Aethersmith (Book 2) (65 page)

Stomach emptied thrice over, he set about gathering Aelon
and Anzik for their escape from the city. The rest was up to the convoluted
communications system that Brannis had created between worlds. If there was no
airship that could be dispatched in time, his escape might result in nothing
more than all three of them being taken captive, instead of just himself.

In his exploration of the city when they were still looking
out for Anzik, Faolen had avoided the city center—a calculated risk but a
conservative one. The closer to the seat of the High Council, the greater the
chance had been of encountering someone strong enough in aether to potentially see
through his illusions or cunning enough to spot someone who did not belong in
the city. He had counted on Anzik avoiding the area for similar reasons.
Unfortunately it meant that he was navigating unfamiliar streets after dark,
and was in no position to ask directions. He briefly considered trading in his
invisibility for an illusory disguise, but he was feeling simply awful. He did
not trust his acting abilities just then to pull off both a convincing
non-Kadrin accent, and not act as if he had been used like one of the clay
tablets that Academy students practiced rune-carving on.

For a time, Faolen tried to keep to the side streets, but he
was no explorer. His sense of direction, at best, relied on the commonly known
fact of the sun rising east and setting west. Sun gone from the skies, he was
at the mercy of the madmen who had laid out the city’s streets. Built on the
hills surrounding a prime inlet on the Aliani Sea, Zorren had molded itself
around the uneven terrain much the way weeds and vines grew around ruined
stonework: they filled in the easiest spots first, and worked from there,
resulting in a jumble of intersections and irregular buildings fitted between
non-orthogonal roads. Faolen resigned himself to following a main thoroughfare
until he found himself on familiar ground once more.

Over the sleepy sounds of a city slowly shutting itself up
for the night, a roar split the air; a shouted curse in a quiet library would
have sounded less out of place. Faolen had no experience with stripe-cats, but
he could guess no other creature that might be loose upon the Zorren streets.
The timing was too inconvenient, as well. A series of answering roars gave the
impression that there were a number of the beasts scattered about. Narsicann
appeared not to have taken his escape well.

There were a great many parts of Faolen’s stripe-cat
education that were lacking, but the one he presently regretted the most was
not knowing how keen was their sense of smell.
If they were as good as
bloodhounds, I would have to think they would have used them to look for Anzik
by now. No, they must not realize that I am able to use my magic a bit. They
expect to see me.

It was his own mind he was trying to convince. His empty
stomach was threatening to retch up contents it did not even possess. His heart
was pumping fast enough to suit a sprinting pace, throbbing in his eardrums.
His hands were shaking, both from a lack of food and from nerves. He quickened
his pace, liking his odds against curious bystanders, should he rouse any, over
his odds against a stripe-cat with his magic still greatly hindered.

The shop was nothing but a burnt-out foundation when he
found it. The low stone wall that kept the ground floor above the level of
rainwater came only to his knee. He peered down into the refuse pit the
basement had become, looking for signs of occupation, had Anzik’s claim about
Aelon been more than fanciful imaginings. There were heavy structural beams
that had survived somewhat, charred and cracked, but still largely whole. They
made a number of little sheltered areas that rats would no doubt take over in
time, should the place remain abandoned. Faolen saw no signs of a human about,
but he had no intention of letting the paltry moonlight be his only means of
searching.

Into the aether Faolen sent his vision, losing the details
of their former hideout as everything faded into a blue-white haze—his
aether-vision had never been among his greatest assets. He had been prepared to
scan about for a Source that could have been Aelon’s, but was startled
immediately upon his switch in vision by a Source
right behind him
!

“Hello,” Anzik Fehr said to him. It was the simple, casual
greeting he might have offered to one of his father’s dinner guests. A jolt of
panic shot through Faolen. He checked immediately in the light to see if he had
turned visible, but found himself perfectly transparent to his own eyes.

“Hello, Anzik. It is I, Faolen. I am invisible. You need to
hide; people can see you,” Faolen whispered to the boy.

“I thought we were going to go in an airship now.”

“We have to wait. It has to get here. I am looking for my
friend Aelon, and the three of us will wait together for the airship.”

