A Voyage Through Air

  Captain Rebecca gave her a hard look. ‘You, young thing, are from the Outer Realm, I see that from your clothes. Yet, what is this . . .’ She sniffed the air, still looking at Jemima. ‘Athrodene, and worked with true skill, too. That must have cost you a pretty penny. Are you some kind of warrior maid?’

  ‘A storm the size of a continent, to answer your question,’ Maklepine said before Jemima could fire off a cheeky answer. ‘Few captains have the skill to ride such a calamity and escape with their ship intact. Fortunately, Captain Rebecca is one of them. That is why the crew stay with her.’

  ‘How long will it take to repair the Angelhawk?’ Taggie asked.

  ‘You’d have to pay for that.’ Captain Rebecca gave Dad an uncertain glance.

  ‘I will pay for it, providing you agree to my charter,’ Dad said.

  ‘What is your cargo?’

  ‘Just those of us sitting here, and one other.’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ Maklepine asked.

  ‘The Isle of Banmula,’ Earl Maril’bo said. ‘To start with.’

  ‘Interesting choice. Why there?’

  ‘The old university has a wealth of books,’ Lantic said.

  Maklepine’s deep blue eyes turned to scrutinize Jemima. ‘And you would see how valuable those books are, wouldn’t you?’

  Taggie was growing uneasy with the old shipsmage. He could obviously sense they had magical ability.

  ‘Look, we just need to know if you’ll accept the charter,’ Dad said. ‘The terms are simple enough.’

  ‘Repair and passage?’ Captain Rebecca said.

  ‘And you take us onward after Banmula.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I’ll tell you that when we leave Banmula.’

  Captain Rebecca turned to Maklepine. ‘What do you think, shipsmage?’

  ‘I think, Captain, we won’t get a better offer this day, nor this month.’

  ‘Are they trustworthy?’

  ‘Hey!’ Jemima cried. ‘We can hear you, you know.’

  Maklepine gave Taggie a troubled look, and bowed his head. ‘I have never met anyone more trustworthy, Captain.’

  ‘Don’t go soppy on me now, shipsmage.’ Captain Rebecca grinned, revealing three gold teeth, and stuck out a hand. ‘Deal then,’ she said heartily.

  ‘Deal!’ Dad shook hands.

  The isle of Tarimbi turned slowly, bringing its town round to face lightward again. After a sleepless few hours, Taggie’s company had an early breakfast at the Harpooned Paxia, then walked down to the port park to inspect the Angelhawk. As they left, Taggie looked round to see Lord Colgath watching them from his window. He’d agreed to stay inside and out of sight until the ship was ready to depart, a forfeit she felt obscurely guilty about.

  The Angelhawk was berthed at the second tower. Taggie stood at the foot of the main stairs which protruded from one of the four huge buttress legs, and tilted her head right back to look up at their ship. Squinting against the sun, she could finally appreciate how immensely tall the towers were.

  High above them, the Angelhawk was tethered to the tower’s third wharf. A couple of skyfolk were flying round it, and she could see more crew on deck.

  ‘There’s no lift?’ Taggie said in dismay. ‘That’s a lot of stairs.’ She was seriously considering shapeshifting to her eagle form and flying up there.

  ‘This is when you really need an olobike,’ Lantic told her with a wide grin.

  Sophie laughed. ‘The pair of you! You only have to walk up the first buttress. Gravity fades away after that. See you at the ship.’ She launched herself into the air, flying up parallel to the tower.

  Dad shrugged and smiled. ‘Come on.’ He held out his hand to Jemima, who had a suspicious expression on her face. She took his hand, and they started up the stairs.

  Taggie followed them up. She soon found Sophie had been quite right: her weight dropped away, the higher she was above the isle. The stairs began to get broader and further apart to accommodate the way each step became easier. The ordinary push her legs applied carried her higher and higher each time, until the slightest tap with her toes sent her gliding along. At the top of the buttress there was no gravity any more. She floated gently about in the air, just like the astronauts she’d seen on television. It was scary for the first few moments, until she became accustomed to it. Then she gave a tentative smile.

  ‘This is so cool!’ Jemima yelped as she sailed past Taggie, turning the slowest somersault as she went.

