CHAPTER THREE
“Well,” Peg said when some hours later the humans were alone in the promised suite at the inn, “at least we weren’t sent to our rooms without dinner.”
“Just sent to our rooms,” Teg grumbled. She positioned herself where she could look out the window without being seen. “Here we are in another world and we might as well be looking at illustrations.”
“You’re just peeved because you can’t have a cigarette,” Meg retorted, not at all incorrectly.
Teg had already been asked not to draw attention to herself. Apparently, the animal-headed people did not smoke cigarettes, and objected to the odor—reek, was the word Vereez had used—of Teg’s. No one had commented when Teg had lit up at Hawtoor’s because they hadn’t realized that this was an optional behavior on her part. But when Meg and Peg’s distaste had made it evident that it was . . .
“I’m not quitting cold turkey,” Teg warned. “I’ve done that once, when something got into my supplies during a field project. I didn’t like it at all—and neither would you.”
“So I can believe,” Peg said mildly. She moved to where she could join Teg viewing the people moving up and down the street. “When I was home, I thought about trying to explain this place to my kids—to anybody, really. I realized they’d think of some Disney movie, maybe that Robin Hood, where Errol Flynn is played by a fox. The thing is, they wouldn’t get it . . . These people aren’t cute at all. They’re . . . ”
She trailed off, at a loss for words.
Teg looked down at the street. The inn faced the river, and the street below was busy with people going back and forth, carrying bales and bundles, wheeling carts. Not everyone was a porter, of course. There was a riverside market, even people selling directly off their boats, so there were shoppers, gawkers, idlers.
She narrowed her focus to a young couple walking along holding hands. One had a leopard’s head, the other a koala’s. She couldn’t tell which one was male and which female—maybe they were the same sex. They were not like bipedal renderings of their animal counterparts, more like artistic renderings of Egyptian or Assyrian deities—human except where they were not. She’d already observed that the inquisitors’ hands were somewhat of a hybrid, with light fur coming down the backs and nails more like claws.
Then again, how different was that from humans? She’d dated a man who had so much body hair that if he wore a close-fitting shirt, it hardly touched his skin. You could gently pat his shirt and feel the springy hair beneath. Still, she’d like to know more. Vereez clearly had breasts along the human model, so apparently she didn’t have litters . . .
“There’s so much we don’t know,” she muttered.
“And you’re not likely to learn the answers by going down there and cross-examining the townsfolk,” Meg said tartly. “More likely, you’d start a riot. Make a list, and when we’re on this sports yacht Grunwold intends to steal, you can start asking questions.”
“I did bring a notebook or three or four,” Teg admitted. “And pencils and a sharpener.” She didn’t budge from the window, though. The view was just too fascinating. She’d lost count of the variations of people she’d seen. Were the types cross fertile or was the koala/leopard couple down there setting themselves up for a local variant on Romeo and Juliet? Were certain jobs more commonly taken by certain racial types? The ferryman had had the head of some sort of otter, but the person working the oars of a fishing skiff down there looked like a wild boar, complete with curling tusks. How about diet? A doe was busy negotiating for fish at one stand, but maybe she was buying for a friend . . .
It was almost enough to make Teg forget how much she wanted a smoke. Almost.
Meg had obviously been considering Peg’s comment. “They’re not cute—or no more than average. Vereez is actually quite cute, if you like the mischievous sort. Grunwold may actually grow to be quite a majestic man—or male—whatever the correct term would be. I fear Xerak may remain scruffy. No, they’re not Disney creatures—or Redwall or Animorphs or anything like that. They’re people, and we’ll be wise to remember that. I would like to know how the Library of the Sapphire Wind came to be destroyed.”
“You have a good point,” Teg said. “Did you notice that the kids talk about it as past history, but not Hawtoor? That would argue that it was destroyed before they were born but within his lifespan so, as history goes, recent.”
“Like World War II,” Peg said, “when I was a girl.”
“Or even for me,” Meg said with a smile.
“Or even the Korean War for me,” Teg said. “Something I knew more from watching M*A*S*H on TV than because I knew anyone who’d been involved.”
Meg tapped a neatly manicured index finger against her chin. “I think Xerak said it happened about twenty-five years ago. So that gives us an idea as to an upper limit for their ages.”
“And,” Peg said cheerfully, “we now know that we were right that Grunwold, at least, was only giving us part of the story about his holdback. This is going to be fun!”
A few of the mentors’ questions were answered once they were on the riverboat—a multimasted sailing vessel that, at least for now, wasn’t using the sails because the current from the various mountain streams was strong enough to carry the vessel at a comfortable clip.
