Brenna had never imagined anything like the sensation that hurtling skyward in the airship produced. It felt as if she had left her insides behind on the ground, and at the same time was being pushed downward by some strange force. Magic! she thought, but, no, there was no magic in that entire incredible device: no magic in the enormous blue silk envelope above them, no magic in the rush of cold air as they soared above Falk’s manor. Within seconds she found herself gasping for breath, both from the cold, which had become even more intense, and because she just couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs…
“Air… thins… with altitude,” Anton said, panting as though he had run a race. “Good thing we… didn’t go much higher or… might have passed out.” He was peering over the side. “We’ve found… a fast wind… making fifty miles an hour, I think.”
Thin air? Brenna had never imagined such a thing. Surely air was air, and stretched all the way to the stars. But then, Brenna had never imagined being in the sky before, either, except in dreams of flying. And as for the speed… the fastest magecarriage-Falk’s-could do twenty miles an hour (though few of the roads allowed that for more than a few minutes), and she found that terrifyingly fast. And yet, up here, she didn’t feel like they were moving at all.
With a great effort she heaved herself up and peered over the side of the gondola. What she saw made her gasp anew, not from lack of air, but from the sheer shock of seeing her world in a whole new way.
The manor was little more than a dot far below and far behind, almost lost in the glare off of the vast snow-covered plain that slipped steadily beneath them and stretched away as far as she could see… or almost as far: to the west, her view ended in the Great Barrier. It looked even more immense from up here than it did from the ground, a vast wall of fog disappearing into the distance to north and south… but not above.
In fact, she realized with an almost superstitious thrill, she was above the top edge of the Great Barrier. Which meant the distant land she could see over there, identical as far as she could tell to the land stretching out to the east, flat and snow-covered, with only occasional copses of trees, was outside the Barrier, out in the world she had never even wondered about until Anton had arrived so precipitously in her life.
Anton was looking that way, too. “If only… the wind were from the east,” he said despairingly, between heaving gasps of air. “Or we had fuel… we could… fly out.” He looked away from the Barrier, and deeper into Evrenfels. “But we’re… bound northeast. We might make… a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles… if the stove works… what’s… out there?”
Brenna still couldn’t tear her eyes from the Barrier and the immense sweep of land beyond it. A whole world free from the likes of Falk and Mother Northwind, she thought. A world where no one even believes in magic, much less uses it to terrorize and destroy…
She wished for a moment with all her heart that she could fly out of Evrenfels with Anton, leave Falk and his ilk to rot inside the Great Barrier. But they were at the mercy of the wind, and, blowing from the southwest, it was bearing them steadily northeast.
Already they were not quite as high, either, she realized. She could see less of that land beyond the Barrier. Slowly but surely, it was vanishing.
She glanced at Anton. “A scattering of villages,” she said. “And then the Great Lake.”
“A lake?” Anton was peering ahead. “How big?”
“Enormous. Like an inland sea.”
“We could be over the lake when we run out of altitude,” he said, a note of worry in his voice.
Brenna thought what that would mean, descending onto the frozen lake, miles of ice between them and any possibility of shelter or help, and the air suddenly felt even colder.
But there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. They had literally cast their fate to the winds when they launched the airship, and now they could do nothing but wait and see how their cast played out.
Within a few minutes, they were breathing more easily. “We’ll be on the ground in less than half an hour if this doesn’t work,” Anton said, indicating the magecarriage stove. “Guess we’d better find out.” He knelt in the bottom of the gondola, gripped the bellows attached to the side of the stove’s round belly, and began to pump.
Smoke belched from the chimney and poured up into the gondola. The stove began to roar. Anton, sweat starting on his face even in the cold, kept working the bellows. After a few minutes, the stove began to glow a dull red. Brenna could feel the heat radiating from it where she stood, and only hoped enough was going into the envelope to make a difference.
After five minutes, Anton released the bellows, his breath coming in great clouds of vapor as he let himself fall backward. “Hard… work…” he gasped. He got up, groaning, went into the stern, and checked the instruments there. “It worked!” he said after a moment. “We’re descending much more slowly.” He flexed his hands, then stretched his arms out, wincing. “It may kill me, but it works.”
An hour went by… then two. Every few minutes, Anton worked the bellows. He quit talking altogether, just adding coal to the stove, pumping for as long as he could, sweat running from his increasingly red face, then letting go with a gasp, checking the altitude, and resting silently until it was time to pump once more.
Brenna offered to help, but discovered she simply couldn’t work the bellows fast enough. “I’m sorry,” she said, gasping, as she let go and got back to her feet.
“Just… keep a look out,” Anton said, settling himself with a groan before the bellows once more.
Brenna nodded, and retreated to the gondola’s rail.
