“Oh, God!” Stephano groaned. “If he’s reduced to drawing diagrams, we’re really in trouble.”
Miri glanced around for Gythe and couldn’t find her. She thought for a moment her sister had gone below, then she saw Gythe huddled underneath a table. She sat hunched there, her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms around her legs.
Stephano followed Miri’s gaze. “Oh, no,” he said softly. “Not again.”
Gythe was pale, her face strained. She stared fearfully into the swirling mists.
“She’s always like this out of sight of land,” said Miri, regarding her sister with concern. “Leave her there. She feels safe.”
“Why does she do this?” Stephano asked, as he’d asked before when this happened.
Miri looked into the mists closing thickly around the houseboat and shook her head and frowned. “Now’s not the time to talk about it.”
Doctor Ellington jumped from Dag’s shoulder onto the table and then from the table to the deck. The cat rubbed his head underneath Gythe’s arm. She picked him up and buried her face in his striped fur.
Rodrigo had gone below for pen and ink. Returning, he spread the paper on the brass helm and began to draw. Miri left her sister in the care of the Doctor and joined the others to look curiously over Rodrigo’s shoulder.
“Let us say I am a crafter wanting to imbue this paper with magic. I lay down sigil A.” Rodrigo drew an A on the paper and drew a circle around it. “I next lay down sigil B.” He drew another sigil across from A and labeled it B. “In order to cause the magic to work, I draw a line from A to B. I now have a construct. Magic flows from A to B.
“But let us say that I drop water in the middle of the line. Like this. The ink smears, leaving a large blot on the paper. The construct is broken. No more magic. Ordinarily, a crafter would repair the break by redrawing the line, or a channeler would bridge the line. With the magic on board the Cloud Hopper , the crafter did not repair the break. The crafter bypassed the break altogether by adding more lines and sigils. So that now we have not only A and B, but also C, D, E, and F.”
Rodrigo drew sigils all over the page and lines that ran every which-way. “All very original. I’ve never seen these types of sigils before. Some of them actually elevate the magic to the level of genius,” said Rodrigo in admiring tones. “But the crafter who laid down the magic was not trained in the art, and now our boat is burdened with such a mishmash of magical sigils and constructs that I have no idea how to untangle them. If the crafter who did this was on board, I might possibly—”
“The crafter is on board,” said Miri flatly.
They all stared at her.
“Not me,” she said, raising her hands. “Heaven forefend! I’m a fair channeler. I can channel the magic through my hands from one construct to another. But I cannot create a sigil.”
She glanced at Gythe, crouched beneath table. “My sister is a crafter and she has a rare gift for the magic, or so I’ve been told.”
“But she’s never been trained,” said Rodrigo.
“She was trained,” said Miri. “By our parents. By my uncle.”
“Drop it,” said Stephano beneath his breath.
Rodrigo ignored him. “Trundler magic . . .”
Miri rounded on him angrily, her fist clenched. “And what do you mean by that remark, sir?”
“Told you to drop it,” said Stephano.
Rodrigo tried to reason with her. “All I meant was that Gythe never went to school—”
“And who needs bloody schooling!” Miri cried, seething.
“Judging by the confused mess I’ve found on board this boat . . .”
Miri seized a belaying pin.
Stephano grabbed hold of Rodrigo. “Apologize!”
“What? Why?”
“Before she cracks open your skull! Apologize!”
“Ah, yes, well, I apologize, Miri,” said Rodrigo. He gave her his best charming smile. “I meant no offense. Truly. Tell me about Gythe and the Trundler magic. I need to understand so that I can fix this.”
Miri grew calmer. She lowered the belaying pin, much to Rodrigo’s relief, and glanced anxiously at her sister, who was still hiding beneath the table.
“Gythe loves to work the magic. Nothing makes her happier, except maybe playing the harp. She sings to herself while she works. She has such few pleasures. I encourage her. The magic soothes her, like the music.”
“Do you know what she is doing with the magic?” Rodrigo asked.
Miri shrugged. “I assumed she repairs broken constructs. I couldn’t see that she was doing any harm. Like I said, I’m no crafter.”