The captain who politely introduced himself had a wolf’s head, while his first mate, who was also his wife, was a jackrabbit, with long, dark-tipped ears.
After a few meals, Teg decided that whatever their heads looked like on the outside, the mouths must have some adaptations, because everyone seemed omnivorous. Watching Grunwold eat meat was startling, while Vereez turned out to have a liking for melon. Long-bladed knives were the usual tools, and when a food didn’t fit the shape of a mouth, it was cut or trimmed so automatically that Teg figured the locals must learn the skill along with that of using the fat-bowled spoon and three-tined fork that were ubiquitous tableware.
She watched to see if anyone ate what she would have thought of as “themselves”—like Grunwold eating venison, or the rabbit hasenpfeffer, but didn’t have the chance. Shipboard meals were largely built around fish, domestic poultry (or more usually eggs), and occasionally some sort of waterfowl. Clearly the frugal owners did not believe in buying what they could raise or forage for themselves.
The voyage took several days but, since the three humans were kept more or less cloistered, they didn’t learn much more about the world around them. Peg tried to get the three inquisitors to answer some of her many question, but they refused on the grounds that if any of the crew or passengers overheard, there could be trouble.
Eventually, Meg and Peg pretty much kept to the cabin, playing an endless tournament of gin rummy. Since the area was relatively unpopulated and magic free, each used her bracelet to slip off home and make a few phone calls or send some e-mails, thus alleviating any anxiety that would be felt by family members and close friends when they didn’t touch base.
For her part, Teg didn’t feel any need to check in. Her family and friends were used to her “disappearing,” although never as literally as she had this time. Her one problem was getting a chance to smoke. Meg and Peg refused to let her smoke in the cabin, and she really didn’t blame them. However, she insisted that if they wouldn’t let her smoke in there, then she needed to get out and indulge her vice.
“Tell them it’s for my health,” she suggested to the horrified inquisitors. “Or a religious ritual. Or a penance for past crimes. Tell them whatever you want, but you’d better tell them something because I’m not quitting cold turkey.”
Oddly enough, Xerak was her champion on this matter, saying that if she sat upwind the smoke would be carried away. “I’ll tell them you belong to an obscure religious sect. That should do it.”
However, in order to cause as little disruption as possible, Teg tried to smoke mostly after dark. It was peaceful to sit in some secluded corner, looking up at the stars or at a moon that looked pretty much like the familiar one at home.
“Just one moon here?” she asked Xerak, who often joined her, although whether to make sure she wouldn’t start asking questions of the crew, or because she didn’t seem to mind his drinking, she wasn’t sure.
“Just one,” he said. “More where you live?”
“Nope, just one. I was just thinking about John Carter on Barsoom . . . ”
She cut herself off, suspecting the translation spell wouldn’t manage an explanation of John Carter and Barsoom. Anyhow, that was a lousy example, because Barsoom was really Mars, so the two moons were science, not fiction.
“The stars seem different though,” she continued. “I’m no astronomer, but I can usually find the Big Dipper and Orion without even trying. Constellations, you know.”
“I know constellations,” Xerak agreed. “Not those. Want me to show you a couple? Over there, that’s the Bow. Over there is the Reaper’s Basket. You can see it best during the summer, like now.”
So it’s summer, Teg thought. And so they have seasons here. Live and learn. Live and learn.
Teg was nursing her second-to-last cigarette of the day (she’d been carefully rationing them), and so was the first to see the high towers that were their first indication they were getting close to their destination. Xerak was hovering nearby, as he often did, possibly to make sure she didn’t say anything unwise. There was a chance he had an ulterior motive, since there was often something furtive about his manner. Glad to have an ally, Teg didn’t try to ferret it out. Time enough for that later—and only if absolutely necessary.
“Is that a city?” she asked.
Xerak coughed a leonine chuckle. “Not really. KonSef Landing is just a port town. Those are grain silos. Impressive, aren’t they?”
“Astonishing!” Teg agreed. “They’re beautiful, too. Where I come from, such things are constructed with practicality in mind, nothing more.”
“They’re boasts,” Xerak explained, “as well as landmarks. From what Grunwold said, KonSef Landing used to only be busy after the harvest. Then his parents started buying up land and farming on a huge scale. Now they usually have surplus, and trade goes on pretty much year ’round.”
Anthropologist Teg wanted to ask questions about types of crops, processing, and drying procedures. A more important question came out instead.
“So that’s where Grunwold’s family estate is?”
Xerak nodded. “We’ve been discussing plans for days—arguing. Grunwold wanted to avoid his family entirely, but that would make—uh—borrowing Slicewind a lot harder. Instead, he’s going to go back, as if he’s just reporting about his pilgrimage. That will let him check out the lay of the land, make sure where Slicewind is berthed. He’ll send a message, so we’ll know when to be ready.”
