‘She is most professional, yes, sir.’
‘What an adventure for a man of letters such as yourself.’
‘Yes, sir. Er . . . the request?’
Mr Howard blinked again. ‘Request?’
‘To study your records for our library?’
‘Oh, indeed.’ Both of Mr Howard’s arms slid about over the desk like sluggish serpents. One pincer picked up a chit, the other a stamp which was pressed into an inkpad. The chit was duly authorized and handed down to Dad. ‘My assistant will show you to the records hall.’
Dad bowed smartly. ‘Thank you, sir.’
The records hall was tucked away behind the portmaster’s building, looking like a warehouse. It made the palace library seem small. But every ledger was identical, with only the date, stamped in gold leaf, distinguishing between them.
An assistant portmaster, another Jannermol, led them down a wide aisle at the far end.
‘This is the section you require,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Dad replied courteously.
‘You’d make a great spy, Dad,’ Jemima said, once the Jannermol had left them. ‘You were so convincing in front of the portmaster.’
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ Dad said, without any conviction at all. ‘But you’re still not going surfing again. Now let’s find what we’re here for.’
‘This is the decade,’ Lantic called out. He was standing in front of shelving three times his height. ‘The year of Rothgarnal is up at the top. I’ll get it.’ There was a ladder that ran on rails fixed to the shelving. He slid it into place and put his foot on the bottom rung, which promptly snapped.
‘I’ll get it,’ Sophie told him wryly, and took off into the air. Her wings stirred up clouds of dust, but she hovered at the top and pulled out several ledgers.
‘Let’s see what ships left in the week following the end of the battle,’ Dad said, and adjusted his glasses.
The ledger creaked as he opened it. More dust fell out.
Dad started to turn the pages carefully; more than one cracked and tore as he moved it. Then he stopped, staring captivated at the page he’d found. ‘Oh, great Heavens,’ he gasped.
Earl Maril’bo leaned over his shoulder, reading the list of arrivals and departures. ‘The best place to hide is in plain sight,’ he smiled. ‘That is so beautiful, man.’
A LONG-AGO VOYAGE
Either Captain Rebecca no longer worried about Lord Colgath, or she hid her nervousness perfectly. Taggie suspected the latter. Whichever it was, the captain welcomed all her passengers politely as they slid into her topdeck cabin. Secured on a pedestal in the middle of the lounge was an orocompass, an impressive mechanical sphere made up of brass bands and clockwork mechanisms that helped every captain navigate through the Realm of Air. Wind charts were pinned to a wall. The wall behind her desk had over a dozen clocks fastened to it, each one keeping the time of a major isle. The array of weapons she kept in a glass cabinet was also remarkable – in a lethal way. Taggie didn’t know what half of them did, though the violet glimmer of bad magic pulsing behind the glass was disturbing.
Captain Rebecca remained behind her desk, her wings quivering occasionally to keep her in place, and gave the delegation an expectant look.
‘We need to know about Exator and the Lady Silvaris,’ Dad said.
Captain Rebecca gave him a suspicious glance. ‘Why? I’ve already told the youngsters everything I know.’
‘No you haven’t,’ Taggie said with some indignation. ‘For a start, was it successful? Did they meet an angel? How far into the coldness did it get, all the way to a star?’
Captain Rebecca gave her a very startled glance. ‘Aye, you’re really not from around here are you? My apologies, young Queen, everyone in the Realm of Air knows the story of the Lady Silvaris.’
‘So what happened?’ Lantic asked.
‘The Lady Silvaris hasn’t yet returned,’ Captain Rebecca said in a melancholy voice. ‘This isle still awaits the day she will appear out of the darkwards sky.’
‘She set sail a thousand years ago,’ Dad said in an accusing tone.
‘About that, aye.’
‘Three days after Rothgarnal was fought and Forilux was destroyed.’
‘Three days?’ Captain Rebecca murmured. ‘I knew the Lady Silvaris launched in the same year as the war. But . . . are you sure?’
‘We checked the portmaster’s records,’ Earl Maril’bo said. ‘Three days.’
A look of wonder spread over Captain Rebecca’s face. ‘Mirlyn’s Gate was on board when it launched. Of course it was! A unique ship that can take you anywhere, and a Gate that has to be hidden forever. It’s a perfect combination.’
