Magebane (53 page)

“Best not to say anything about ‘magic' or ‘MageLords,' ” Falk said. “A little too out-of-the-ordinary for the Outside world. We'll let that knowledge out carefully, perhaps with a demonstration of how our magic can be used to help your people . . . as it has helped us . . . build a better society.”

Anton kept an expression of intense, excited interest on his face, and boiled inside. From the stories of the Minik and what he had heard from Mother Northwind and Brenna, he knew exactly what kind of society the MageLords had built with their unique abilities: one of absolute privilege for a few, who held the power of life and death over the many.

At least
, he thought, as Falk continued talking,
I don't
actually
have to remember any of this.

He would deliver a message, all right, but the message would be, “Be ready. The Anomaly is falling. And not everyone on the other side wishes us well.”

“Tell them to send for your military, or take up arms themselves, or make whatever preparations they need to defend themselves,” Mother Northwind had told him. “I hope it won't be necessary. If my own plans are successful, the MageLords will be powerless, the magical weapons their army depends on disabled, and the Commoners in revolt against them. If the Barrier falls within the month, Anton, that is what will have happened.”

“And if it doesn't?” Anton had asked.

“If the Barrier is still in place within a month, I will have failed,” Mother Northwind had said, her voice harsh. “The next thing to watch for will be the Barrier falling in the spring. If that happens, then the MageLords retain power, Falk is King, and an army will ride out of Evrenfels intent on conquering every community close to the Barrier, as a first step to sweeping across the world in the years to come.”

“We have weapons they don't know anything about,” Anton had said.

“And they have weapons you can't even imagine,” Mother Northwind had countered. “Falk destroyed City Hall in New Cabora with a flick of his hand. The army is equipped not only with swords and spears and bows, but enchanted weapons that can throw flame, crush skulls, and spray killing needles of ice.”

Anton pictured an army of magicians advancing, striking down their enemies with lightning from on high . . . could the Union Republic's army stand against that? The sheer impossible terror of it would wreak havoc. Men would break and flee. And once Falk's army had faced the weapons the Outsiders could bring to bear, they would know how to counteract them next time.

“I'll warn them,” he had said, and so he would.
But will they believe me
?

“Good.” Mother Northwind had paused. “There is one other possibility. If my own plans go awry, I may still be able to thwart Falk's. In which case the Barrier will remain in place, with the MageLords safely locked behind it . . . for now. Eventually, someone may rediscover what Falk and I have learned, but I do not think that will happen soon. And the Barrier won't fall on its own for another two centuries.”

“Just what
are
your plans, and Falk's?” Anton had asked. “Brenna seems to be crucial to them both. What are you going to do to her?”

“I?” Mother Northwind had raised her hands, palms out. “I mean her no harm at all. Far from it. For my plans to succeed, she must remain unharmed.” She'd leaned closer. “But let this drive you even more to get the Outside world ready to stand against Falk if he succeeds. For
his
plans to be fulfilled . . . Brenna must die.”

“What?” Anton had found himself standing, with no memory of having jumped up. “He can't—you have to stop him!”

“What do you think I'm trying to do, boy?” Mother Northwind snapped. “I told you, I need her alive. Of course I'll stop him, if I can. There's nothing you can do about it, at any rate. But just keep that little fact in mind should you be tempted to betray me to him!”

“Not a chance in hell,” Anton had said, and meant it.

“. . . think you can do that for me, my boy?” Falk said, finishing his instructions.

“Yes, my lord!” Anton said. “It will be a great pleasure.”

“Good. Well, then, the first thing is to make sure that this airship of yours is still working. And this time we'll see about finding you whatever it is you need to get these propeller engines of yours working . . .”

The next couple of days went by in a blur as Anton supervised the process of getting the airship airworthy once more. He had thought rock gas might be impossible to get, but in fact it was used for heating in the wealthier parts of New Cabora, where some Mageborn lived in their own walled enclaves. No pipeline brought it. The well it was drawn from had been drilled by magic a hundred miles to the southeast, and the enchanted wellhead magically transported the gas from there to the homes that burned it. Anton shook his head at that, but it was only one wonder among many he had seen, and hardly the greatest. As long as the gas was there and could fill his fuel tanks, he didn't care how they got it.

The airship could not be launched from inside the Lesser Barrier, obviously, and Falk, equally obviously, did not have any interest in letting it be widely known that he was in contact with the Outside. And so the repair work had all been done five miles outside the city, in the walled yard of a Mageborn-owned horse farm. Every morning Anton rode out there in a horseless magecarriage with two Royal guards. Every evening the magecarriage returned him to the Palace.

Until, on a still, bitterly cold morning three days after his interview with Falk, Anton stood in the gondola once more, the envelope filled with hot air, burner and propeller engine fully fueled, a full complement of sandbags strung along the gondola's rim.

He was not alone. Falk had insisted on sending an “assistant” with him, a Mageborn guard named Spurl who, Anton suspected, was proof that Falk did not quite trust him as much as Mother Northwind had assured Falk he could be trusted.
Well, let the guard come
, Anton thought.
Once we're Outside, I'm quite sure I can handle a single guard, magic or not. If magic even works outside the Anomaly.

They'd soon see.