Teg nodded. “Do you and Vereez live near here?”
Xerak coughed another laugh. “Not even close. We live in Rivers Meet, a large city way downriver from here.”
“Have you known each other long?”
“All three of us have known each other since we were children. Our parents were good friends and we were all born in Rivers Meet. Then, when Grunwold was little, his parents bought KonSef Estate and moved, so after that, we three only saw each other a couple times a year.” He laughed. “But those were intense times. We’re all only kids, so we sort of adopted each other.”
Teg nodded. “I had cousins like that. We didn’t see each other often but, when we did, we just picked up where we had been before. How about lately?”
“The last several years, we’ve been finishing up our educations, so we hadn’t seen each other that often. I was living with my master well outside of Rivers Meet, and didn’t leave often. I think Vereez went abroad for a year or so. Grunwold was stuck out here. The KonSef estate is massive and deals with more than raising grain. There’s a brick-making facility, for example, and a sideline in raising vikrew, especially the heavy draft breeds.”
The word “vikrew” meant nothing to Teg, but she didn’t want to get sidetracked.
“So when you met up on the boat on the way to the shrine, that wasn’t by accident?”
“Not at all. Each of us are holdbacks. Eventually, we decided to make pilgrimage to the shrine. Me and Vereez decided first, then we got in touch with Grunwold.”
Teg wanted to ask more. She could guess what a holdback was—each of these young people had admitted that there was something that was keeping him or her from moving along with their lives. But didn’t the kids’ parents worry about sending Vereez off with two young men? Xerak treated her like a sister—alternately affectionate and argumentative—but Teg would have sworn that Grunwold was nursing a serious crush. On the other hand, Vereez didn’t seem to return Grunwold’s affection, and he didn’t seem like a rapist, so maybe she was safe after all.
Maybe even safer than if she was travelling with a chaperone, Teg thought, since Grunwold hanging about is going to be a serious obstacle to any rivals.
She stubbed out her cigarette, carefully putting the butt in her pocket. She didn’t want to leave any weird artifacts for future archeologists.
“Aren’t you going to be expected to go up to the estate? Won’t it be considered rude if you stay away?”
Xerak shook his head. “Not with Konnel-toh so sick.”
Interesting, Teg thought. This language seems to use suffixes rather than prefixes. We’ve heard “-va” for wizards, and “-lial” seems to be a general term of respect. I wonder if “-toh” indicates respect and affection, rather as in English a child might call an adult “uncle” or “aunt,” even if there is no blood relationship. In English there’s always the confusion as to whether or not blood relationship is included. Very sensible, having a term more intimate than “mister” or “sir,” but without familial baggage.
Xerak went on, “He’d feel required to at least meet with us. By staying away, we’re actually showing respect.”
Since this was quite literally his home port, Grunwold left the barge separately from the rest of them. Otherwise it would have been impossible for the three humans not to attract attention.
“Grunwold said to look for a message from him this evening,” Vereez said when they were ensconced at another inn, this one set back from the bustle of the waterfront, run by an older couple who seemed interested in little other than proof that the group could pay for their suite. “Personally, I think he’s being optimistic. Still, don’t unpack too much. We may need to leave quickly. Xerak, you and I should go out and shop for some supplies.”
Xerak nodded, then turned to Meg, Peg, and Teg. “You three, please don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone. We’re going to tell the innkeepers that you seem to be coming down with a cold, and might be contagious, so they shouldn’t bother you. However, if someone comes to the door, remember to put on your masks.”
“Does anyone else feel like a prisoner?” Peg asked when the pair had departed. She pulled out her knitting and set to work, this time on a sock.
“A little,” Teg admitted.
Meg shook her head. “Not really. They have good reasons for their requests—and they expect us to understand. When you think about it, that’s really an honor.”
“Mm,” Peg said noncommittally, although it was possible she was concentrating on something complicated she was doing around the toe.
Meg pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag. “I’ve noticed that the translation spell has a tendency to break down when encountering specific items.”
Teg, who had been staring out the window, idly watching the people on the street, and trying to figure out if she could sneak a smoke, nodded. “Me, too. It’s fine if someone says ‘Do you want a piece of fruit?’ But if they offer a specific type of fruit, then the translation gives what I’ve been assuming is the name for the fruit.”
“That is my conclusion as well,” Meg said. “I thought we should start making a lexicon of these words.”
“Good idea,” Teg agreed. “We can always point, but I’d like to be able to use the right word. There’s another advantage, too. We may see relationships between words that will tell us something about the culture.”