‘Do you think Exator would’ve agreed to such a voyage?’ Dad asked. ‘Sailing to the stars was his life’s obsession, after all.’
‘He was definitely a man of honour,’ the captain said. ‘I doubt if he would refuse the War Emperor the opportunity to save the realms from invasion by the Dark Universe.’
‘You told us the Lady Silvaris could withstand the true coldness of the Heavens,’ Lantic said. ‘Could she also sail into the sun?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Prince. Nothing can sail into the sun.’
‘But that is one of the great theories scholars have devised over the centuries,’ Taggie said.
Captain Rebecca snorted in contempt. ‘Not scholars from this Realm,’ she said. ‘The smallest child here could tell you such a thing is nonsense.’
‘Why?’ Felix asked.
‘There is a limit on how far sunward you can sail,’ Captain Rebecca explained. ‘As the ice isles mark the start of the true coldness, so the lava rivers dictate where the air ends. There is a gulf surrounding the sun where the only thing that exists is raw heat. And we’ve only ever seen the lava rivers through telescopes – you cannot get within five thousand miles of them, your ship would simply burn to ash.’
‘Which would then be blown darkwards by the hot winds,’ Lantic concluded. ‘So the Grand Lord and War Emperor wouldn’t do that, because Mirlyn’s Gate would fly free from the ruined ship and might be found. A small chance, admittedly, but they would not leave its resting place to chance.’
‘So the Lady Silvaris did sail for the stars,’ Earl Maril’bo said. ‘Mr Blake’s second lesser theory was right, but not in a way he imagined. Mirlyn’s Gate was taken to be guarded by angels.’
‘If the Lady Silvaris sailed into the coldness and didn’t come back, the Grand Lord and the War Emperor would have achieved what they set out to do,’ Dad agreed.
‘That can’t be right,’ Taggie blurted.
‘Why not?’ Dad asked. ‘I know it means you can’t recover Mirlyn’s Gate, darling, but it would certainly explain why nobody can ever find it.’
Taggie closed her eyes and saw a lifeless ship covered in glittering frost, floating gently through the darkness between stars; her crew dead, frozen in their watch posts, in their beds, at the wardroom table . . . ‘No,’ she said. ‘Captain, you told us there were two hundred and fifty crew on board the Lady Silvaris, right?’
‘Aye, at least that many.’
‘Just how are you going to convince two hundred and fifty people to commit suicide for a cause, however noble? Some of them might, yes – but all? I don’t believe it. When the Lady Silvaris left, the crew must have believed they would be coming back. They knew they weren’t sailing into the sun or out to the stars, they were going somewhere else. A very difficult place to reach, yes, but one that gave them a chance of returning, however slim.’
The lounge was quiet for a moment.
‘Where?’ Jemima asked.
‘It was Exator’s ship,’ Taggie said. ‘He might have agreed to carry Mirlyn’s Gate for the War Emperor, but he was still captain. He’s the key to this. The Grand Lord and the War Emperor spent three days here on Banmula before the Lady Silvaris launched. We know that. So what were they doing for those three days?’
‘Deciding the final hiding pl
ace with Exator,’ Sophie said in excitement. ‘That’s all they could be doing.’
‘Exator knew the Realm of Air,’ Taggie said. ‘Not them. They were as ignorant of it as we were. He was the one who must have given them real options.’
‘Exator must have had a home here, a place he planned his great voyage from,’ Earl Maril’bo said. ‘We should take Jemima there.’
‘I wonder if he had any descendants?’ Lantic mused. ‘They would surely keep their ancestral home.’
‘Ha!’ Captain Rebecca chortled. ‘Even your mind works like a Second Realm contraption, Prince. Yes, Exator had nine children, and that was over a thousand years ago. Today, every skychild born on Banmula is related to him. That is why this isle still believes the Lady Silvaris will return.’
Jemima’s head snapped round. ‘Captain,’ she said in a voice that was more challenge than question. ‘Where were you born?’
Captain Rebecca laughed delightedly. ‘Oh, you’re good, Blossom Princess, very good. Aye, I was born on Banmula. Exator is my grandsire, twenty-seven generations removed. I grew up in the shadow of the family mansion.’
