Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (41 page)

Alma frowned at the map. “We may need a larger scale.”

“We need to find the general area first,” Jerry said. The ships were taking shape just as they’d seen them, half exposed in the middle of the lake. “There’s no point in drawing a large scale map of the sanctuary area if we’re looking somewhere else.”

Alma shrugged. “Your call.” She knew better than to tell Jerry his business.

This time when Jerry began the Hebrew invocations Lewis didn’t flinch. He stood quietly beside Mitch as Jerry walked a circle around the room, truncated by the bed, speaking in a very low voice, presumably not to be heard by Signora Ruggieri. Alma bent her head over the map on the desk, the tablet unwrapped beside it, gleaming with a soft, oily sheen, her wedding ring held loosely in her hand.

There should be peace in this, or perhaps transcendent experience. She should feel something, some vast tide, some sense of presence. Instead there was nothing. If Diana spoke she did not hear her.

Alma closed her eyes, her fingers resting lightly on the tablet. But it didn’t matter if she could hear the goddess or not. That was her limitation, not Diana’s. And so instead she summoned memory.

The moon rising out of the clouds, or rather appearing to do so. It was they who rose out of the clouds, and there was nothing between Alma and the moon, not even the ghost of a pane of glass. The Jenny’s open forward cockpit hid nothing. The clouds clung to her face like wisps of tears, and then they soared free of them, the low clouds streaming past like a blanket impossibly soft. Above, the countless stars paled before their lady, the full moon rising clear and untouchable in the heavens.

Behind her, in the aft cockpit, she heard Gil laugh with sheer delight. She could not speak. She could not find voice for this unimaginable beauty. They skimmed the surface of the clouds, the Jenny as graceful as a water bird just skimming the surface of a pond, mist rising beneath its wings. The mountains rose far above the clouds as well, standing like islands in a sea of glimmering white. Gil steered between them effortlessly. Even the familiar peaks of Colorado seemed new, transformed by moonlight, the entire world made into a white ocean beneath the moon.

“Do you want to take the wheel?” Gil called, and she nodded. She had no words yet, no words for this singing beauty in her heart, for this thankfulness that threatened to overwhelm her. From autumn rain and blood had come this, transformed in seven short months. Armistice and peace, home and Gil, and this — this transformation — to soar like a freed spirit. This he gave her, home and freedom both, and the magic of flight. To run, and to come home.

Diana
, Alma whispered in her heart. All the contradictions made sense, huntress and protectress at once. The hound runs, and her coursing is a joy to behold. And then she comes home and sleeps by the fire she guards, safe beside those she loves.

Diana
, Alma whispered.
Help us
.

Alma put her left hand on the tablet, and looped the chain that held her wedding band twice around her finger, her elbow propped at ninety degrees so that the ring swung freely over the map Jerry had drawn. “All right,” she said, clearing her throat. “Let’s see where the other tablet is.”

“Or others,” Jerry said. “There might be more than one.”

“Or others,” Alma agreed. She closed her eyes again, letting the ring swing in wide loops, crossing and recrossing the page. “Where are you?” she said softly. “Show me.”

The ring swung in tighter and tighter loops. She felt it tug against her hand, as though a magnet pulled it. Tighter and tighter, circling a single spot. Alma carefully let the chain out until it touched the page, and then opened her eyes. The band of the ring overlapped the smaller of the two ships midship, where they had found the Medusa earlier today. “I’m sure,” she said.

“Damn,” Mitch said.

Jerry shook his head. “It makes sense. They would have wanted the tablets aboard the ships. It makes sense if they hadn’t been moved. Probably this one was the first excavated, but as we saw today the ships are only about half exposed. If the other tablet or tablets are still on the ship, they must be on the lower levels, either because they were put there or because they fell through the decking when it was waterlogged and rotting. They could be a couple of decks down, still underwater.”

“I think they were aboard the ships to begin with,” Lewis said. “That makes sense with what I saw.”

“So we need to get aboard the ships,” Mitch said. He shook his head. “That’s going to be fun.”

“Is this a good time to mention that I can’t swim?” Lewis said.

Jerry laughed. “Neither can I. Not anymore.”

“Well, you can row,” Alma said. “Both of you. If there’s any swimming to do I’ll do it.”

“Or I can,” Mitch said.