  Taggie grinned and tried her own somersault. The spinning motion made her feel queasy, and she grabbed one of the crossbeams to steady herself.

  There were several wide tubes made from a lattice of bamboo canes leading up the centre of the tower. Now there was no gravity, they were the way people scrambled up and down. Taggie pushed off, and glided along one. She drifted about as she slid up, so every now and then she’d reach out and push herself off the bamboo lattice with a tiny slap of her palm. When she was halfway along, Felix came flashing past her, his paws flicking at incredible speed against the bamboo, tail wiggling wildly from side to side. ‘Yayeeee!’ he yelled gleefully as he went.

  It took very little effort to reach the third wharf that stuck out at right angles to the main tower. Another bamboo tube ran along it to where the Angelhawk was docked.

  Captain Rebecca’s ship was made from three cylinders of dark hardwood planks stacked one on top of the other. Like a giant wedding cake, Taggie thought. The largest cylinder was the lower deck, which was mostly the cargo hold and stores. It also housed the harpoon-launcher compartment, ringed by hatches through which the big weapons could be deployed. At the stern, five fan-like sail tails were folded up against the hull, ready to open out and steer the ship when she was underway.

  The mid-deck was a smaller cylinder, divided up into crew cabins, the galley, a small carpentry shop, and the wardroom. Above that was the topdeck, the smallest of the three cylinders. Captain Rebecca’s cabin took up most of it, though there was also the glass-domed duty officer’s watch chamber, with the remaining space taken by two harpoon-launcher positions.

  Three long masts normally stuck out from the top of the lower deck like spokes from a wheel hub, each with three levels of sails to catch the winds that would carry the Angelhawk between isles. As Taggie drew near the lower deck, she could see only one mast and two jagged stumps where there should have been three. It must have been a really fierce storm to break the masts off like that, she realized. They looked like solid oak. Maybe the captain is as skilful as Maklepine claims, after all?

  Captain Rebecca was waiting for them by the large helm wheel, which was on the walkway circling the mid-deck. Maklepine was with her, along with the bosun – a skyman by the name of Jualius. They hung on the netting which caged the outside of this level to prevent the non-skyfolk crew from drifting away into Air when the Angelhawk came to rest. While it was docked there was little danger, Jualius explained, but between the isles an ordinary human tumbling overboard could soon be lost.

  Jualius was big for a skyman, though not as large as his captain. Pale, beaded dreadlocks meandered round his head as if they were sleepy serpents. Like the captain and Maklepine, he had hundreds of tiny scars on his lucid skin. ‘Ice cuts,’ he told Sophie when she stared in puzzlement. ‘I’ve been caught outside in my fair share of storms sweeping in from darkwards.’

  They were soon joined by two of Tarimbi’s port park shipwrights, who started to assess the damage with Dad, Earl Maril’bo and the captain. Jualius showed Taggie, Jemima, Felix, Sophie, and Lantic round the Angelhawk while that was going on. They floated down corridors and drifted like a shoal of clumsy fish through cabins, chattering excitedly, asking dozens of questions about the helm and the chart room, and the storm that broke the masts, and the odd crockery every ship used for holding food while they were floating at rest. They also met the remaining crew: Ormanda, a Holvan who served as the sailmistress, eight more humans and five skyfolk, along with Mr Marcus
, a Jannermol who was the ship’s cook. Even the egg-like shell that protected his body was covered in tiny healed-up cracks, Taggie noticed – more ice strikes. She was starting to get concerned about the storms they might pass through, and reviewed the shield enchantments in her charmsward.

  After an hour, a price was agreed and Dad handed over a deposit of several gold coins to both shipwrights. ‘Two days,’ he announced happily to Taggie. ‘They have the timber in store to make new masts, and the damaged hull planks are simple enough to replace. Captain Rebecca says she can launch as soon as the work is complete.’

  ‘Almost,’ the captain said in a voice that was a lot louder and more cheerful than it had been in the Dark Phoenix the previous night.

  ‘What do you mean, almost?’ Dad asked sharply.

  ‘We need new sails for the new masts, of course, and our stores are almost empty. It’s a long way to Banmula, you know.’

  ‘Right,’ Dad said wearily. ‘Where do we buy supplies?’