Peg tilted her head to one side. “Okay. I admit, I managed to graduate college, but I mostly majored in student protests and partying. How would the names of fruits tell us anything about the culture?”
“Pluot,” Teg replied promptly. “That’s a hybrid of a plum and an apricot. Not only does that tell you that apricots and plums—for all they look really different—are closely related, it tells you that the culture that created them is advanced enough to breed stable hybrids.”
“Groovy,” Peg said. “I’m all for anything that will help me rap, like on the level, with the locals.”
“Hippy chick,” Teg said with exasperated affection. “Meg, there’s something else we should note. They seem to use suffixes instead of prefixes for honorifics. I caught a couple. ‘Va’ seems to be for wizards, from what Xerak said about not feeling he could use the ‘-va.’ I’ve heard ‘-lial’ used, too. And Xerak referred to Grunwold’s father as Konnel-toh.”
Meg started scribbling. “I think there are others. I’m sure the riverboat captain addressed Grunwold as ‘Grunwold-kir,’ but I couldn’t get the context.”
“I asked about those forms of address,” Peg contributed unexpectedly. “‘Lial’ is a polite respect term, sort of like we use ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’ ‘Kir’ is more like ‘my lady’ or ‘my lord.’ As best as I could tell, neither has a gendered form or one that indicates marital status. Xerak seemed completely confused when I asked, so I dropped the subject.”
“Interesting,” Teg said. “That seems like a confirmation of Meg’s theory that when the translation spell can’t find an equivalent, it doesn’t translate.”
“Perhaps we should stick to nouns for now,” Meg suggested. “Although I will have questions for our inquisitors about forms of address. I have no desire to cause difficulties by being impolite or incorrect.”
Teg nodded. “All right, Meg. That fruit that tastes like a peach with cherry overtones is an ‘umm-umm.’”
Peg chuckled. “Umm-umm good. Wasn’t there a commercial for something that used that as a slogan?”
“Campbell’s soup,” Meg said absently as she wrote, then tapped her pencil eraser on the page. “I’m trying to decide how to organize these . . . Should I put food items on one page or perhaps plants on one, animals on another? Place names on another? I can’t believe how much I miss my laptop!”
Peg grinned. “Start with a general list, then divide it up when you have a better idea of categories. I mean, sometimes we use different words for the animal and the food item—pig and pork, or cow and beef.”
“I agree,” Teg said. “Create a column on the far left where you can draw icons for categories. A little apple for fruit or a stick-figure animal for an animal.”
While the linguistics exercise didn’t exactly remove Teg’s desire for a smoke, it was a good distraction. She started pacing back and forth, making suggestions, arguing about spelling conventions. She was so absorbed that when a tap sounded against the window, she jumped and gave a soft shriek.
“Meg, Peg, there’s a sort of mini pterodactylish thing out on the windowsill. It looks as if it expects us to let it in.”
“Don’t,” said Meg, just as Peg said, “Go ahead.”
Teg considered. The window had numerous small panes and swung like a door, rather than pushing up and down. The pterodactyl creature was teetering on the windowsill, apparently having difficulty keeping its balance. When it tapped again, Teg saw it was holding something in its beak, and reached to open the window.
“Teg!” Meg exclaimed. “Stop!”
Teg kept swinging the window. “It’s holding a tube of some sort in its beak. I think it’s a carrier pterodactyl.”
She tentatively put out her hand but, rather than dropping the tube into it, the creature hopped onto her forearm and clung there with talons that poked right through her shirt sleeve. Teg stifled another shriek. At the sound, the creature swiveled its neck and inspected her carefully from cherry-red eyes with a sun-yellow iris. This gave them all a chance to study it as well.
The creature was about the size of a raven, with a long neck balanced by an equally long tail. Its head was what made it look so much like a pterodactyl, shaped with a long, toothy jaw that was balanced by a long, tapering crest. Its wings were leathery, rather than feathered, adding to the resemblance to the winged dinosaurs, but none of the pterodactyls in the illustrations Teg had seen had been bright lime green on their upper surface, eye-searing orange beneath.
Turning to tuck the tube under its wing, the creature spoke, “You’ve got to be the odd ones.”
Somehow, even with the translation spell in place, Teg gathered that the bird spoke with an accent, so that the words were more like “Yuv got t’b th’ od-wonz.” But equally clear was that the bird had spoken—not echoed a phrase learned by rote.
Teg had thought she was getting jaded. She’d noted the innkeeper’s lack of interest in his masked guests before she had registered that he had the head of a black bear. Apparently, jaded only went so far, and a talking miniature pterodactyl set her process of acculturation back several days.
“You came from Grunwold,” Teg guessed, hearing the stag’s casual rudeness in the wording. “Do you have a message for us?”