The mists of the Breath were gray, shifting and whirling around them. The damp clung to their clothes, made them feel cold and clammy.
Rodrigo wiped his face.
“She was not doing any harm,” said Rodrigo. “Far from it. These magical constructs are meant for protection. Over and over, she laid down constructs designed to protect this boat and those in it. From stem to stern and back and again, the Cloud Hopper is festooned with webs of magical protection constructs.”
Miri’s eyes shimmered with tears. Her lips trembled. “My poor sister.”
“But protection magic is good, isn’t it?” Stephano argued.
“Yes and no,” said Rodrigo. “Yes, because the protection magic is what kept the propeller from being shot to bits. No, because there are so many layers of spells I can’t figure out how to unravel them in order to repair the damage. Our situation is this: we have no way to operate the sails or the rudder or energize the gas that keeps the balloons inflated and the lift tanks working. Soon the gas will start to cool and lose its magical energy. The balloon will deflate and the lift tanks will fail and we will sink into the Breath. The mists of the Breath grow thicker as one descends, the temperature drops. It is theorized that eventually the Breath at the lowest altitudes turns to a liquid form, which means we will all drown. Though by that time it won’t matter, since we will have already frozen to death.”
Stephano regarded his friend grimly. “There must be some way you can get this boat up and running!”
“I might be able to repair the constructs enough to get us as far as Westfirth, but only if Gythe helps me,” said Rodrigo. “A lot of these sigils are new to me and, trust me, I know my sigils. This is Trundler magic”—he glanced apprehensively at Miri—“no offense, Miri.”
She shook her head, too alarmed at the terrible prospect they were facing to angry.
“We have always kept our magic a secret,” she said.
Stephano glanced over at Gythe. “This goes back to what happened to her, doesn’t it? The reason she won’t speak. Miri, you need to tell us what happened. Maybe we could help her. I know you don’t like to talk about it—”
“I vowed I would never talk of it,” said Miri fiercely. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, staring stubbornly down at the deck. “My uncle made me take an oath. He said if we talked about it, it would only make things worse for us. People call us thieves and swindlers. If they knew that something out there in the Breath was killing our kind, they’d say the horror came because of us and they’d set fire to our boats and drive us out. . . .”
Miri began to cry. She tried to stop, but she couldn’t help it. Stephano put his arm around her and drew her close.
“We won’t tell anyone, Miri,” he said. “We’ll keep your secret. We’ll take any oath you ask of us.”
She smiled bleakly and hurriedly dashed away the tears. Dag fished out his handkerchief and handed it to her. His big, ugly face was soft with concern. She blew her nose and cast Dag a grateful glance and, slightly flushing, squirmed out of Stephano’s grasp.
“Swear by our friendship,” she said. “That will be good enough for me.”
Each of them made the promise. Miri gazed around at them and swallowed. “There’s not much to tell. My sister and I were away visiting my uncle and his family. He has children our age and all of us cousins grew u
p together. We lived as much on his boat as we did on ours. When it was time to join up with our parents’ houseboat, we knew immediately something was wrong.
“Our boat wasn’t at the meeting place. We waited, but our parents never came. My uncle, thinking there might be a problem with the boat, sailed out to search for it. We came across our boat not far off, adrift in the Breath, like we are now.
“Our father and mother should have both been on deck, working to fix whatever was wrong. But they weren’t. There was no one. The deck was empty . . .”
She was shivering. It was cold out here on deck, with the mists of the Breath closing in. Dag draped a coat about her shoulders, and she drew it around her. The coat was huge on her and the shoulder yellow with cat fur. She nestled into it and found the courage to finish her tale.
“My uncle guessed that something terrible had happened, and he tried to stop us from going aboard. But we were kids and didn’t know anything. The world was all sunshine to us then. Before he could catch her, Gythe had jumped from his boat onto ours. She was light as a bird and seemed to almost float through the air. She landed on the deck and shouting, “Mam” and “Pap,” she ran down into the hold.”