She found the view even more fascinating as the ground grew closer, as it did despite all of Anton’s working of the bellows and the roaring of the little stove. They passed over a village, miniature dark roofs and little wisps of chimney smoke slipping silently beneath them. Brenna wondered if anyone down there would look up and see them. She hoped not: Falk would certainly be on their trail and looking for eyewitnesses.
She said as much to Anton, as he rested between battles with the bellows. “But you must have known that from the beginning,” he said. “What was your plan for when we landed?”
Brenna said nothing. In fact, she had had no plan: just the absolute certainty that they had to flee before Mother Northwind touched Anton again, before Falk returned to take them all to the Palace to further his mysterious Plan to destroy the Barrier, the Plan in which Brenna, unimaginably, somehow had a central role.
“I guess I was hoping we could find a friendly farmer to put us up,” she said. “Then… I don’t know. Flee north, I suppose. Few MageLords venture up there, and the Commoners who do appreciate that. They’d be unlikely to give us away.”
“We have no supplies,” Anton said. “Nothing but the clothes on our back. No food. No water.”
“But at least your mind is still your own!” Brenna snapped. “Anton, I did the best I could. I couldn’t get any supplies without making Gannick suspicious. We had to go when we did, as quickly as we did, or we weren’t going to escape at all.”
Anton said nothing. Then he sighed. “I know,” he said. “It’s rather ungracious for the rescuee to wish for a betterorganized rescue, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “None of this is what I expected when the Professor and I set out,” he said. “But then, I guess none of us gets a choice in what life throws at us.”
“No.” Brenna thought of her own circumscribed life as Falk’s ward. “No, we don’t.”
The airship drifted and dropped. Though Brenna couldn’t feel it in the gondola, she knew a stiff breeze was scouring the prairie below, sending snow-snakes whipping over the ground, and she welcomed it, its force sending them farther from Falk every passing minute.
When they crossed the western edge of the Great Lake about three thousand feet remained between themselves and the ice, Anton reported. “Maybe we’ll make it across yet,” he said, settling himself at the bellows one more time. But this time he had hardly pumped a dozen times before the noise of the bellows changed, and he suddenly found his hands moving without resistance. He stopped, leaned over. “Damn,” he said. “The bellows have busted. That’s that, then.”
“Won’t the heat keep filling the envelope without the bellows?” Brenna said, looking up at the distended blue silk.
“Some,” said Anton. “But not enough. And we’ve got to throw it overboard, anyway.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s full of hot coals, Brenna. When we hit, we’re going to tip. And then…”
Brenna pictured what that could mean, and jumped to her feet.
The mageservants had carried the stove to the airship on a palette with four crisscrossed wooden staves forming handles. Together, she and Anton lifted it, still hot, teetered to the edge of the gondola, and tipped it over the side.
The airship lurched skyward as the weight left it. Brenna, looking down and behind, saw the stove crash to the ice, disappearing in a cloud of steam as it spilled its burning coals. A moment later Anton heaved what was left of the coal over the side, as well.
Anton went forward, Brenna trailing him, and together they gazed out over the ice. Snow blowing and drifting across it obscured the view ahead. They could see nothing but white haze: no sign of the far shore. “At least ice makes for a smooth landing,” Anton said, as if to himself.
Brenna remembered the scene she had found when the airship had crashed in the trees outside the manor, Anton hanging from the rigging, dripping blood, the Professor dead in the snow, and swallowed.
They dropped lower and lower, flying in eerie silence broken only by the faint creak of rope against wicker as the gondola swayed. The snow-swept ice beneath them seemed to move faster and faster as they crept ever closer to it. The shadow of the airship, stretched out in front of them as the sun set behind them, grew bigger and longer every second.
“Any minute now,” Anton said. He abruptly grabbed a rope, turned, sat down in the gondola, and pulled Brenna down beside him.
“What’s the rope?” she said.
“Vent cord,” Anton replied tersely, which did nothing to enlighten her.
Brenna had thought it frightening enough being able to see the lake surface rising beneath them. She found it absolutely terrifying to not be able to see it, to not know for certain when-
They hit the ice.
The first blow tossed her across the gondola on top of Anton, who pushed her away and gave the rope he held a furious tug. She heard a ripping sound above her.
They must have bounced; they came down again, not as hard. The envelope was deflating above them, and looking up, she saw the big square holes in the top of the envelope and realized that the rope Anton had pulled had opened them, letting the last of the warm air stream out. But the wind had its teeth into them now, dragging them across the ice like a dead rat in the mouth of a cat. The gondola tipped on its side, and only Anton’s grip kept them both from tumbling out. She seized his arm with one hand and one of the loops of rope set as handholds inside the gondola with the other. She could hear the ice scraping beneath them, could turn her head and see the dark gray surface rushing by not a foot away. She could see nothing of what lay ahead of them, the envelope, now only a third its former size, still blocking the view. It shrank further, and then, abruptly, collapsed completely. The gondola slid forward into a welter of ropes and blue silk, spun slightly to the right, and then stopped.