“If th’ real p’pl aren’t here,” the bird agreed. “Yep. Here.”
It retrieved the tube from under its wing, then poked its neck out toward her, head slightly cocked as if doubting her intelligence. Teg took the capsule, then handed it to Peg, since the bird didn’t seem inclined to get off her arm, and Meg was unconsciously backing away, her journal held like a shield in front of her.
Peg pulled apart the halves of the tube to reveal a tightly rolled spill of paper. “I wonder if we can read the local language?”
The answer proved to be yes, although Peg tutted over the quality of Grunwold’s handwriting as she puzzled her way through.
“Grunwold writes: ‘Tonight. Definitely. Otherwise I may be stuck. Be at the boathouse at midnight with all our gear. I’m going to need at least Xerak’s help.’”
“I hope the others know precisely which boathouse Grunwold means,” Peg said, coiling the paper and returning it to the tube. She looked at the miniature pterodactylish creature. “Are you expected to bring a reply?”
“Nope. Grun’s nested w’ his kin, serious talk.”
“So you’re staying here?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Teg motioned toward a nearby chair. “Would you mind sitting there?”
“Don’t ’cha like me?”
“I like you just fine, but I want to close the window. I can’t do that if you’re on my arm.”
“Okay. Gottcha.”
Teg moved over and the miniature pterodactyl hopped off onto the seat of the chair. She wondered if it would poop as randomly as birds did in her world, and decided that, at this moment, she didn’t care.
“I wonder what . . . ” Peg was beginning when Xerak and Vereez returned, burdened with packages and parcels, most tied up in coarse burlap, rather than being bagged.
Teg hurried over to help them. Xerak, in particular, looked as if he was about to drop something any moment.
“We have a . . . ” she paused. What did one call a talking pterodactyl? Were they considered people here or tools? She decided to opt on the side of “person” until informed otherwise. “. . . visitor. Over there.”
“Heru!” Vereez rushed over and gracefully knelt in front of the chair, where she reached up to scratch the creature along its long neck. “Did you bring a message from Grunwold?”
“Gave it t’ her,” Heru replied, honking through its crest, and pointing toward Teg with its jaw. “’Tas a her, right? Has chest bumps.”
“They are all hers,” Vereez confirmed. “Have they introduced themselves?”
Meg interjected tartly, “Heru—if that is this person’s name—only just arrived.”
“’Tas right,” Heru said. “They offered me a chair.”
“Then let me do the honors,” Xerak said. “Peg, Meg, and Teg, this is Heru. Grunwold raised him from the egg, and they’ve been together since. Heru, the lightest-colored female is Meg, the middle one is Peg, and the darkest one is Teg. They’re our mentors, sent to us from a distant land when we made our inquiry at Hettua Shrine.”
“Pleased t’ meet ’cha,” Heru said, bobbing up and down and whistling through its crest.
While Xerak had been handling introductions, Vereez had been reading Grunwold’s note. Now she frowned, and passed the note to Xerak.
“The weather is going to be bad tonight. I wonder why Grunwold’s worried about being stuck? I hope Konnel-toh isn’t worse.”
“Can’t be that.” Xerak lashed his tail. “Grunwold wouldn’t leave if his dad was dying. He says he’s going to need at least me, which I suspect means that there are wards to be taken down before we can get to the vessel he told us about. I’d better get some rest. Speculating won’t get us anywhere.”
Both Xerak and Vereez had the sort of ability to see in the dark that Teg associated with their “animal” selves. Since showing a light didn’t seem wise, once they had left the town and entered the outlying lands of KonSef Estate, the inquisitors guided the humans along a twisting trail through an orchard that bordered a field of something that rustled like corn in the rising wind.
Heru flew overhead, flapping his wings very much as a bird would have done, although perhaps tending to glide more often. The xuxu—which turned out to be what Heru’s species was called—were apparently very dexterous, and the neatly planted orchard gave Heru no difficulty.
By the time the boathouse was a tall, dark shape bulking at the edge of the field, the storm Vereez had predicted was holding off, but—from how they kept getting hit by periodic gusts, often damp with rain—it wasn’t going to do so for much longer. As they stepped from cover, Xerak released Teg’s hand. At the same moment, a spikey shadow separated itself from the warehouse, turning into Grunwold, overburdened with bundles and bags.
“I thought you guys would never get here,” he grumbled. “Here’s the deal. Security’s been upped on the boathouse since I was last home. If Xerak can’t defuse the wards, we’re going to need to figure out some other way to travel—and we’ve gotta hoof it out of here tonight, no matter what. I’m due to get shipped to supervise the brickworks come morning.”