Captain Rebecca grinned all the way down the docking tower as she led Taggie and the others back into town.
Lord Colgath had decided to accompany them. ‘If there are any secrets hidden in Exator’s house I would like to be there when you find them,’ he said. Taggie wasn’t sure if he was simply bored, or if he didn’t quite trust them. Either way, she didn’t try and argue him out of it.
They were halfway down the tower when she saw a newly arrived ship floating close to one of the other towers; a skywoman was towing its landing cable to a free wharf. It was smaller and narrower than the Angelhawk. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked Captain Rebecca.
The swirl of yellow stars in the captain’s sapphire eyepatch tightened up. ‘That’s the Dory Maria, out of Tantuma. I know the captain, he’s more pirate than merchant if you ask me. See how many harpoon hatches there are?’
Taggie tried, but they were a long way down the tower now. She flipped her hands against the bamboo lattice, powering herself along towards the ground.
Exator’s family estate was a mansion on the edge of town. Built from some kind of reddish stone in the shape of an oval dome, it looked as if someone had buried half of an egg in the ground. Huge vertical windows ran up the curving sides, giving it long dark eyes to look over the surrounding streets. Six tall rotundas crowned the apex, with narrow door arches. There were several tarpaulins stretched over various parts of the roof. Weeds and small bushes grew from the cracks they attempted to cover, providing a shaggy green fringe to the fabric.
‘Ha! Here we have my family’s proud legacy,’ Captain Rebecca said with thick irony as she stood outside the wide entrance gates that had rusted open.
‘You grew up here?’ Felix asked, standing on his hind legs to give the air a suspicious sniff. He put his purple-lens glasses on: Second Realm contraptions that could reveal enchantments.
‘Over there, actually,’ the captain said, pointing to a row of tall houses leaning at precarious angles. ‘My seventh cousins, the Micalwaths, live in the mansion itself. But they only use seventeen of the shell chambers.’
‘Oh. Why didn’t you all live in it? Had you fallen out with each other?’
‘No. It’s just that the other two hundred and thirty-five shell chambers need repairing. None of us had the money. Still don’t.’
The captain walked up the wide steps to the massive double doors that were set into the head of the dome at ground level. A whispered enchantment, and a much smaller door set in the base swung open for them.
One by one, they passed into the gloomy interior.
Taggie looked round with interest. The oval dome was a single giant space inside, filled with slender stems supporting shell chambers – fat lens-shaped rooms with circular windows on the upper surface, and an entranceway at the rim. A number of them had collapsed. Like trees felled in a jungle, the taller ones had crashed into their neighbours as they toppled, bringing them down as well.
She heard a sharp intake of breath, and turned to see Jemima standing just inside the door, surrounded by a blaze of sunlight. Her sister looked so scared that Taggie immediately prepared a shield enchantment. ‘What’s the matter, Jem?’
Jemima glanced round nervously. ‘Something has woken,’ she said in a timid voice.
‘Woken?’ Captain Rebecca said scornfully. ‘Not my idle cousins, it’s not yet midday.’
Felix went over to Jemima and drew his sword, its blade glowing a delicate emerald. Lantic scrambled round in his bag for his own revealor glasses as his scarlet and black tunic hardened and transformed into an armour suit. Sophie tugged her crossbow from its strap at her side.
‘Let’s all calm down,’ Dad said. ‘Jemima, what did you see, darling?’
She shook her head, her face pale. ‘I don’t know. I just felt something really old stirring. It knew we had come.’
‘Use your runes,’ Felix suggested.
Jemima’s face told everyone she didn’t want to, but she took out the little leather purse anyway, and shook the black stones. They landed on the worn marble tiles of the floor, and she frowned. ‘That’s wrong. How can that happen?’
‘What?’ Taggie edged closer for a look. She saw the stones had all landed so their blank face was uppermost. ‘What does that mean?’
‘None of the stones have a blank face,’ Jemima said. ‘The runes have vanished.’
‘Perhaps they’re hiding,’ Sophie said. ‘Something has frightened them.’
‘Not helping,’ Felix said, as his tail swished from side to side.
