Ringships

by Peter Claisse

  When they searched for him he hid inside one of the coffins. He was not bothered by the decaying remains that he shared it with, because he knew with complete certainty that the souls of the dead would accept that he was good and those he killed were evil. He wondered whether their souls might one day talk to him, and reassure him, even though they were in the monastery.

  Slowly his wounds healed, and he was able to move out to other parts of the caves.

  5

  Lynella’s escape from captivity on the ship was remarkably simple. In many ways it is hard to see how the mission director could have made so many mistakes. He was an intelligent, if rather ineffectual, man with a good education in modern science. As such he should have understood the contents of the reports and, especially having quite literally had his finger burnt by Lynella’s power, realised the implications and acted on them. He knew that she could induce magnetic fields in metals. It was even in his report back to earth. He could have worked out the destruction that she could cause. He also knew that she could sense the bracelets that Paul wore and use them to locate and free him. He knew that she could stop lead bullets in flight, it was in the reports and his own workshops had even made some ceramic ones to overcome the problem. The trouble was that knowing something is quite different from believing it, and believing it is different again from having the confidence to demonstrate that belief to others. He did not have the confidence to give orders to his managers to take precautions against magic. His managers, in turn, although they had also seen the evidence, did not have the confidence to question this. For his part, the Abbot never for one moment doubted that precautions had been taken, and never thought it worth his while to check.

  The director surveyed the wreckage. The heavy metal door of the pressure hull, which had been closed when the alarm sounded, lay open and distorted. Guns lay on the ground where they had been dropped. Each one showed signs of molten metal around the trigger mechanism, not major damage, but just enough to make them useless. Scorched patches in the grass showed where bullets had fallen uselessly to the ground. A Jeep lay on its side where it had crashed when a wheel had been melted away. He turned and walked on up the road. Normally he would never let himself be seen walking because his style of management was such that he wanted all his staff to know that he was too busy to walk. On this occasion he simply walked on for a full mile to the crash site. How could he explain the loss of a shuttle? The shareholders would want to know.

  They had escaped on horseback. This much did not surprise him, he had guessed that she was sending messages to her friends outside and had let it continue in the hope that they would come in and he could capture them. All of the opposition would have been tidied up and the Abbot would have been pleased. He couldn’t understand then why he had been so keen to please the Abbot, and now he couldn’t understand why he was so scared to tell him what had happened. If anything, it bothered him even more than the prospect of reporting the loss of the shuttle back to earth.

  As soon as the shuttle had come down, he had ordered all of the others back to base. He knew that the guns on the shuttle could knock her off her horse. He had seen her jerk backwards each time she stopped a bullet, so the act of stopping a burst of heavy bullets would send her flying backwards and unable to protect the others. But he couldn’t risk another shuttle. So, he had let her go.

  In his own time, he would go after her. He would get his revenge on her later. For now, he would get his revenge on the rest of her people. He would give a speech at the pilot’s funeral. He would make sure that absolutely all of the crew were there. He would reassert his authority. He would bring them all round to understand that the native people had committed an atrocity, and must all suffer for it. He would bring them round to understand that her people must all be made to work in the mines as forced labour.

  Lynella had been expecting to see her friends, just a small number as they had been before. She knew that the few from the ship who had helped before would want to come along but now she found herself surrounded by a great crowd of people. She asked Paul who they were.

  ‘They want to start a colony.’ He explained. ‘They don’t want to stay with the director and they don’t want to go back to earth with him’.

  She looked at them all. Angus had found enough horses for them, he had obviously known how many to expect. She saw the doctor who had been treating her.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘He wanted to come. We shall need a doctor.’

  She rode forward to where Angus was leading the column.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We shall go wherever you say.’ Suddenly she felt the weight of responsibility. She had much preferred Paul’s style of reply. Angus saw her reaction.

  ‘Adam knows a good place where he says we would be safe.’

  Nobody had mentioned Adam. Not since she had seen him lying in a pool of blood in the monastery. But Adam couldn’t die; she had been foolish to think that he had. Adam would always be there, silent and unresponsive, but always there.

  She turned to see him, he had only been a few feet away, but she would never have noticed him without looking. She smiled at him with such warmth that even he showed a slight flicker of response.

  ‘I thought you were dead. I grieved for you.’

  She tried to move closer to him, but he moved away.

  ‘We shall go to the place you know.’ She said, and he responded with a simple nod of his head.

  They stopped briefly at the Southern castle. News of their escape had spread ahead of them and the crew members who had been staying there had fled. Lynella was not welcome; but Henry did not feel able to close the castle gates on his cousin. Soon they found the Steward and Maria for an emotional reunion. He was too old to travel with them but there was no question of stopping Maria; she would not leave Lynella’s side.

