All The Turns of Light (28 page)

“Two!”

The gaunt, wraithlike giant raised a bony hand toward her and spoke.

“
Unmaker!”

“Stop!” cried Meralda, and the world went utterly silent and mercifully, wonderfully dark.

~~~

From the private journal of Mugglesworth Ovis, Decembre 1, RY 1969

I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll start with that awful velvet chair.

Mistress is still sitting in it, still staring off into space, seeing things I suppose only she can see. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t inhale or exhale, and neither Donchen nor the ship’s doctor can find a pulse.

They claim her skin is warm. Her eyes still burn, a dim red glow that neither waxes nor wanes. We moved her back into her cabin, chair and all, since we can’t loosen her grip on the arms, and she’s here beside me, still as a statue.

Donchen hasn’t left her side. He turned each and every magical dingus we have on her, trying to glean some clue as to what happened to her. He discovered that basic fundamental constants vary at random within a yard of Mistress, but he’s no closer to knowing why than she was.

There was brief talk of an arrest when the Captain and the King saw Donchen’s true face. I reminded them of how cross Meralda would be if she awoke to find her young man in irons, and I suppose her glowing eyes and the sudden fall of hot nails drove that point home.

Rather than turning around and heading for home, as any sane lot would do, we’ve been zigzagging from storm to storm. Since Mistress was never sure the Vonat airship was destroyed and not just hiding, the Captain has been following an unbroken chain of storms running roughly north and east.

If the Vonats are still out there, they’re probably as lost as I surmise we are. Donchen claims even Hang fleets avoid this part of the Great Sea. Their name for it means ‘Womb of Storms,’ and they claim no ship has ever returned from its depths.

The winds howl across the hull day and night, so loud you can’t hear yourself think, which is perhaps a blessing since pondering our certain doom is no way to pass the time.

The Captain tried to take us above the storm, if only for hurried repairs, since we’ve lost a few envelope braces and the number four fan is hanging by a single strut. We ascended to nearly forty thousand feet, as high as we dared, and the clouds showed no sign of diminishing. Rumor among the crew is that no storm this size has ever been encountered, or even seen from afar.

That isn’t the only rumor being whispered in the bunks and the mess hall. Sightings of flying things, seen only briefly through gaps in the clouds, now number in the hundreds. Two off-duty riggers even claim to have seen a giant walking–a giant so tall his head and shoulders matched our altitude, which was twenty thousand feet. I blame that particular anecdote on unsecured wine bottles. But the flying things?

I saw one of the foul creatures myself right through this very porthole.

It was yesterday, noon by the ship’s clock, though it looked like midnight outside. I had all but six eyes on Meralda, which left three to watch Goboy’s Glass and three to stare out the porthole. The blackish shadow flew right past, heading west to our east, so close I could have thrown a peanut and hit it. No bird was it, I can tell you that. It was black, pie-shaped, and as big around as a Palace Street cab is long. It wasn’t smooth. Even with three eyes looking, one of them my yellow, I couldn’t pick out much detail. But the dark mass was moving under its own power and it cut a wake in the clouds, and if I had to bet the seven dollars I owe Beastie I’d bet it was a made thing, not a living thing, as daft as that sounds.

Could the flying things be some leaving of the Vonat airship Mistress downed? I fear that may be so. If they are, then they’re certainly up to no good.

The staves finally returned after I spent a good five hours calling for them. They took one look at Meralda and hopped about, pecking at each other and flapping their great ugly wings. I asked them to help her and they just flew away without a word, and I hope they fly right into one of the airborne pie-things and all that’s left is feathers and feet, sinking into the Sea.

Wake up, Mistress. Please wake up. If you will, I swear you and I and Donchen will steal the
Lucky
Jenny
and we’ll fly ourselves home.

I just want you back. Red eyes and all.

Chapter 13

“Are you sure about this, Donchen?” Mug asked.

Donchen didn’t reply, or give any sign that he’d even heard Mug’s question. His eyes were focused on the machine he was constructing.

Mug grumbled and flew slow circuits around Donchen’s hastily assembled device. Meralda, still motionless in her red velvet chair, stared ahead, unblinking and unmoving as she had been for days.

Donchen grunted as he forced a flare-ended copper tube to pivot so that the open end was pointed at Meralda’s face.

“I’d stop pestering you if I knew what you were doing this time,” added Mug. “You don’t want me to start whistling, do you? In a loud and especially piercing tone?”

Donchen sagged and mopped sweat from his brow. “Please do not whistle,” he said. “I’m nearly finished. You may ask three questions.”

“Fine,” Mug said. “What is that thing you’re pointing at my Mistress?”

“It is the field collector of a Barnsian Interval Calibrator, such as the one found on Row 22, Shelf 17 of the Laboratory,” replied Donchen. “I’ve combined it with a device native to my former homeland. I hope to use it to create a small temporal discontinuity, one which I hope will bring Meralda back safely to us.”

Mug’s leaves wilted slightly. “A temporal discontinuity. You mean to mess with the flow of time itself.”

Donchen nodded. “I do,” he said. “That is two questions.”

“I made a statement,” Mug said. “I asked nothing. You volunteered.”

Donchen picked up a wrench.

“All right, all right,” Mug said hastily. He looked toward Meralda’s still form. “You think she’s lost in time, somehow?”

“All my observations suggest such. The closer you get to her, the more profound the interruption of natural law.”

“So how do you plan to change that?”

