All The Turns of Light (30 page)

Meralda’s eyes blazed. The temperature in the room plummeted. Ice rimmed the porthole and the surface of Goboy’s Glass.

“I am not to be ignored,” Meralda said, her voice hard and as cold as the chill in the air. “I will not have your pity, or your suspicion.”

We only –

“Silence,” Meralda said, and the cabin shook. “Do not speak unless you are spoken to.”

Mug made frantic shushing motions. Donchen laid his hand gently on Meralda’s shoulder. “What’s done is done,” he said. “We might as well have a look. I’ll send a Bellringer ahead, have the deck officer lower the ramp a few feet.”

Meralda fixed the crow in her furious gaze.

“Assist Nameless,” she said. “Depart from me.”

Faceless hopped and vanished.

The cabin spun. Meralda reached out to steady herself, and Donchen grabbed her hand.

“Mistress, I’m worried,” Mug said. “Donchen was right. For a moment there, you weren’t yourself. I’m not sure who was scarier, you or the staves of dread Otrinvion.”

“I’m worried too,” Meralda said. She searched the debris on her desk for her dark glasses. “But I still have a job to do.”

She found the glasses and put them on, hoping they would hide some of the glow, knowing they probably wouldn’t.

She took a few hesitant steps toward her door. Donchen remained at her side, holding her hand until they entered the passageway.

Meralda steadied herself. The bulkheads, the portholes, the deck–all shone like ice in daylight, lit from within by primal forces Meralda couldn’t begin to name.

How long before I lose my mind? How long before I can no longer see the ordinary?

Meralda felt her heart begin to pound, felt her face flush hot.

Donchen offered his elbow. He’d scooped up a ridiculous gentleman’s hat from somewhere in the heap of materialized objects, and he placed it on his head at a rakish angle, making a show of adjusting the long red ribbons that adorned the crown.

“Shall we go, my lady?” he asked, smiling.

Meralda could barely see Donchen’s face beneath the bright golden aura that surrounded him. But she made out his smile, and it was familiar. She took his proffered elbow and she put one foot in front of the other all the way to the loading bay.

The wind howled as the gangway ramp was lowered. Dust and bits of debris rose up and were quickly drawn outside, and Meralda’s ears popped as the pressure in the loading bay dropped.

Clouds and darkness lay beyond the end of the gangway as it inched ponderously down. A crewman called for lights, and the spark lamps at the end of the gangway flared to life.

All those present in the bay took a step forward, peering out into the whipping rain for a better look. Mug buzzed past Meralda, flying three-quarters down the gangway until the force of the wind forced him to halt.

“Well, it’s an ugly beast,” he called, his voice barely audible. “But it seems dead enough.”

Meralda followed, Donchen at her side.

At first glance, it seemed that a heap of rain-soaked blankets was hovering three feet from the head-high gap afforded by the lowered gangway. Two flapping shadows flanked the heap, holding it aloft.

May we enter?
asked one shadow.

Meralda nodded, and the shadows carried the metallic hulk inside.

The flying machine was black, dripping with rain, and trailing steam from half a dozen places. There was no solid surface; it seemed to Meralda as though the object was composed entirely of bones and oily, rubbery hide from which fat stumps of stunted limbs and tufts of ragged fur erupted at random.

“I swear I’d gag if I had a throat,” Mug said, buzzing about the body. “It’s got to be the ugliest thing that ever lived.”

Meralda frowned. There, amid a jumble of limp fingerless limbs, a trio of shiny steel plates emerged from the skin.

For cooling, Meralda decided, as she watched steam rise from each plate.

The shadows rested the disc on the gangway, and the Captain called for the ramp to be raised and sealed.

“Is it safe?” called down King Yvin, after the wind’s keening howl died.

“Stay back, Your Majesty,” she said. “Just a few more moments.”

Meralda circled the thing, wary, a silent, watchful Donchen at her side.

Whereas even the gangway’s rough surface was shot through with tracings of magic, the disc was absent of any trace. Meralda’s Sight revealed that, aside from the usual binding energies, the device was nothing more than dead flesh covering an intricate metal skeleton.

“It has no magic,” Meralda said softly. “Not the least bit.”

“It flew,” whispered Donchen.

Meralda pointed to the bulbous, rounded mass in front of her boot. “That is very much like a flying coil, save that it works without arcane current. It uses only electricity.” She looked to the tumor-like growth at the disc’s center, and saw the faint traceries of electric currents, now discharged, but still visible to her Sight. “The source lies there, in the center of the craft.”

“The craft?”

“Yes. Craft. It was built to fly.” Another assembly at the center of the craft caught her eye. It was still active, though faintly, and obviously failing.

She looked quickly away when she felt her Sight begin to extend itself down into the realm of the primal, but what she saw left her stunned.

“It was thinking,” she said aloud. “It was conscious. Conscious and terrified. It did not want to die.”

“Is that possible?” asked Donchen.

“They killed a thinking being,” Meralda said. She knelt and touched the wet hide. “I am so sorry. So very sorry.”

Mug appeared at her side, half his eyes on Meralda, the other half turned imploring to Donchen.

“Maybe we’ve seen enough,” Mug said quickly.

As Mug watched in horror, Meralda’s eyes began to blaze.

“I will not become a murderess, even indirectly,” she said. “It is my fault this–construct, this creation, is dead. I will not become Death. I tell you I will not.”

It only took an instant. Meralda looked upon the broken cables, the ruptured hoses, the charred electrical components. She moved her Sight back in time, to a point before the staves inflicted the damage, and it

all

became

so

easy.

Meralda concentrated. She felt a brief, not unpleasant tingle wash over her, as she loosed the tiniest, most minute surge of unmagic.