“He is right there,” Anzik said, pointing down into a corner
of the basement.

Faolen turned to follow the boy’s gaze, which was rather
unfocused, but clearly directed along the way he was pointing.

“Anzik, are the voices still bothering you?” Faolen asked.
It was the most lucid he could recall either Anzik or Jadon being. Anzik
frowned a bit.

“It is better but I still hear yours too much.”

“Let us help Aelon out of that basement, and find a place to
hide, shall we?”

Faolen was liking their odds of getting safely away much
better if Anzik was aware enough to use any part of his magic to help them.
Even without the Staff of Gehlen, the boy had to have had some useful talent.

* * * * * * * *

Arm in arm, Brannis walked the streets of Scar Harbor with
Soria. It was a long way from The Little Manor to the part of the city where
Kyrus had dwelt, but Soria had insisted on seeing the sights on foot to better
get a feel for the place. Brannis showed her the courthouse where he had been
tried for witchcraft, the clock tower that rang out the hour of eight o’clock
even as they passed by it, the Brown Elk Tavern where he had bought the
scriveners’ shop from Davin on the night he announced he had been hired by the
king.

They were making their way to Greuder’s Pastries for a late
breakfast. Brannis wanted her to try some of the spiced crescents that he had
always preferred. There was some incongruous worry in Brannis’s head when he
realized that the crescents were Kyrus’s favorite, and not his own; he had
never had one before, might not even like them. Kyrus was certainly unused to
the finer fare of Veydrus, and had taken poorly to it.

“Well, that is good news at least, I suppose,” Brannis said.
They had been discussing Juliana’s capture and interrogation of a pair of
Megrenn officers. There was something private about a walking conversation that
he could just not pin down. Had they been seated at a table in a noisy tavern,
he would have kept his voice down when discussing otherworldly military
affairs. At best, it made them sound quite mad; at worst, some twinborn would
pick up on the information. Ambling along looking at the notable places of Scar
Harbor, they talked openly of Kadrin news, subduing their conversation when
they passed close to other pedestrians, but otherwise making no concessions to
secrecy.

“I plan to let them go in the morning. For now, we’re all
sleeping with the ship floating up above cloud level. You’re
sure
that
thing has enough aether to be idling away the night up there, right?”

“Of course,” Brannis replied. “You know me, expert on all
things magical.”

Soria elbowed him in the ribs, or at least tried to. She had
overlooked the fact that he was wearing armor beneath his tabard, though its
bulk was obvious when she was paying attention. Soria had to admit, he cut a
dashing figure in the gold-and-silver regalia, with Avalanche swinging from his
hip.

“Hey, if it starts drifting down, recharge the runes
yourself. It is not like doing it the first time, overcoming the resistance of
new, inert runes. Your Source should be plenty strong … I think.”

They spoke of Juliana’s opinions about the controls of the
Daggerstrike
,
and how Kyrus and he were both idiots when it came to making things easy to
use.

“Fine, fine. It was my first try at building a ship to run
on aether alone; of course it is a bit clumsy. More importantly, though, how
does it feel to fly?” Brannis asked.

“You know that feeling you get when out riding, with the
wind blowing through your hair?” Soria asked. Brannis nodded. “Well, even that
trip we made with the runed horseshoes can’t compare to the rush of wind among
the clouds. My cloak snapped about like a pennant in a storm, the air tore at
my clothes, but nothing could stop me; it was all according to my whim as the
deck swayed, and the
Daggerstrike
banked. When I did that loop in the
air, I could see the whole world up above my head, played out like someone had
made one of your little illusion maps, but life sized.”

“Less use as a map at that scale,” Brannis noted.

“And nothing to tell you the names of the mountains and
rivers,” Soria agreed. “And I imagine that the soldiers of the full-sized map
aren’t perched atop the cities and fields, taller than mountains, either. Maybe
that map of yours could use some improvements.”

“Well, I could try—” Brannis stopped short. With her arm
looped through his, and a dozen or more gallons lighter, Soria jerked to a stop
as well.