Miri paused, then said in a low voice, “I will hear her scream until the day I die. She only screamed once and then she never spoke a word after. My uncle tried to make me stay on board his ship, but I would have fought a bigger man than him to reach Gythe, and at last he let me go with him.
“Our snug cabin, where we all had lived so happily, was awash in blood. The blood was so deep it sloshed back and forth with the movement of the boat. Gythe was standing in it, staring. Just staring. We never found the bodies. Not whole bodies. Only . . . pieces . . .”
“I guess we know the reason for the protection spells,” said Rodrigo somberly.
Dag awkwardly patted Miri’s shoulder. She gave him a wan smile of thanks. “Pirates,” he said.
Stephano shook his head. “Why would pirates attack a Trundler houseboat? It’s not like they’re stuffed with gold . . .”
“It wasn’t pirates,” said Miri. “I told you before. It was something terrible that came out of the Breath. There were marks on the walls—like giant claws. The bodies had been ripped apart. And the magic was gone.”
“What do you mean, the magic was gone?” Rodrigo asked.
“The magic on the boat. It was just gone,” said Miri.
Rodrigo shook his head. “But that’s not—”
Stephano elbowed him in the ribs. “Let it go.”
Her story had unnerved them. They looked into the thick mists and then back at Gythe, shivering under the table. They thought about the protection constructs she had laid down, layer upon layer upon layer.
“You swore you wouldn’t tell,” Miri reminded them.
“I won’t,” Stephano said. “But someone should. The navy could help . . .”
Miri snorted her disbelief. “Help Trundlers?”
“There have been rumors,” said Dag. “I’ve heard them. The sailors talk about ghosts in the Breath.”
“We now know why Gythe worked her magic,” said Rodrigo. “She can’t help me while she is still under the table.”
“I think Dag should talk to her,” said Miri.
“Me?” Dag looked astonished.
“Gythe loves you. She trusts you,” said Miri simply.
Dag’s face went red. He shook his head, embarrassed, and mumbled, “Don’t leave it up to me.”
“We’re starting to sink,” Rodrigo warned, looking up at the balloon. “We don’t have much time.”
“Dag,” said Stephano. “Miri’s right.”
“But what do I say?” Dag asked helplessly.
“Whatever is in that big heart of yours,” said Miri softly.
Dag’s face went redder than ever. He stood for a moment, looking uncomfortably at Gythe. Her head was buried in Doctor Ellington’s fur. She was shivering with fear. Dag’s expression softened. He managed, with considerable effort, to sit down awkwardly on the deck and, by means of scooting and scrunching, squeezed his way beneath the table.
The Breath dampened sound. All was eerily silent.
“Girl dear, I want you to look at me.”
Gythe very slightly raised her head to peep at him over the Doctor. Her fair hair straggled wetly around her face.
“I was born ugly,” Dag said cheerfully. “Came by it naturally. Neither my pa nor ma were anything to look at. But God made up for my ugly face by making me big and strong. I’ve been shot at by every conceivable type of gun. I’ve had cannonballs thrown at me. I’ve been stabbed with swords and cut with knives and struck with fists. I’ve even been attacked by our captain and his dragon.” Dag glanced at Stephano, who smiled at the memory of their first encounter.
“And I’m still here, Girl dear,” Dag said simply. “Nothing’s been found that can kill me yet.”
He rested his hand on her hand and said quietly, “Anything out there that wants to do you harm will have to go through me first. You know that, don’t you?”
Gythe nodded and lifted her head to smile at him. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Miri, turning away, wiped her eyes. Stephano looked at her. He looked at Dag, and something seemed to strike him.
“Miri loves him! I’ll be damned,” he said to himself, and he didn’t know if he liked that or not.
“It seems that Master Rigo is having trouble sorting out what you’ve done with the magic. He needs your help to fix it, or the boat won’t sail. Let me take the Doctor.” Dag reached for the cat, who was loath to leave and, with much yowling, had to be pried loose. “While you go help Master Rigo. He’s not very bright, you know.”
Gythe smiled tremulously at that. She hesitated only a moment, then slid out from beneath the table and stood up, smoothing her skirt. She indicated with a little nod that she was ready to assist. Miri went to her sister and hugged her.