  Knowing that the pursuit would not be far behind, they could not stop for long. Soon they were riding east to the river. A day later they turned north, riding hard up the lake shore until they reached the tower. Continuing down the river they finally found the King Solomon on a mud bank at a sharp bend. The rigging was loose, and the sails had some large tears where they had caught on overhanging trees, but Adam had many companions with him from his village, and they soon had the ship sailing down the river in good order.

  6

  The black cliffs of the island towered over them, blocking the last traces of daylight. Moving deeper into the bay they could see nothing beyond the pool of light from Paul’s flashlight on the black water and the outline of the top of the cliffs, which seemed to be almost directly above them. The sails hung limp against the spars but still their momentum took them slowly forwards.

  Paul shouted. There was a wooden post in the water. Soon a second was visible. Finally, a third.

  They drifted closer. The helmsman tried to steer away but they were moving so slowly through the water that there was no response to the rudder. A shapeless form clinging to the tallest post suddenly unfurled long wings. It flew directly at them, almost touching, disappearing into the gloom.

  Corroding metal bands on the posts held lengths of rotting rope.

  ‘Sunken ship.’ Adam said. ‘Look at the ripples by the masts, there’s a strong current flowing in.’ He raised his head and shouted. ‘Drop anchor.’

  The crew on the foredeck struggled to free it and dropped it over the side but, as they paid out the rope they could feel it sliding over smooth rocks on the sea bed and scarcely slowing their progress. More masts came into sight, the current even stronger as it swirled around them.

  Suddenly their own ship shuddered. They shone lights up. The main mast was caught on an overhanging rock. The hull was driven on by the current. They swung round, broadside on to the flow, pulled over, the water lapping up over the decks on the lower side. The current gripped the hull, driving it harder. The mast scraped further across the rock and lower.

  The crew on deck hung on to an
ything they could find; tried to climb away from the advancing water. Adam slammed down the remaining hatch and secured it.

  Angus shouted at him ‘What about the people inside, let them out’.

  Adam ignored him. Screams came from below. Within moments the water was lapping against the fastenings. The ship was driven further over by the current roaring past it.

  One last terrible scraping noise from the top of the mast told them that they were clearing the overhang. The ship shook itself free and rolled upright. Only its deep keel prevented it from capsizing to the other side.

  They found themselves in total blackness with no way of knowing where they were or even if they were still moving. Lights were pointed out in all directions. There was a narrow shelf of rock with a large carved stone bollard on it. Adam immediately took the end of a light rope and dived into the water. Reaching the shelf, he pulled in the heavy mooring line which the crew had tied onto the loose end of his rope. He ran to fix it to the bollard. Almost immediately it snapped taut. The King Solomon shuddered and stopped

  The ship was now secure, and a lighting sphere was taken up the mast for Lynella to illuminate. The light revealed a large cavern. The ceiling high above them and the walls to either side had been cut smooth. The shelf on which Adam was standing extended the full length and looked man made. The entrance looked frighteningly low. The current surged in and through the length of the cavern, crashing into jagged rocks at the far end; seeming to dissipate through unseen vents. There was certainly no exit above water.

  Adam looked at the damage to the top of the main mast. The spars for the topsail were hanging loose and broken and the sail itself was in shreds but this was of little consequence. If the ship was ever going to somehow be dragged out against the current the entire mast would have to be lowered so a repair would be easy.

  Two hours later the ship was securely moored against the shelf, the decks and cabins had been cleared and the sails hung out to dry. A watch had been detailed and everybody had eaten. The mood, however, was sombre as they could see little prospect of escape from the trap into which they had been drawn. Their only hope lay in the faint outline of a door in the wall behind the shelf. The entire crew was looking at Lynella as she stood in front of it.

  In her mind Lynella was chasing. She knew where she was; the hills, the fields and the trees were all familiar. But she didn’t know what she was chasing. It was ahead of her, just over the brow of the hill, beyond the hedge that ran along the ridge. She was tired, but she knew that she had chased it many times before and always caught it. Except once, and that had not been her fault, Henry had frightened it away. Now she was up at the top of the hill. Her legs ached but she had to carry on. She knew how it felt to catch it, to hold it, to feel it, to know it was hers. She knew that she didn’t need it for long; there wasn’t much to do. All she needed to do was to open a door. It was just a puppy, easy to catch and simple to hold. She could see it now.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a group of people who she barely knew staring at her. She could sense their fear, their fear that she might fail. The puppy had gone, it wasn’t a puppy anyway, it was a fully-grown dog. It could run much faster than she could. She was going to let these people down. They would be trapped with no means of escape.

  She would have to give up. There was one other way. The dog might never run again. She feared that even more that never catching it.

  Maria sensed the problem. Nothing had happened. The silence grew. All the faith in the expedition was built on a faith in Lynella’s power. Maria could only do one thing. She screamed.

