Shadow Raiders

by Margaret Weis; Robert Krammes

  “Where’s that godforsaken courier!” he demanded, waving his letter. “Why isn’t he here by now?”

  “You only just sent for him—” Brother Barnaby began.

  “The man is on the way,” said Sir Ander, seeing the wyverns bristle at the priest’s strident tones. “I’ll take charge of your letter, see that the courier gets it.”

  “Complete incompetence!” said Father Jacob, scowling. “I’ll be inside the yacht. Let me know when he comes.”

  He disappeared. The hatch banged shut.

  “Perhaps I should go look for the courier,” Brother Barnaby said worriedly

  “No, you won’t, because then he’d be in an uproar as to where you’d gone,” said Sir Ander. “Just keep pampering your wyverns. I’ll take this opportunity to read my mail. Let me know when the courier arrives.”

  Brother Barnaby nodded and continued fussing over his charges. Sir Ander walked over to a bench beneath a shady maple tree and sat down. He quickly scanned the letters from a family he scarcely knew (he could never keep track of the various nieces and nephews) and then, with a feeling of pain mixed with pleasure, he drew out the letters with the lavender seals.

  He was aware of a faint scent of jasmine as he broke the first seal. The scent evoked memories. He could envision Cecile quite clearly; even hear her voice speak from the firm, feminine handwriting on the pages.

  She wrote to him often, at least once a month and sometimes more. He wrote to her sporadically. Sir Ander disliked writing letters. He wasn’t any good at it. He never knew what to say. Most of his work for the Arcanum he was forbidden to talk about, and the rest of his life was mundane. He was aware that his lapse in responding to her letters did not bother Cecile. She wrote to him for one reason and that was to keep him informed about his godson, Stephano.

  Always mindful that letters could be intercepted, Cecile buried any information of true importance in a mire of the trivial. Indeed, examining the seven letters, Sir Ander noted signs that the latest one, dated only two days ago, had been opened. Someone had passed a hot knife under the wax seal, leaving the seal intact but permitting the snoop to read the letter’s contents. The snoop had been careless, however, having allowed the seal to partially melt.

  The snoop had wasted his time. Cecile’s letter to Sir Ander was that of one old friend to another, filled with news of the court, talk of the latest fashion, a witty description of a party given aboard the royal barge, expressing admiration for a young musical prodigy who was taking the court by storm, and discussion of her problems managing her estate. He enjoyed her writing; he would take time to savor the letter later, in the lonely hours of the evening. For now, he was curious as to why someone had gone to so much trouble to intercept this particular letter. He read it before reading the others.

  Sir Ander found nothing in it that would mean anything to anyone else and he decided the letter had probably been opened at random: just someone checking on the countess. The last sentence meant a great deal, but only to him.

  When all else fails, know that you can still rely on my friendship and this small token of my esteem.

  “When all else fails,” Sir Ander softly repeated the words.

  All else—including magic. She was letting him know she was aware of Father Jacob’s investigations. But then, of course she would know. Probably the king himself had told her.

  And Cecile had told Sir Ander. She trusted him; perhaps he was the only person in the world beside Stephano she could trust. Her friend and her son.

  The thought warmed him.

  Sir Ander was tall and well-built with an upright, military bearing. Years ago, when he had courted the young and beautiful Cecile de Marjolaine, he had been considered handsome. Over the years, his strong-jawed face, that had once exuded rakish confidence, had softened, becoming graver, more serious. His smile was generous and lit his eyes. Father Jacob was volatile, a bomb liable to go off at any moment, leaving debris and destruction in his wake. By contrast, Sir Ander was reliable, steady. Women were drawn to him. He was fifty years old and he knew many women who would have happily and proudly called him “husband.” He had never married. He would never marry. He would always remain faithful to his own true love.

  Sir Ander carefully folded Cecile’s letter (more valuable to him than the pistols) and placed it along with the other unread letters in the inner pocket of his coat. He then rose to his feet to greet the courier.

  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 matte
r 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.

  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.”