  THE ENCHANTMENTS OF DECEIT

  Queen Danise arrived back in Shatha’hal to find the armies encamped around the capital had tripled in size in the few days she’d been away. As she walked along one of the palace’s broad, airy cloisters she stopped and looked down on the rows and rows of tents with a growing sense of dismay. There were tens of thousands of young soldiers down there, eager for war. They would obediently follow their King and the War Emperor wherever they were told to go. And now she knew what horrors that would mean.

  She found her husband in the small ornate chamber behind the throne room where he took council in private. It had become his war room, with maps on every table, and a constant flow of generals in and out discussing plans and strategy. She looked at him silently for a long moment, seeing the man she loved hunched over a chart on his desk. Blue and red lines wiggled across the parchment. He was obsessed with them, she could see. His grief had blinded him to anything other than vengeance for Rogreth’s death – exactly as Grand Lord Amenamon intended. It was a grief so strong it prevented him from mourning as every man should. It stopped him from looking to the future with hope. And if it was allowed to continue it would condemn thousands to their death and endanger the very Realms themselves.

  Manokol looked up, and gave her a weak smile. ‘There you are, my dear. Where have you been?’

  Queen Danise walked over to him, and took his hands. ‘I have been to see our son.’

  Manokol’s expression was blank for a moment, then he started to colour. ‘The First Realm? You have been to the First Realm, and visited with that stupid girl?’

  ‘I have spoken to the Queen of Dreams, the compassionate and lovely young woman who rules the First Realm, yes.’

  ‘She may rule there, but she is causing havoc here. Everyone knows she is opposed to the war.’

  ‘With good reason.’

  ‘WHAT?’ Manokol roared. ‘What say you?’

  Queen Danise faced his rage completely unperturbed. ‘I spoke with our son.’

  ‘Ha!’ Manokol barked contemptuously. ‘That fool? She bewitched him, you know. She’s led him astray. He knows no better. He needs to be brought back here and reminded of his true responsibilities.’

  ‘Our son. The son you mock, and sneer, and scorn at every opportunity. So much so, you have driven him away, and almost killed him.’

  ‘I did no such thing. I show him how to conduct himself as every father should, especially a royal father. The boy has to learn how to be a true prince.’

  ‘That boy has travelled into the heart of the Fourth Realm. He has shown a courage you and I will never possess. He has faced an army of dark creatures and escaped. Barely. You drove him to that. He thinks he has to prove himself to you.’

  ‘What nonsense is this?’ the War Emperor asked with growing irritation. ‘The Fourth Realm? Nobody can travel there without me knowing. Every Great Gateway to that bedamned Realm is watched and guarded.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Manokol, you know very little of what you face. If only Captain Feandez had survived, your words would be so different.’

  ‘Feandez? What of him? The Queen of Dreams keeps him captive in her Realm.’

  ‘No. She does not. Nor does your son lack for any quality.’

  The old King sighed, and looked at her with heavy, tired eyes. ‘I’m sorry about Lantic, really I am. But the terrible threat we face has to be dealt with. Fate and the Heavens have chosen me to lead this campaign against the Karrak invaders.’

  Queen Danise gave him a sympathetic look. ‘No, my love. It was neither the Heavens nor fate, it was the Grand Lord himself who chose you.’

  ‘This is—’ he began to protest.

  ‘Enough.’ Queen Danise drew herself up, a haze of purple magic shimmering along her fingers. ‘I am your wife, and you will listen to the truth I speak. You are walking into a trap, you and every soldier you command. And this is how it will be sprung . . .’

  The War Emperor listened with growing dismay to the story his wife told him: of Amenamon’s plan to goad the royals of every Realm into invading; of the Outer Realm guns that fired bullets tipped with bad magic, which no one in the Realms could defend themselves against; of the suspicions surrounding Queen Judith; of his son’s valour; of Taggie’s hope to recover Mirlyn’s Gate; of Feandez’s unexplained death.

  ‘This cannot be,’ he whispered in dread.

  ‘It is so,’ Queen Danise said. ‘You can believe the words I speak, the acts of your own son, or you can destroy the Realms in this calamitous war. That is how history will judge you – if there is to be any future where such things are judged.’