“Brickworks? Then I’d better deal with the wards,” Xerak said with deceptive mildness. “Show me?”
“I’ve gotten a side door open,” Grunwold said, “and a few windows. It’s the main door, the one we’ll need to sail out through, that’s going to be a problem.”
Vereez looked up anxiously. “Hurry! The storm’s nearly on us!”
She turned to the humans. “Can you mentors get the luggage belowdecks? I’m not the wizard Xerak is, but I know a few tricks. I’d like to go help him.”
“Will do,” Peg said, moving toward the shape that bulked in the boathouse. “Grunwold, dump your gear. We’ll get it aboard.”
When they got closer to Slicewind, Meg gasped softly. “It seems our ‘conveyance’ looks very much like a sailing ship. But didn’t Grunwold say it could fly?”
“I guess we’d better hope it can fly,” Teg replied, half-running to the steps shoved against one side of the ship, “since there isn’t any water closer than the river, and the hull’s not resting on a trailer.”
Teg’s knowledge of sailing ships ended with some small-craft sailing when she’d been in her twenties, but she knew enough to remember that sailing ships were first classified by the number of masts. Slicewind had a single mast, as well as various lines she thought indicated that extra sails could be set. Once Teg had climbed aboard, she could see there was a wheel rather than a tiller. The wheel was on a slightly raised platform, protected by a partially open wheelhouse, but otherwise there were no cabins above deck. There was a single hatch, roughly near the middle of the deck.
“We’ll learn if Slicewind can fly soon enough,” Peg said. “Let’s just make sure we’re on board when it leaves. Teg, let Meg and me hand things up to you. That’ll be faster than all of us crowding that stair.”
Someone—Grunwold, presumably—had activated low-level lights along the waist-high rail that ran around the upper deck, providing enough illumination to make it possible for the mentors to get the luggage aboard without stumbling. The hatch was also lit, revealing a sturdy ladder going belowdecks.
Once they had the luggage aboard, Teg scrabbled down to the lower deck, then reached up to grab the luggage the other two handed down. Since she had no idea what should go where, but figured that leaving stuff scattered around was a bad idea, she shoved everything through the nearest open doorways.
As the mentors relayed bags and bundles, what they overheard of the three inquisitors’ conversation was far from comforting.
Grunwold: “Out of the way, idiot!”
This was followed by a loud cracking noise, like a short string of firecrackers going off.
Xerak: “Sparks! Scorched my mane.”
There was a loud rumble, presumably as the heavy boathouse doors were slid back, then a brilliant flash of crimson light.
Grunwold: “Well, that probably set off an alarm or three. Good thing the boathouse is on the fringes of . . . ”
“I look if trouble, Grun.” That last was definitely Heru.
Vereez: “Hurry. Storm’s coming!”
Teg was still below when there was a thunder of booted feet, then a sound that she identified as the moveable staircase they’d been using to get up over the side being hauled up. A few moments later, she was flung against a wall as Slicewind surged into motion. She groped her way up the ladder to the main deck. Once she was there, she froze in place, trying to figure out what was going on. Most of the action seemed to be at the ship’s stern, but Grunwold and Peg were in the wheelhouse, about five feet back from the hatch.
Unsurprisingly, given that one of the participants was Grunwold, the pair were arguing.
“Shut up!” Peg snapped. “Look, does this thing sail like a normal boat? I mean, except for the in-the-air part?”
“More or less,” Grunwold replied. His eyes were wild, the whites showing all around the dark brown.
“Fine. I know something about handing single-masted sailing craft. My stepson Wilson . . . Never mind that for now. I’ll take the helm. Teg, get over here. If I remember when we were reading Patrick O’Brien, you said you had done a little sailing.”
“A long time ago, but yes.”
“Stand by to cast us off.”
“Aye, aye!”
Grunwold gaped as Peg shoved between him and the wheel. “Are you serious?”
“As death,” Peg said. “I don’t have a spear or a sword or whatever you’re going to use to get rid of your family’s watch horrors. Presumably, you know what to do.”
Grunwold nodded crisply. “All right. You have a point. Slicewind sails more or less like a watercraft with one addition. See that lever on your right? Pull back to gain altitude, push forward to go down. As long as you change altitude gradually, the ship will adjust to keep the wind in her sails. I’ve already got her set to hover, and at the right height to get us through the doors. Slicewind’ll help you along.”
“Right,” Peg said. She tried the wheel. “Not very good power steering on this but . . . Oh, groovy! Grunwold, is that a navigation screen in the middle of the wheel?”
“Of course,” Grunwold replied. “You’re going to be sailing in three dimensions. That will show a simplified version of what’s under the hull, as well as around you.”