Taggie gave the bleak interior of the massive mansion another nervous glance.
Captain Rebecca guffawed. ‘I have never seen such a bunch of timid flowers. Can you really be the same people who saved Favian? Come on, this is my family home, I played cover-and-hunt here with my cousins when I was half your age. Every time I was victorious, my parents had to spend hours finding me – they had to bring in a seer once. And the fights we had! Aye, pirates and merchants we were, in ships made of furniture and sheets. I won every time.’
‘You mean you bullied us every time,’ a loud voice said from above them.
Taggie looked up to see a handsome skywoman staring down at them from the entrance of a modestly sized shell chamber on a thirty-metre-high stem. She was obviously related to Captain Rebecca, with the same thick profusion of ebony hair that coiled leisurely around her head. She wore a simple green cotton skirt and leather jerkin over a white blouse.
‘May I present my cousin Penelopi?’ Captain Rebecca boomed. ‘Penelopi, how fare you?’
‘Worse for seeing you,’ Penelopi said. She spread her wings and flew slowly down. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Showing my passengers the magnificent ancestral home, of course. They’re rightly fascinated by Exator.’
‘Your pardon for our intrusion, madam,’ Dad said. ‘But Exator was an amazing person. We are inspired by him.’
Penelopi’s feathered feet folded up as she reached the floor and stood in front of the captain. She watched everyone as they sheepishly put their weapons away.
‘So who are you?’ Penelopi asked.
‘Just a scholar with a few hours to spare,’ Dad replied. ‘I was wondering, did Exator leave a journal behind?’
‘No.’
‘What about papers and charts? Was there a particular star he was heading for?’
‘Why do you need to know such things?’ Penelopi asked suspiciously
‘I am a scholar.’
‘For the love of the Heavens, Penelopi,’ Captain Rebecca snapped in exasperation. ‘Show some manners and take our guests to Exator’s study.’
Penelopi scowled at her cousin, then nodded with bad grace. ‘Follow me.’
As they walked round the ground-level chambers deeper into the eyrie mansion, Taggie realized Penelopi hadn’t seen Lord Colgath. His tricky concealment
magic had worked well, but it would never last. The charmsward bands began to turn again, ready for the moment the surly skywoman noticed.
‘So how’s that lovely husband of yours, cousin?’ Captain Rebecca asked merrily as they picked their way over rubble and avoided dank puddles.
Penelopi’s sullen expression darkened further. ‘He is away voyaging.’
‘Has he finally been promoted to First Officer?’
‘He is doing very well, thank you. He does not lie and cheat and steal his way across this realm.’
‘Well, who does?’
Penelopi suddenly stopped walking. Her wings flapped once. ‘He was engaged to me!’
‘And you married him. Eventually.’
Jemima’s jaw dropped down in astonishment at hearing such juicy gossip. She gave Taggie a secret grin. Taggie pressed a finger to her smiling lips.
‘You lured him away with false promises,’ Penelopi stormed. ‘You broke his heart.’
‘There was nothing false about them. It was just so sad that our love burned out very quickly.’
‘You never loved him.’
‘I loved him enough to let him go back to you. Happy landings all round, eh?’
Dad made a show of clearing his throat. ‘Uh . . . ladies, the study?’
Penelopi glared at Captain Rebecca. Her arm thrust out, pointing to a heavy door in the circular chamber she had stopped beside. ‘Here! This is the very heart of our family. You may look, but you are to touch nothing. Understand?’ Penelopi said sternly as she opened the door.
‘Absolutely,’ Dad said.
Exator’s study was in much better condition than the rest of the mansion. A ring of blue-green lightstones shone from tiny nooks halfway up the concave walls. Below them, the inevitable bookcases contained shelf upon shelf of thick leather-bound books, complemented by innumerable pigeonholes stuffed with parchment scrolls. Several elaborate orocompasses stood on plinths, protected by glass covers. There was a family portrait hanging above the mantelpiece: Exator and his wife Silvaris standing in a pleasant garden, surrounded by their children – nine sons and two daughters, the youngest a mere infant, her wings nothing more than buds. Taggie smiled to herself, Silvaris had the same exuberant black hair as Captain Rebecca.