  He gripped her hand again. ‘Your compassion and understanding, as always they dazzle me.’

  ‘What will you do?’ she asked, studying his features for any sign of remorse.

  ‘What needs to be done.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I am not so vain, so lost in my selfishness, that I will not heed my own wife. All will be well, my love. I promise.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She embraced him. ‘You are a true King.’

  ‘I will speak with the Kings and Queens of the Gathering,’ he said resolutely. ‘We will draw back from conflict. Another way will be found to punish the Karrak Lords and Ladies for the atrocity they committed against us. They must be made to obey the bloodbond pact the last War Emperor made with their own Grand Lord. They must never again venture from the Fourth Realm.’

  After Queen Danise left, the War Emperor sank down into the curving chair behind his desk. His head fell forward, and before long he started to weep.

  He was still weeping when Queen Judith appeared in front of the desk with a goblet in her hand. ‘Dear friend,’ she said softly. ‘What has brought you to this?’

  The War Emperor used his knuckles to clear the moisture from his eyes before raising his head to regard his strongest ally in the Gathering. ‘How are you here?’ he asked in confusion.

  ‘I heard your poor soul in torment. I came to soothe you.’

  ‘My wife was here,’ he said, frowning. ‘I think she was. My head is so cluttered. I have so much to do.’

  ‘Of course you do. You are our War Emperor, our leader. We depend on you to bring us victory.’

  ‘I will. But . . . there are doubts now. The Karraks have new weapons. My wife . . . she told me they lie in ambush.’

  ‘An ambush unmasked is an ambush turned,’ Queen Judith assured him.

  ‘Is it? Oh, my head. I cannot think. I am so tired.’

  ‘Would you like me to help, dear friend?’

  ‘Can you? That draught you have. Is there more of it?’

  ‘There is always more for you.’ Queen Judith produced a small phial from inside her imposing robe with its glittering jewels. She tipped it into the goblet of wine she was holding and handed it to the War Emperor. ‘Drink this. It will cool you. Your thoughts will soon be clear.’

  The War Emperor took a sip. ‘My wife said something about you, too.’

  ‘Did she?’ Queen Judith’s eye
brow was raised in surprise. She stood behind him, and began to massage his head with her long fingers. Subtle enchantments slithered out from her hands and eased themselves into his scalp. ‘You are the War Emperor,’ she said in a dreamy voice. ‘All the peoples of every Realm believe in you. We place our trust for victory in you. That is what matters. Victory.’

  The War Emperor’s eyes began to droop as a welcome sleep rose to claim him. ‘The Queen of Dreams doubts me,’ he murmured. ‘She has turned my remaining son against me.’

  A flicker of annoyance crossed Queen Judith’s face. ‘Katrabeth will deal with the Queen of Dreams, have no worries on that score. But your dear son Lantic should come back to you, as is only right. He is a good boy, if hotheaded, as all that age are. Might it be that he listens to his mother?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he does.’

  ‘Then send her to the First Relam to fetch him back here to your loving home. He will listen to her, he will come at her bidding. She can tell him that you wish to hear everything he has to say, that will convince him. Your son will come back to you.’

  ‘Yes. That is an excellent idea. I will do that.’

  ‘And in the meantime you can lead your armies without this trifling distraction. Do not doubt yourself. Do not fail yourself. Do not fail Rogreth.’

  A tear leaked out of the War Emperor’s eye. ‘My son.’

  ‘Your murdered son is depending on you.’ Queen Judith smiled down serenely at the sleeping War Emperor, and removed her hands from his head. ‘Avenge him.’

  THE VOYAGE BEGINS

  The shipwrights of Tarimbi were true to their word. After two days of frantic activity, and a great deal of money changing hands, the Angelhawk was ready to depart.

  As the isle turned, bringing the port park and its towers round to face lightward, Sophie launched herself from the ship’s upper deck through a tough elastic opening in the net. She didn’t really have to fly: not up here, so high above the isle’s gravity. A few flicks from her wings set her going, then she swayed her feet gently to steer. Behind her, commands were shouted between the Angelhawk’s decks as the crew prepared to launch. Towerhands withdrew the wharf’s bridge lattice from the ship’s lower deck, and started to wind in the mooring cables as Captain Rebecca ordered them let loose.