“Lovely,” Peg sighed. “I always hated trying to see around the mast and sails. I’m set. You go and disable the guards.”
Grunwold gave her a worried glance, then ran to join Vereez and Xerak.
Peg called, “Meg, can you handle the up-down control thingie? I don’t want to take my hands off the wheel.”
Even in Slicewind’s dim running lights, it was evident Meg was scared stiff, but she stalked over to the lever, then grabbed hold as if her life depended on it—which it just might.
The only good thing about the rising storm was that they didn’t need to look for a wind. It was there in force, gusting through the windows Grunwold had opened.
“All right!” Peg yelled. “Teg, cast us off!”
As soon as Teg had done so, Slicewind jumped forward, passed through the now-open boathouse doors, then out under the skies, from which rain had begun falling. They skimmed off over the field of the something-like-corn.
Peg shouted. “Meg! Give us some lift, gradual and steady. We’ve got to clear the trees. I’ll let you know when to stop pulling back on the lever.”
Teg stood by, feeling useless once she’d coiled the line. Slicewind’s sails were adjusting to keep and catch the wind far better than any of the sailboats she’d been on. In fact, it seemed as if the mast was actually bending . . . The sight made her queasy, so she concentrated on what the three inquisitors were doing.
Grunwold was running toward the stern, readying a bow. Xerak stood a few paces back from the stern rail, hands gripped tightly around the shaft of his spear staff, chanting something. Vereez had both her swords drawn and waited slightly to one side and a little in front of Xerak, covering the young wizard.
Okay. They know something’s coming up from behind. Xerak’s preparing a spell of some sort. The other two are going to protect him.
What Xerak was preparing became evident a few moments later when he leveled the tip of his spear staff—once again glowing that flame amber—and a series of fireballs, each about the size of a baseball, shot out. By their light, Teg could see that he had neatly targeted three sections of an approaching flock of whatever it was that was chasing them.
Teg glanced ahead. The tops of the trees they were racing toward were tossing in a wind she didn’t feel.
Of course. We’re being pushed by that same wind, so we’re going to feel it a lot less intensely.
Whatever was pursuing them sounded like a swarm of really, really large bees. Heru dropped to the deck. Teg saw that the mini pterodactyl had caught something nearly as large as he was: insectoid, rather than avian, with four wings and a stinger at each end. As she watched, he crunched one stinger, then the other; dropping the still wriggly body, the xuxu launched back into the darkness.
“Tranquilizer darters!” Grunwold shouted. “They won’t kill us, but if they knock us out, my mother will gladly do the killing. Don’t let them sting you!”
Teg looked nervously around, but the darters seemed to be emerging from the upper loft of the warehouse, and would offer little or no immediate threat, at least until they caught up. She had just convinced her shoulders to stop tensing when she heard the scream: a shrill cry, like fingernails on a blackboard focused down so that all ten fingers reverberated within a single throat. Worse, the sound was coming from the forest that they were about to sail over.
Deciding Meg and Peg could handle Slicewind without her, Teg ran to where she’d noticed a boathook. Grabbing it from its brackets, she hefted it once to get a sense of its weight and balance, then thudded across the deck toward the bow, hoping to get a glimpse of whatever was making that ear-searing racket.
It had been a long time since Teg had run with the thoughtless energy that she now found almost unbelievable in small children and young dogs, but she could still move quickly enough if she put her mind to it. With that horrible screeching ringing in her ears, moving was the easy part—the hard part was not giving in to the impulse to dive down the hatch and cower belowdecks.
Teg spared a moment to glance over her shoulder, hoping to see one of the three inquisitors rushing to join her, but they were still occupied by the approaching swarm of darters. Xerak was still muttering and gesturing with both his hands and his tail, but the fastest of the tranquilizer darters had already reached the stern and were trying to get at him—a choice of target that made Teg wonder if they were smarter than they looked or if something was guiding their actions.
Neither thought was particularly comforting, but Teg forgot the battle off the stern when she got her first look at what was rising from the forest. She didn’t think she’d had any expectations as to what could be making that horrible screeching, but when she saw their attacker she knew she must have—or else she couldn’t have been so completely shocked.
The hull lights that enabled the pilot of the flying ship to assure that she was clearing any obstacles below now illuminated what looked like an enormous section of grey-green shag carpet rising from the trees and undulating through the air toward them. The impression of “shag” came from thousands of cilia, each roughly the diameter of Teg’s fingers and some eight inches in length. These covered both sides of the thing. The front edge gaped open in the middle, revealing a toothless oval opening, the size of which varied randomly, sometimes barely the width of her hand, other times easily large enough to engulf her entire body.
