not now, thank you, Lynella,’ he smiled. She had never seen him smile before. He was in his element on the ship. ‘It would shine in my eyes,’ he explained.
‘What about when we come close to the shore?’
‘Then I shall want to light the shore, not the ship, that's the trouble’
‘Not too much trouble,’ she replied and smiled back. ‘Let me know when,’ and slipped away before Adam had a chance to reply.
The churning bow wave showed luminous in the faint starlight. Behind them, the lights of Port Jerusalem were disappearing from sight. In front was almost total blackness. Standing virtually motionless at the helm, Adam was watching and listening. Lynella stood leaning against the forward mast, facing towards him, holding a single sphere in her outstretched arms. In the pool of light from its faint glow, they could see her long dishevelled hair and her tired eyes looking intently into it. Gradually, they began to hear the sound of breaking waves from the East. Adam asked for light and Lynella's sphere flew straight up high in the air and then, for a few seconds, burned so brightly that it illuminated the entire landscape. They saw that the lake was getting narrower; both banks could be seen, to the east, the jagged rocks and to the west, the forest now came almost to the water's edge.
‘How many times can you do that?’ Adam asked.
Lynella replied from the darkness, ‘I have four spheres here. It was easy for me to do.’ Her face emerged out of the darkness in the light of the next sphere. ‘I'm ready again now.’
After some more tense waiting, Adam called for more light and for some of the sails to be lowered. The lake narrowed, the waves became smaller and they realised that running aground would mean nothing more than waiting for first light and swimming to the shore. They spread out along the rail to stare into the night in front of them and wait. Hearing a faint noise well above her, Maria looked up to see a star briefly obscured as something passed in front of it. She shouted. Lynella sent a light up just in time to show them dense forest just yards away, reaching out, almost touching the mast. Adam steered away but the far bank was now close, and the trees were blotting out even the dim light of the stars.
A few minutes later, Adam called for the last light. It revealed a small bay to the west with a break in the forest and, standing on the bank, a massive black tower. The forest had encroached towards it, and small trees and creepers were growing up around it but none of them came near to challenging its domination of the scene. He steered straight towards it and the ship ran gently aground.
19
Close inspection showed the tower to be made of metal, which had blackened with age. If the mages who had crafted it had seen the state of their creation, they would have been appalled. It seemed that every traveller, hunter, and outlaw in the land had tried to gain entry. The only features on the smooth, black and immensely hard surface were the fine lines of joints which had been made with such precision that they were scarcely visible in the early morning sunlight filtering through the trees. Each of these had been attacked leaving scars ranging from fine chisel marks to broad indentations. The destruction was not limited to the easily accessible base; the damage could be seen extending up the full height of the tower, above the top of the tallest trees. The rotting remains of ladders and trestles littered the ground below it.
Now it was Angus's turn to walk around it. Looking at the joints, he saw that they formed a regular pattern, except for one location where they outlined a shape which could be a doorway. This had not escaped the attention of his predecessors; virtually the entire surface of the area had been scraped, broken or abraded away. He looked in vain for signs of a keyhole or handle until his hunger diverted him and he set out into the forest to look for food.
Sitting around the small cooking fire, finishing off his meal, he looked up at Adam who had, unusually, decided to join them.
‘Can we get the ship away from here? If anybody is following us, leaving it here will show them exactly where to look.’
Adam looked up and paused.
‘It would be very good if we could,’ Lynella added. ‘They may have seen my lights, but they were only lit for a few seconds, so we may have escaped.’
He finally replied, ‘Yes, that's the mouth of a river out there’
‘So, if we can get it out into the middle, the current will push it on downstream?’ Angus guessed.
Adam nodded. ‘If we rig a line to the far bank with some pulleys on it, we should be able to pull her off.’
‘Even if it takes a few hours, it'll be worth it,’.
Now, Lynella found herself walking around the tower. With her slight build, she could not contribute to the work in the river. She was glad of this because she felt drawn towards it. It was obviously from the age of the mages, and all of the relics had meaning for her. As always, she felt an overpowering sense of sadness at the way the very power of the mages had contained the seeds of their own destruction. Without thinking, she unlocked the door and went inside to look.
Inside was the dwelling of a family. Abandoned in haste to die. A purity of form that could never be repeated in the kingdoms. Runes that flowed across the surface of gold, still glowing, untouched by time, accepting her without demanding. Here were clues to what she was, clues to what she should never be. Pictures showed the owners, standing proud of what they were, but with the sadness that showed they knew that they had gone too far.
&nbs
p; She went up, from floor to floor. Bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, all domestic in their form but pure to their heritage in the detail. Finally, at the top, a gallery bright with the light from the ports that had opened for her. Now she could see the world the tower commanded. Far below, she saw her friends moving the ship with their ropes and pulleys. Small figures looking up in astonishment.
To the south west, the tower dominated a break in the ridge, separating the valley of the lake from the land beyond. The plain extended to the horizon across the source. She knew that the Abbot was waiting for her in the monastery under the hill.
In the exact opposite direction, a single mysterious line stood clear on the horizon, a massive object so large that it could not be missed but so distant and slender that no detail could be seen to show what it was.
Standing motionless as the spaceship passed over the landscape, she felt the pain, diminished as they had moved south, but still intrusive. Finally, it was gone, but her sense of peace at its departure was short lived. A pulse came from the south-west, soon followed by another. More came, faltering at first as if learning their place, but growing to a steady confident rhythm. This was a machine like the one on the sailing ship, calling out to draw her in. She longed to call out and respond to it but knew that the minds inside it would hear her call and tell the Abbot where to send his dogs. A few minutes later it was gone, but the message it sent was clear to those who could sense it. This was far more power than was needed for light and comfort. The Abbot was preparing to fight.
Sending the King Solomon on its way, Angus hurried back to the tower. Having seen Lynella inside, the open door came as no surprise. The room inside looked opulent but surprisingly ordinary. Globes around the wall shed a pleasant light, illuminating a large central table covered with papers, pens, a few plates and even some toys. Chairs were spread around it in disarray. A decanter and glasses stood on a tray on a sideboard, bright stains showing that the contents had been left to evaporate out. Several pairs of shoes lay in a pile to one side of the door. The passage of several hundred years showed little effect inside this perfectly sealed environment.
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