The airship, fully inflated, tugged restlessly at the ropes belayed to four posts around the courtyard, watched over by guards who stared uneasily up at the huge blue balloon as though afraid it might topple over on them at any moment. Spurl, in full uniform with a heavy blue cloak added for warmth, clutched the edge of the gondola, already looking as though he was thinking about being sick.

Falk stood a few feet from the gondola. “The SkyMage protect you,” he intoned. “Carry out my wishes, Anton, as you love me.”

Keep acting
, Anton thought, although after
that
, he thought he was closer to throwing up than Spurl was.
Keep acting
. “I don't know if I can ever repay you as you deserve, my lord,” he said, and
that
, at least, was truth. “But perhaps this will be a start.”

He leaned out of the gondola and shouted to the men standing ready by the ropes, “Cast away on my mark! One . . . two . . . three . . . mark!”

The ropes were let slip. The airship began to rise. Spurl gasped and gripped the edge of the gondola so tightly his gloved knuckles audibly popped.

Coward
, Anton thought contemptuously.
Brenna was less frightened than that
.

Brenna
. He wished he'd had a chance to talk to her. What would she think when she found out he'd gone back Outside? What had she been told? Did she think Mother Northwind had
really
twisted his mind to make him Falk's puppet?

Did she know that Falk meant to kill her?

Anton felt helpless . . . but that would change. He would deliver his message to the Outside world, but he wouldn't stay to see how that world reacted to it. As soon as he could, he would be coming back across the Barrier . . .
without you
, he thought with a contemptuous glance at Spurl . . . and he would find a way to protect Brenna.

He had never been in love. He didn't know if he was now. All he knew was that he was willing to risk his life to do everything in his power to keep Brenna from being hurt.

Sounds like a good working definition of love
, he thought. He seated himself in the pilot's seat, took the wheel, and opened the throttle of the propeller engine. The big blades began to spin, and the airship began to move. Spurl gasped again and sat down hard in the bottom of the gondola, hiding his face.

Anton ignored him, and set a course for the Anomaly . . . and the Outside.

LOCKED IN HER PALATIAL PRISON, Brenna waited for Falk to come interrogate her, both fearing it and wishing he would get it over with. She went back and forth on the question of telling him that the men his guards had killed had been taking them to Mother Northwind. On the one hand, it might sow confusion between the two of them. On the other hand, why should she help Falk? If Mother Northwind were working at cross-purposes to Falk, why not let her work?

But in the end, it wasn't Falk who came to see her, but Mother Northwind.

Brenna had wakened early that morning, she wasn't sure why; something in a dream, she thought, though all she remembered were confusing images of Falk and Anton and the dead man sizzling in the campfire. That image came back far too often in her dreams, and usually cost her the next hour's sleep. This time it had come so close to morning that she gave up going back to sleep at all, and instead got up, found the book she had been rather unsuccessfully trying to read, and settled down next to the lantern. Magelight would have been better, but she had no way of turning them on.

Hilary came in at the usual time, seemed startled to see Brenna awake, but said, “Good morning, miss,” and went about her usual tasks of building up the fire and setting the table in the antechamber for the breakfast that would arrive shortly.

Brenna discovered she had read the same page four times without once remembering what it had said, and tossed the book aside. She went out into the antechamber. “What's the weather like, Hilary?” she asked. “I've been locked up in her for so long now I'm beginning to forget what fresh air feels like.”

“Outside the Palace, miss? Warm as always.”

Brenna grimaced. “No, I mean the real weather. Is it still bitterly cold? Has there been a meltwind?” Once or twice a winter, a great warm wind would sweep in from the west, causing the temperatures to rise so rapidly you could go from winds that would flay the skin from your bones to water running from the roofs in the space of a day.

Hilary shook her head. “No meltwinds, miss. Cold and still.” She lowered her voice. “Perfect for launching that flying machine of Falk's, I hear.”

Brenna felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather inside or outside of the Barrier. “Flying machine?”

“That's the rumor, miss.” Hilary adjusted the silverware on the snow-white tablecloth on the little table beside the fire. “Shall I have someone light the magelights, miss?”

“What? No, the lantern is fine. Besides, it's getting light outside.” She glanced back at the tall windows, which had turned to gray from black sometime in the last few minutes. “What about this flying machine?”

“Well, it's supposed to be a big secret, but of course there are guards involved and they tell the maids all kinds of things, especially when they're . . . well,” she blushed, “anyway, the story is that it's a flying machine from outside the Barrier, if you can believe it.” Hilary shook her head. “I can hardly credit it myself. What is there outside the Barrier but wilderness and savages? But that's what they say, all the same.”

“Did they . . . describe it?” Brenna said, trying to will herself to believe that there could be a flying machine other than Anton's airship.

“Well, miss, the guards say it's big, big as a house, shaped kind of like a loaf of bread, with a big wicker basket under it and this thing inside it like a little MageFurnace that shoots fire up into it until it's all puffed up. A whirligig thing on the rear of the basket—don't know what that's for—and a rudder like a ship.

“There's a strange boy been making sure it's all set to go, and they say that this morning he's launching it on a test flight. Wish I could be there, too, miss,” she added. “I would dearly love to see a flying machine. Not a bit of magic about it, the guards say. Commoner through-and-through.”

Anton?
Brenna felt sick.
Launching the airship . . . with Falk's help?

Cold fury flooded her.
Mother Northwind did it. She stole his thoughts, now she's twisted his mind. All to help Falk!