The illumination from the ship wasn’t sufficient for Teg to tell how large this thing was, but she thought it might possibly be able to engulf Slicewind’s bow.
“Peg! There’s a gigantic bathroom rug coming in at twelve o’clock! Looks like it wants to swallow the ship. I’ll do what I can to fend it off but . . . ”
Teg didn’t have time to pursue the “but.” The “rug” was unzipping its toothless mouth to its fullest extent. Weirdly, she found herself thinking of a pillowcase.
Right. We’re being attacked by the love child of a pillowcase and shag rug, she thought wildly. It’s bigger than I thought. What to do?
Meg operated the lever to raise Slicewind higher in the air. This helped some but, since Peg had to take care she didn’t lose the following wind, she couldn’t do much to change their direction.
Teg climbed out onto a cabinet built into the narrowest part of the ship’s bow. From that precarious perch, she shoved out with the boathook, hoping to fend off the creature. It dodged. As it did, she saw that the cilia closest to the boathook had parted and flattened.
Okay. It doesn’t like the idea of being hit. I’m with it on that. It doesn’t want to get hit. I don’t want to get swallowed.
Kneeling, so she wouldn’t be as likely to topple over the side, Teg leaned forward and poked again. This time she managed to hit a portion of the thing’s “lip.” The creature veered, letting out an offended shriek that made a cluster of cilia extend straight up in the air.
“What? Do you expect me to let you swallow us?”
Grunwold’s voice, from close behind her, said, “Actually, it does. It was bred to move bulk cargo. Keep waving the boathook at it. It’s used to being steered by pokes from tools like those. At the least, you’ll confuse it. They’re determined, but not very smart.”
Teg didn’t dare turn, but she could hear Grunwold rummaging in the cabinet on which she knelt.
“Fantastic!” he said. The word was followed by a sound not unlike a slide whistle, a series of liquid notes rising and falling, although not in any melody Teg could recognize. The shag rug hooted what Teg took to be a question. This time Grunwold played a pattern. Teg expected the creature to drop or retreat, but instead it began to expand, stretching its mouth open wide.
“Hot-weather sweat eaters!” Grunwold cursed. “Change the command sequence, then not tell the heir to the estate?”
He tried playing a different sequence. This time the rug made a flat, blatting sound. Vereez was shouting something that Teg couldn’t quite make out but, in response, Peg was hauling at the wheel, turning them hard to the right. The sail began to flap as it lost the wind, and Teg felt herself buffeted as she hadn’t been when they’d been moving with the wind fully behind them.
Grunwold tried a third sequence on the slide whistle, repeating the final “foo-whoop” as if the sound alone could bully the vast thing in front of them into obeying. Maybe it could, for with a hiss of damp breath that smelled faintly of beer, the rug reluctantly closed its mouth and went flat.
Grunwold yelled. “That wind, Vereez? Any time now would be really good . . . ”
“Did you put the creature to sleep?” Teg asked, adjusting her grip on the boathook and keeping careful watch on the rug. The ship was gliding alongside and slightly over it now. As it did, myriad cilia shifted as if watching.
Grunwold grunted. “Sort of. Only for a short time. Someone changed some of the commands, but whoever it was forgot the one for ‘await new orders.’ That will only give us a few minutes at most.”
He shoved the slide whistle into his waistband, then bounded aft to help Vereez, who was struggling to drag something cumbersome from one of the lockers. Teg wanted to see what it was, but she thought someone should keep an eye on the rug in case it decided its waiting period had ended.
Shortly thereafter, Teg felt a fresh wind catch the sail, heard Peg shout an enthusiastic “All right!” and Slicewind began picking up speed. Only once they were well clear of the still-drifting rug did Teg put the boathook back in its brackets and join the others where they were gathered near the stern. The rain had ebbed, suggesting that they’d sailed out of the range of the storm.
Grunwold had taken over at the wheel. Xerak—smelling distinctly of smoke—was butt down on the deck, drinking deeply from a leather bottle of what Teg suspected was wine. The others sat in a row on a dry tarp that had been folded to cover one of the cabinets—doing double-duty as bench and storage—that was built along the stern. Peg was knitting. Vereez sat shoulder to shoulder with Meg.
“Are we clear, then?” Teg asked. “Or will something else come after us?”
Grunwold said, “I think we’re clear. When we crossed that river, we also crossed the borders of my family’s estate. I’ve set course for the city of Rivers Meet. We’ll be able to get both supplies and news there. Dad’s not going to want to advertise a family squabble by sending anything after us, so if we’re careful . . . ”
He shrugged. Meg had regained a great deal of her composure, but nonetheless a prickly note underlay her voice when she spoke.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you filled us in—both on the situation with your family and about what we are likely to encounter next?”