Brenna found herself lying on top of Anton. She pushed herself off him, rolled over, and sat up. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded, his face white. She realized suddenly that this second crash in an airship must have been even more frightening for him than for her. “I’m… fine,” he said. “And I think the airship is undamaged, too.” He gave her a crooked smile. “The Professor used to say any landing you could walk away from is a good one.” The smile faded. “Neither one of us walked away from the last one. So this is definitely an improvement.”
“Let’s see where we are.” Brenna scrambled out of the gondola, and stood up. She found herself facing southwest, staring along the long gray track the gondola had made as it had scraped snow from the ice.
Then she looked the other way.
They’d been closer to land than she’d thought. Just at the limit of visibility rose a line of spruce, shadows in the blowing snow.
And then a piece of shadow detached itself from that line. It rushed toward them, taking shape as it drew nearer, until she recognized it a sled drawn by a team of dogs.
“Company,” Anton said from behind her. “Friendly?”
Brenna moved closer to him. “We’ll know soon enough.”
Silent, they stood and waited for the dogsled to arrive.
Karl woke to find himself lying, fully clothed, in a strange bed. He felt a moment of panic, trying to remember where he was… then the events of the previous night came rushing back and he sat up.
He had a terrible taste in his mouth, an urgent need to relieve his bladder, and a strong desire for fresh clothes: those he wore had a definite horsiness to them.
In the Palace, he had an enchanted chamber pot that instantly whisked all wastes away in a flash of blue light. The cracked porcelain pot he found under the bed… didn’t. But it served the purpose. He closed it and put it at the foot of the bed, not knowing what else to do with it.
Then he went to the door and tried to open it. Rather to his surprise, it swung wide.
He’d had only a confused impression of the house the night before. He remembered climbing the stairs, and there they were, leading down; but he hadn’t noticed that this upper hallway went on a lot farther than he would have thought from the way the house looked from outside. There was no one around, and though hunger was now clamoring for a place at his mental table, he told it firmly to wait and went exploring instead.
He quickly figured out how the trick was accomplished. The farmhouse wasn’t just nestled against the hillside, as he had noted when they’d ridden up, it was attached to the hillside, the corridor extending not just under the slate roof that showed outside, but through an open door that (Karl confirmed) looked like a wall when it was closed. A secret door, a secret hallway, he thought. I could be in one of Verdsmitt’s mystery plays.
He walked into the underground portion of the hall. There wouldn’t be much point of a secret hallway if there weren’t also a secret exit out of it, and sure enough, at the end of the hall another door opened into a narrow staircase he presumed climbed up to the top of the hill
… though he could only presume it because, in the chamber at the bottom of those stairs, Jopps and Denson sat playing cards by the light of a lantern, a handful of small coins spread on the table between them. They glanced up.
“Um,” said Karl. “Just exploring.”
“Not this way, you’re not,” said Denson. He tossed a card on the table; Jopps swore and threw down his own cards. Denson scooped up the coins.
“That’s ten gelts you’ve won off me,” Jopps complained. “I’m beginning to think you’re cheating.”
“If I were cheating,” Denson said, “I’d have won a hundred by now.”
“What time is it?” Karl asked.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Jopps said cheerfully. “But getting on toward sunset, I’d say. You’ve slept the day away.”
Sunset! By now Falk would know Karl was missing. He’d probably even discovered that he’d gone through the Barrier… into the Common part of New Cabora.
Which means he’ll take it out on the Commons, Karl thought uneasily. That’s why they wanted me out of the city. But what will he do?
“Where’s Vinthor?” he said.
“Downstairs sipping wine with our host, I shouldn’t wonder,” Denson growled. “While we’re stuck up here with each other.”
“Shut up and deal,” Jopps said. “At least we’re inside. Them that are outside are envying us right about now.”
Denson shrugged. “There is that.” He shuffled the cards and started dealing.
Karl went back down the hidden corridor, into the “real” corridor, and down the stairs. Vinthor, it turned out, was not sipping wine with the matronly woman who had greeted Karl last night. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen. The woman was there, though, knitting by the fire; when she saw him she immediately put the needles and yarn aside. “And there you are, you poor frozen duckling,” she said. “I won’t ask if you slept well, since here it is getting dark again already and you just getting out of bed.” She reached out to tweak his rumpled clothes, tsking. “And you slept in your clothes. I should have undressed you while I was about it, poor lamb.”
Karl didn’t know how to respond to that. “I am grateful, Madame. ..?”
“Oh, don’t bother with the Madame, sweetie-pie.” The woman smiled. “Goodwife is good enough for me. Goodwife Beth.”