  The dog heard the scream. It turned. This gave Lynella time, she was almost on it now. The grass felt firm and smooth. The dog still wanted to know who had screamed, who was trying to help her. It paused, but not for long enough. Just as she was about to touch it, it turned and was gone. The hedge was thick and full of thorns. She was struggling to get through to see where the dog had gone. She was angry now. She pushed past the thorns, ignoring the pain as they cut into her bare arms. The dog was in the distance. She knew that she was able to stop it. She focussed her power on its collar. It stopped in the face of a blinding light.

  In the cavern lighting spheres high up in the roof suddenly blazed with the power of sunlight. One exploded. People all around screamed and ran for cover.

  Lynella knew she had done something wrong. The dog was laughing at her. It was telling her that she should have been trained. She had had the chance to go to the monastery when she had been young, but she had refused. Now she was useless. She was not a mage, she was a fraud. It was a wolf now. Enormous, with long yellow fangs. It had stopped running away. It was almost on top of her. She started to sway and fall.

  Two people caught her arms and held her. They were her friends. But she knew that all her friends were blind, they couldn’t see the wolf. It was about to jump at her and they couldn’t see it. It hesitated, just for an instant the gleaming red eyes turned slightly and looked to one side of her. And somebody met its gaze. Another presence, something she had only ever felt in enemies in the monastery. But this was a friend. The wolf turned and ran. It was only a puppy again now. It was in her arms, she felt the warmth of its soft fur. The door was open.

  Old hinges creaked, and Angus had to use all of his considerable strength to swing the door out until it almost blocked the narrow landing stage. Inside all they could see was a plain square metal compartment. It was just slightly wider than the door and of similar depth and had small upholstered seats all around the edge. Above the seats a line of runes confirmed that it was an artefact of the mages. Lynella stepped inside and Paul followed. Without effort she closed the door.

  He found himself sitting on one of the seats looking at her seated opposite, illuminated by the dim glow of a small sphere. They started to ascend.

  At the top of the shaft Lynella opened the door and they saw daylight outside. They heard a hidden mechanism click into place to prevent the lift from falling when Lynella withdrew her power. She relaxed as they walked out into the sunlight. They stood on a small metal platform high above the surface of the island. Looking down they could see that they were at the top of a massive pylon. Extending above them there was a short mast supporting a ring, some 30 feet across. It was held vertically on edge and Paul looked out across the sea in the direction of its axis. The air was clear and on the horizon, he could just make out the coast that they had come from. A gap in the hills seemed to be divided by a single dark line.

  ‘That’s your tower. It’s on a straight line that must point directly at the source. What does it do?’

  Lynella looked hard at the ring above her and the tower on the horizon and pictured the source beyond the gap in the hills. As hard as she looked she could not imagine what the device had been built for.

  ‘I don’t know how it works’ she replied, ‘but it’s pointing directly at your ship.’

  The stood looking at it for some time and then they turned to look around to see if anything else was visible. On the far horizon in the opposite direction to the tower on the land a second singled dark line showed the presence of another pylon.

  Back on the landing stage they expected to see fear and confusion after their sudden departure. What they saw, however, was a calm and organised crew preparing to lower the masts.

  ‘When you went,’ Angus explained, ‘we knew for sure that this island has devices on it that were built by the mages. They must have had some way of getting out so Lynella can get us out.’ He did not show the slightest doubt in her ability to rescue them and had clearly conveyed this confidence to the others. She realised that the trouble that she had experienced opening the door had only lasted for a few seconds, and had hardly been noticed by anybody except Maria.

  7

  Soon they were back in the lift. This time they stopped half way up at the level of the surface of the island. When the door opened they smelt age and death. The scene was, in some ways, similar to the interio
r of the tower that they had seen before but it was, in every respect, more extreme. The flowing beauty of the work of the mages could be seen in every part of it, but the detail which made the tower a home for a family was absent. The signs of hurried departure which had been so evident in the tower were seen in this place as the remains of sudden death. Each ornate chair around the grand circular table contained the decayed and dried remains of a mage.

  They walked around them in awed silence. Here were jewels which made the gem on Lynella’s forehead look like a child’s toy. But still that power had been defeated.

  Lynella showed a humility that she had never felt before. ‘I thought that they had gone from the tower in such a hurry to fight at the source. They didn’t – they had already been defeated.’

  Paul was equally awed, but saw his own perspective. ‘Three hundred years ago your people had technology which may have been the most advanced that humans have ever seen. We have no means to create ships and pylons, or even a bridge like the ones you created with it. But in the space of a few hours, or even seconds, it was destroyed.’

  The main column supporting the pylon rose through the centre of the table. Around its perimeter a single ring of solid gold would once have been perfectly formed but was now buckled. The sealed environment had prevented accumulation of dust on the table, but this only served to expose the scorch marks which radiated across its surface. Even the surface of the column showed signs of damage.