“What?” Soria asked.

Brannis blinked his eyes hard, and slow several times, as it
trying to work something out of them. “Kyrus is still awake. It is … unsettling
… being aware of it. I am sure we have both been awake at the same time before—neither
of us sleeps half the day—but I cannot recall. I can see Varnus if I close my
eyes. Kyrus is talking to him right now.”

“Say ‘hello’ to Zell for me then, would you?” Soria asked,
smiling.

“Stop that,” Brannis chided her, trying to concentrate on Veydrus.
Kyrus was trying to convey something to him. He knew it more than he heard or
saw anything that told him.

* * * * * * * *

“She agreed to take the
Daggerstrike
, and head to
Zorren. This is not what I had in mind when I sent her away from Kadris, but I
cannot deny that Faolen sounds like he needs rescuing,” Kyrus said. “I had to
let her be the one to decide, or she would never have let me forget it if she
found out.”

I wonder if I ought to have defied Rashan, and sent her
to Munne straightaway, to retrieve Iridan first.

“Good. Should I tell Wendell anything?”

“Try to find out where they will be. I have no way to
calculate the travel time for the ship. Everything is new, and I do not even
know quite where Juliana and her ship are. She does not even know herself. If
possible, convince them to get outside the city. I do not relish the thought of
them being on the ground in Zorren. Even with the element of surprise, they
might get in trouble.”

“Will do. You going to be able to keep relaying messages to
Soria?”

“We can send for some tea to keep awake as long as this
takes. Soria and Brannis will find a place to settle in to wait for
instructions,” Kyrus said. He shook his head, fighting the onset of fatigue
already. “I need to cross-reference some maps one day, and find where Krangan
is in Veydrus … see if they make tea there.”

* * * * * * * *

“Well, if we do not get eaten by stripe-cats, I will see if
I can oblige you. For now, we are going to see what we can do about living long
enough to see a rescue at all,” Wendell said upon hearing of Kyrus’s request.

“Hey, just passing it along,” Zell said. “Get angry at Kyrus
if anyone; just keep in mind it’s him sending Juliana to fetch you. She’s got
the newest ship, and Kyrus says it’s the best one yet. No way to tell how long
it will be, but it’s the quickest rescue you’re likely to get.”

“I would be willing to chance a transference spell, if it
comes to it.”

“Kyrus missed Tellurak entirely the last time he tried one,
mind you. I think I’d take my chances waiting for a flying boat, myself, and
I’m not keen on trusting my life in the hands of runes that just got carved a
couple days ago.”

“Well, let him know that I have fewer qualms about the
nature of my rescue. If there ends up being two of me in Tellurak, I will learn
to adapt.”

* * * * * * * *

“Wake up everyone!” Juliana’s voice echoed through the ship.
The crew and their guests felt a momentary queasiness in their stomachs, and
felt the floor press less strongly against them as the ship began a sudden
descent. “Get those horses ready to ride. Sorry, but we have new orders, and
you are on your own the rest of your way home. Just remember: fearsome warlock
on the loose, surrender is always a nice option. Tell everyone you meet.”

Juliana set the ship down in a small clearing. The two
Megrenn prisoners were shooed off the ship with all practical haste, even
giving them back their weapons to forestall objections to being abandoned
unarmed in the wilderness. The
Daggerstrike
then took to the air once
more, a sleek steel blade catching the moonlight as it rose.

“Everyone strap into those harnesses. We are heading for
Zorren for a rescue mission,” Juliana’s voice sounded in the hold. “You have
about a ten-count before I find out how fast this thing goes.”

There were frantic sounds of jostling and thumps of men
dropping to the deck to get hold of the ends of the harness straps that would
keep them from being thrown about the interior of the ship.

Comfortably above tree height, and hearing the sounds below
die down, Juliana rechecked that her own harness was secure. Finding everything
to her liking, she flooded the rune responsible for accelerating the ship with
aether. She held tight as she could to the ship’s wheel as the
Daggerstrike
sprang forward, her grip and the leather harness all that kept her from
tumbling off the ship as it tried to speed out from beneath her.