“I’m oversimplifying. But, I plan to create a single event that occurs at the same instant in both our space and her affected locale,” replied Donchen. “If she notices–and I believe she will–her observation shall match yours. One timeline will collapse. As hers is the smaller of the two, I hope it will be hers.”

Mug turned his eyes upon Donchen. “You
hope
?”

“Hope is all I have, friend Mug.”

Mug was silent for a moment. “Forgetting that quaint homily for a moment, friend Donchen, one day I’m going to ask just how much magic you know, and how you know it, and why you pretend to be a simple, hard-working jewel thief when Mistress is watching. I’ll ask, and I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of providing an answer. But I won’t ask right now, because we haven’t the time and why did you say her observation will match
mine
, and not
yours?
”

“Because I’m going to join her in her bubble,” Donchen said.

“You can do that?”

“I will try.”

“Then I’m going too.”

“You cannot,” replied Donchen, leaning once again over the machine. “You must remain here, to watch the timer.”

“We can get a Bellringer to do that,” Mug said. “I’ll call one right now.”

“If this fails, friend Mug, may I say it has been an honor and a genuine pleasure to know you?”

“Kervis!” shouted Mug. “Tervis! Get in here!”

“They left for supper half an hour ago,” Donchen said. He adjusted a mirror, which glowed at the edges, and showed a reflection of Donchen’s face that moved when he was still and was still when he moved. When Donchen was done, the mirror was pointed at Meralda’s unblinking eyes, though Mug noted with some dismay her reflection was missing from the glass.

Satisfied, Donchen hung a pocket watch by its chain from the mirror, pressed the start button, and made sure its face was reflected. Then he rummaged in the sack at his feet, brought forth Amorp’s Strident Horn, and held it close to the machine he had built.

“At precisely thirty seconds, look at the Horn,” said Donchen.

Then he lifted the Horn to his lips and began to blow.

No sound emerged, but Mug saw sparks begin to climb around the coils and conduits of the machine.

As Donchen blew, he reached out and grasped a short section of bare copper. As Mug watched in horror, Donchen went rigid, as stiff and as motionless as Meralda.

“This had better work,” muttered Mug, as the pocket watch ticked off the seconds.

When the second hand stood straight up, Mug fixed Amorp’s Strident Horn in every one of his twenty-nine eyes.

“One!” Meralda said, in a shout.

The Horn’s delayed note sounded, rattling Meralda’s tiny cabin and filling the
Intrepid
with the deafening blast.

Donchen dropped the Horn as it fell silent. Mug careened from his spot on the desk to hover near as Donchen took Meralda’s hand in his and spoke her name.

Meralda blinked and yawned. When she blinked, the cabin was plunged into darkness as the glow from her eyes was briefly extinguished.

“Meralda,” repeated Donchen. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear you.” Meralda’s words came out hoarse and rasping. She frowned.

“Yes, I would,” she said.

“You would what?” asked Mug.

“I’d like a glass of water,” Meralda said. “You just asked me that. Has everyone gone daft?”

“I was about to ask you that,” Mug said. “But you answered me before I could ask.”

“I tell you I feel fine,” Meralda said, turning to Donchen. “Just thirsty.”

Donchen smiled. He didn’t let go of Meralda’s hand. “Good,” he said. “Do you know what day it is?”

Meralda opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

“Wednesday?”

Donchen shook his head. “Friday,” he said. “And you were guessing, my love. Can you remember anything? Anything at all?”

“Lights,” Meralda said. “Pretty lights, deep in the storm. I truly am thirsty. You can let go now.”

“I think not for a moment,” said Donchen. He knelt, stroking Meralda’s cheek with his free hand. “I thought I had lost you,” he said, and he leaned in and kissed her.

“Hush, Mug,” Meralda said, after the kiss.

“I haven’t said anything!”

“You just asked me about my Sight,” Meralda said.

“I was about to,” replied Mug. “Mistress, I swear I hadn’t asked yet.”

Donchen’s smile fell. “Is your vision normal now?” he asked.

Meralda blinked, and pondered the question.

The bulkheads, the deck, the porthole—all were alight with the binding energies that held matter together, that ordered all of existence. Why did I never see that before, wondered Meralda. It’s so plain now. So patently obvious.

She saw Donchen’s face, yes, but she could also see the energies behind his skin, the glowing aura of his essence. She could even see something of his thoughts, which swarmed close about his head like a troubled hive of bees. Is she ill? Is she in danger?

“Oh my,” she whispered.

Fromarch’s warning came rushing back. Prolonged use of Sight leads to madness, he’d said.

If it’s Friday, Meralda realized, I’ve held Sight up for two days.

Tim the Horsehead was said to have endured Sight for six hours once. Even Tim had remained in bed for a week afterward, according to legend, raving and flailing like a mad thing.

I don’t feel mad, thought Meralda. I’m thirsty and I feel a sudden urgent need to visit the water closet, but people do drink water and avail themselves of toilets without being mad, don’t they?

“They do indeed,” replied Donchen, rising.

Meralda blushed furiously. Did I just speak aloud?

“You did,” said Donchen, frowning. “Did you not intend to?”

“I did say it was urgent,” replied Meralda, careful to form the words with her mouth. She rose, her knees and hips and elbows aching, her feet wobbling beneath her. “Forgive me. I’ll be right back.”

Donchen let go, and she tottered into her tiny water closet, lighting the way with her radiant gaze.

Frantic knocking sounded at Meralda’s cabin door. “It’s Mrs. Primsbite,” called the penswift. “I heard the Horn. Is the Mage awake? Let me in!”

Donchen sighed.

“You might as well open the door,” grumbled Mug. “If you don’t, she’ll have the Bellringers break it down.”

Donchen picked his way to the door and opened it. Mrs. Primsbite swept inside, her long skirt noisily dragging across the debris scattered on the deck. “I don’t see her,” she observed, her eyes quickly taking in the cabin.