She stood.

Donchen rejoined her. Before he could speak, the flying machine rocked, hummed, and rose abruptly from the gangway, hanging in the air level with Meralda’s face.

“I tell you I am not the Unmaker. Go home,” Meralda said. Her eyes blazed, filling the loading bay with a ruddy red glow. “Captain. The ramp. Lower it. Now.”

The Captain barked orders. The ramp began to lower, its winches and lines popping and rattling in the sudden wind.

The black craft turned. The stubby limbs covering its body began to whip about. Deep within its bulk, a whining noise sounded, and grew loud.

“I said go,” Meralda shouted. The disc whined, and Meralda reached out and patted its oily bulk. A boneless limb stroked her hand, clumsy but gentle.

At the rear of the disc, half a dozen wormlike protuberances began to wag.

Meralda reached into her pocket, found a scrap of paper, and threw it out into the dark.

“Fetch,” she said.

The disc flung itself toward the storm, vanishing in the darkness and the sheets of twisting rain. Meralda motioned, and the ramp began to close.

The King and the Captain and a small crowd of officers and others stood at the far end of the loading ramp, whispering with each other.

“What was it?” asked the King, breaking away from the crowd. “Some new Vonat sending?”

“It was Vonat,” replied Meralda, moving to meet him. “I suspect they act as the hounds of the black airship. Alone, it was harmless.”

The King frowned. “So you just let it go.”

“I just let it go,” agreed Meralda. “There was no point in keeping it here.”

“That’s a decision I’d have preferred to make, Mage,” said the King. “In the future, pray do me the courtesy of deferring to the Crown now and then, won’t you?”

The King’s image multiplied. Only for an instant, but as she’d seen so many Donchens a moment ago, she now saw a line of repeated Yvins.

Mad Meralda. That’s what he’ll be calling me one day soon. Meralda the Mad, old red-eyes, the Witch of Tirlin, lonely in her Tower, lonely all her days.

She couldn’t find words. She marched from the loading bay, alone, and didn’t notice until she reached the
Jenny
that her tears fell solid and dry from her face, glittering like diamonds on the
Intrepid’s
polished deck.

* * *

Donchen heard the hammering from within the
Jenny’s
hull, and bade Mug to halt.

“I still think we should both go,” whispered Mug.

“Better one at a time,” said Donchen. “We don’t want her to feel she’s being ambushed.”

The hammering stopped. There was a stirring from within the flying launch, and after a moment Meralda’s head popped over the
Jenny
’s rail.

“I’m not deaf,” she said. “Both of you. Come aboard.”

Mug’s coils buzzed, and Donchen followed, clambering easily up the
Jenny’s
ladder.

Meralda’s eyes glowed. Her nose was smudged with grease, and her hair bun was coming apart, leaving her face obscured by unruly bangs. She met Donchen and Mug on the
Jenny
’s deck, a wrench in her hand.

“Before either of you say anything,” she said, “please. Let me apologize. I didn’t even thank you for bringing me back from wherever I was. Apparently my manners are vanishing even more rapidly than my sanity.”

“Nonsense,” said Donchen.

“Donchen did most of the work,” added Mug. “Although my own contributions were brave and, might I say, bordering on the heroic.”

“What are you working on?” asked Donchen.

Meralda shrugged. “I’m removing the
Jenny’s
coil regulators,” she said. “In case we need speed.”

Donchen nodded, but a brief frown crossed his face. “The flying machines don’t seem to be a threat,” he said. “And the black death appears to have been destroyed.”

“The black death was transformed, but not destroyed,” Meralda said. “The flying machines seem to serve as nothing more than eyes and ears for the real threat, which is the impossibly tall giant. And me, of course. I’m at least as dangerous, if not by intent.”

“Now see here—” began Mug.

A brief rain of slide rules fell to the deck.

“I’m getting worse,” Meralda said. “Even now, I’m struggling to speak. It would be so much easier to simply put the thoughts in your heads. Make you agree with me. I could do that, you know, and the worst part is this–you’d never know I’d done it.”

“But you have not,” said Donchen. “Because of who you are.”

“And if I stop being who I am?” asked Meralda. “I’ve nearly done so once already. How many times will I resist? One more? Two more?”

“As many times as you must,” said Donchen. “You are stronger than you think.”

“Not stronger, my love.” Meralda’s eyes flared. “
Smaller.
Weaker. Why should I bother with this,” she said, holding up the wrench, “when I could simply will the coil regulators to vanish?”

“You mentioned something about the universe unraveling,” Mug said. “Is that still a concern?”

Meralda took a step forward. “For a moment, in the loading bay, I didn’t care,” she said. “It didn’t seem to matter to me that the universe might vanish in a puff of smoke. What kind of monster does that make me, Mug? Even Otrinvion the Black never said such a thing.”

Mug sighed. “We came because Donchen has an idea. An idea that might help you cope with, well, whatever is happening.”

Meralda looked to Donchen.

“Your power seems to rise in proportion to your level of concern over it,” said Donchen. “You are of course familiar with feedback loops.”

“I am a Mage,” Meralda said.

“Quite. Consider, then, how one might mitigate these wild swings in intensity by negating the feedback process altogether.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“No,” replied Donchen. “I most certainly do not. But I will not stand idly by and let the woman I love wallow, an arm’s length away. I am no Mage, Meralda. But neither am I entirely unskilled in the arcane traditions of my people.”

He pulled the golden ring from his finger. “I have modified this. I have no idea if it will work, or how long it may function, or how effective it shall be. But I offer it to you in spite of my misgivings, in the hope it will help.”