“I am in awe of your work, Gythe.” said Rodrigo. “Truly in awe. What you’ve done is quite marvelous. But your magic is causing a bit of a problem. If you could just show me what you did, we might be able to fix it.”
He steered Gythe to the helm. The two bent over it, Rodrigo explaining and Gythe listening with grave attention. Miri hurried over to assist Dag, who was floundering about on the deck, unable to stand up.
“Damn leg went to sleep on me,” he grumbled.
“Let me help,” said Miri.
She managed to hoist Dag, grimacing, onto his feet. She stood a moment with her arm around his broad back. She smiled at him. “Thank you, Dag.”
He blushed and lowered his eyes and mumbled something, then he hobbled off, trying to get the feeling back into his leg. Doctor Ellington flounced across the deck, tail flicking angrily. He turned up his nose at a piece of smoked fish Stephano held out as a peace-offering, and ran down the stairs into the hold, determined to punish them by depriving them of his company.
Stephano ate the smoked fish himself. Miri was gazing after Dag with a fond, exasperated look.
“So it’s that way with you, is it?” said Stephano.
“What way?” she asked, startled.
“You’re in love with Dag.”
“I suppose I should blush, but I’m too old. Yes, I love the big lummox.” She paused, then faltered, “Do you mind?”
“A little,” Stephano admitted.
“You know we always said we would just be friends.”
“I know what we said,” Stephano replied. “But saying and feeling are two different things. Face it,” he added in teasing tones, “you’d be mad if I wasn’t jealous.”
Miri laughed. “I guess I would.” She sighed and cast a rueful glance at Dag, who was pacing the deck as though he was walking guard duty on the top of a redoubt. “Though there’s no need for you to be jealous. He won’t give me the time of day.”
“He’s been wounded, Miri,” said Stephano quietly. “And unlike a bullet wound or a sword slash, this wound is deep in his s
oul. It won’t be easy to heal.”
“Something happened to him. Tell me what,” said Miri.
Stephano gazed out into the swirling mists. “Dag will tell you himself when he’s ready.” He turned to smile at her. “And when he does, you’ll know he loves you.”
“And if he doesn’t . . .”
Stephano shook his head. “Dag hates himself for something that happened long ago, Miri. Right now, that hatred is so big it’s squeezing out every other feeling. You have to be patient. Loving and patient.”
“If that’s what I have to do, then I guess I’ll do it,” said Miri.
She looked over at the helm. Gythe was making rapid gestures with one hand and jabbing her finger at the helm with the other. Rodrigo was staring at her in helpless bewilderment.
“I guess I had better go translate,” Miri said. She started to leave, then looked back at Stephano. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For being jealous.”
She gave him a pert smile, then went to the helm, where she was immediately confronted by Gythe and Rodrigo, both talking at once; Gythe with hands flying and Rodrigo saying plaintively, “I think I upset her . . .”
Miri explained to Rodrigo what Gythe meant with her gestures and tried at the same time, to explain to Gythe that Rodrigo didn’t mean what he’d said with his mouth. The three of them began to laboriously try to untangle the overlapping strands of magic.
They had a difficult time of it. Gythe was at first adamantly opposed to removing any of the magical constructs she’d laid down to protect the Cloud Hopper. Rodrigo tried to tell her that one of her magical constructs was so powerful she did not need twenty more on top of it.
“In fact, the others have weakened the entire construct. Think of your first construct as a mighty river, with the water all flowing in a one direction. When you added additional constructs, you essentially siphoned off the water, sending it flowing into ditches and creeks and streams, with the result that your river is down to a trickle. If you remove all these other constructs, the magic will flow strong again.”
Stephano listened and watched and tried to imagine what it must be like to see the glow of sigils and the lines of energy connecting them and to know you had the power to manipulate such a miraculous force. Perhaps the feeling was akin to flying through the air on the back of a dragon, with the wind in your face, knowing the freedom that comes when you leave the world and all its problems far behind.
Shadow Raiders Page 24