Karl blinked, not sure she was serious. Goodwife Beth was the name of a character from The Farmer’s Mother, a Verdsmitt one-act that was very popular with amateur actors because of its broadly comic characters. And now that he thought about it, Goodwife Beth in the play also called people “duckling” and “lamb” and “sweetie-pie.” Even the most inappropriate people, like powerful MageLords.
He laughed, suddenly. He couldn’t help it. And Princes, he thought.
Goodwife Beth-obviously that was no more her real name than Vinthor’s was Vinthor-smiled. “Does my heart good to hear you laugh, and you so pale and frozen when you came in last night. Well, it looks like no permanent harm was done, honeybuns. Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” Karl said. “But… I’d prefer some clean clothes, first. If there are any.”
Goodwife Beth looked him over with a critical eye. “I dare say I’ve got something your size. Come along.”
She led him into a main-floor bedroom whose most impressive feature was an enormous four-poster bed. She ignored the beat-up old wardrobe in the corner, instead moving aside a rug and pulling open a trapdoor beneath it. She disappeared down a ladder, and emerged a moment later with a handful of clothes. Stores for the Common Cause’s agents, he thought. I wonder what else is down there?
Goodwife Beth showed no inclination to give him a tour. She closed the door firmly behind her, then unrolled the rug over it again. She spread the clothes out on the bed; she’d brought up three shirts, two pairs of pants, even clean underwear-at least, he hoped it was clean. She held up the first shirt, tossed it aside, then held up the second and nodded. “There you are, moppet. Try that one on for size.”
She waited expectantly. Feeling a little awkward, Karl pulled his own sweat-stained shirt over his head. “My, what a well-built young man you are, chickadee,” Goodwife Beth said.
Karl felt himself blushing from forehead to navel, and quickly started pulling the shirt over his head. It was only half on when Vinthor stormed into the room. “That bloody bastard Falk has-” He stopped on seeing Karl, but only for an instant. “You’d better be worth it, you stupid, useless whelp!” Karl jerked the shirt down over his head and stepped back, bumping into the wardrobe, as Vinthor advanced on him. “Do you know what your rutting Minister of Public Safety has done?” He jabbed a finger at Karl. “Leveled New Cabora City Hall. And says he’ll destroy another building every day until someone tells him where you are. New Cabora City Hall has stood for almost two centuries. You’ve only been around for two decades. We should have killed you like poor Jenna tried to do. But, no, I went and asked the Patron!” He suddenly snarled and drew back his fist, and Karl threw his arms over his face… but the blow never landed.
“As you were required to do,” said Goodwife Beth, and she no longer sounded at all like the comic character from Verdsmitt’s play. Vinthor froze, fist cocked, as the tone registered. Then he dropped his hand and turned. Karl lowered his own arms and straightened, looking past him. Goodwife Beth seemed somehow to have gotten both taller and a lot… harder.
“Goodwife…”
“The Patron needs this young man alive more than the Patron does you,” Goodwife Beth said. “Which means you are to defend him to the death, if it comes to that. Do you have a problem with those orders?”
Vinthor’s face had gone somehow solid, as though it were carved out of marble. “No, ma’am.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And so will the Patron be, when next we speak.” And then, suddenly, the iron vanished, hidden away behind the smiling face of the simple farm woman who had welcomed Karl to her house the night before. “Now, then,” she said to Karl, “you just go ahead and try on those trousers and underwear. And don’t worry, mooncalf. I’m not going to stay and watch.” With a warm chuckle, Goodwife Beth bustled out of the room.
Vinthor gave Karl another hard look, but didn’t speak. Instead, he followed Goodwife Beth out.
Karl pulled off his trousers and drawers, and quickly pulled on the clean ones he’d been provided. They fit perfectly. Goodwife Beth, he’d wager, had sized up more than one young man in her life. Whatever she was, or had been, she was definitely not just a simple farm woman.
And a good thing, too, or he might be lying on the floor spitting out teeth… or worse.
Falk destroyed City Hall? Karl thought. That seemed extreme even for him. Especially since he had to know Karl had left his room of his own free will and certainly wasn’t “kidnapped,” whatever he was telling the Commoners. There’s something else going on. He’s worried about something… something big. Something I don’t know anything about.
He gazed around the simple room, so different from his grand quarters back in the Palace. And something I am unlikely to find out anything about.
He remembered thinking the Lesser Barrier was just one big prison, and longing to escape it. Now it seemed he had simply fled one prison for another, much smaller one.
But things were moving, out there in the big world. Falk was at the center of it, along with Davydd Verdsmitt… Tagaza…
… and this mysterious Patron.
It was like being buffeted from all directions by gusts of wind, seemingly unconnected… but all harbingers of a much greater storm to come.
Stuck in Goodwife Beth’s not-at-all-what-it-appeared farmhouse, it seemed all he could do was wait for the storm to break.
Well, he thought, at least there’s no reason to face it hungry; and off he went to find something to eat.