Alma stared at him. “You’re going to tell me you’re up to diving on that wreck? I don’t think so.” Mitch couldn’t fool her, much as he might like to think he did. He’d pulled something in the airship crash. She could see the way he moved. “Mitch, I know you’d give your all for this, but it’s not necessary. I’m as good a swimmer as you, and I’m uninjured. This part’s mine.”

Slowly, Mitch nodded. “Ok. If we have to dive, you’ll do it.”

“We’re going to have to wait until after dark,” Jerry said. “There’s no way we can get out on the lake without being in plain sight of everybody at the dig. We’ll have to wait until everybody has gone home.”

“Nine o’clock or better,” Alma said. “It’s the end of May. Full dark is late.”

“Let’s say ten,” Mitch said.

Lewis cleared his throat. “The other question I have is this,” he said. “What about it? The demon, I mean.”

“It’s bound to try to stop us,” Jerry said. “It knows we’re here, it saw me. It has to be able to guess what we’re doing.”

“That we’re going to try to bind it, sure,” Mitch said. “But not the details. It doesn’t know where the other tablet is — does it?”

He looked at Lewis, who gave an embarrassed shrug. “I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Alma said. She stood up briskly, opening the chain and reaching down to slide the amulet back on it. “We need to be prepared. It may be armed, and it’s certainly willing to kill. We probably can’t get guns, but we need knives and whatever else we can think of to defend ourselves. The advantage is that there are four of us and one of it, so if we stick together, we should be able to overpower it, even if it’s gotten a strong host. But we have to stay alert and be careful when we do things like dive.”

Mitch nodded. “We’ve got hours until nine o’clock. I’ll go see what I can do about finding us knives.”

“That’s a plan,” Alma said. “We’ll do this tonight.” And perhaps with Diana’s help the price wouldn’t be too high.

A
lma had no idea where Mitch had gotten the boat, or how he’d managed to borrow a car from one of the Ruggieri cousins, but she was grateful he’d found a way. He’d gotten knives, too, and a heavy leather object that Alma had recognized after a moment as a blackjack. The Ruggieri cousin was definitely an interesting sort, she thought, but knew better than to say anything. Jerry was looking thoroughly unhappy already, and she didn’t need to make things worse. At least there was a mist rising, tendrils curling off the still water like threads of smoke. That would help some, that and the clouds that seemed to be building. The moon was a waning quarter, but it hadn’t risen yet, and wouldn’t for some hours. By then the clouds should be thick enough to hide it, or, better still, they’d be safely off the lake.

They manhandled the boat out to the water, all of them with their pants rolled up and their shoes dangling from their laces around their necks. Jerry staggered and swore in the soft mud, but Alma couldn’t spare a hand to help him. The mist coiled around them as they went, blurring the lights on the far shore.

They reached the edge of the water, and Mitch and Lewis walked it in far enough to float. Jerry stood for a moment with his head down, catching his breath, then dragged himself out and into the broad-beamed boat. Alma followed him, heard him say to Mitch, “You told them we were stealing artifacts?”

It was the tone another man would have used for “robbing churches.” Alma fumbled for the oars, found them and readied herself to push off.

“I didn’t tell them that,” Mitch said. He stopped, wincing, and Lewis nodded for him to climb into the boat. “They may have assumed….”

“Do you have any idea what that will do to my reputation?” Jerry began, and Mitch shook his head.

“Look, Jer, there’s no good reason for you to be out on the lake in the middle of the night. The point is not to get caught.”

There was enough truth in that to silence Jerry, and Lewis walked the boat a little further into the chill water, Alma poling them along from the other side. He was up to his waist before he scrambled in, and settled himself on the thwart beside Jerry. “I’ll start,” he said softly. “Then you can take over.”

Jerry nodded, though he didn’t look very happy.

The lake wasn’t very big, but in the dark and the rising mist it seemed larger. Lewis rowed steadily, strongly, pulling them toward the sound of the pumps. The mist parted reluctantly before the blunt bow, the boat rocking with every stroke.

“Those pumps,” he said. “I’m a little worried about them. Won’t they be a danger to Alma?”

“No,” Jerry said. He twisted on the seat, trying to see how far they had to go. “No, they’re far enough away that they won’t disturb the ships. She’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” Lewis muttered, and kept rowing.

“There,” Jerry said. “Stop.”

Lewis pulled the oars in, and the boat drifted, slowing, until suddenly a low platform loomed out of the dark. Jerry leaned out to grab a piling, pulled them in tight against it.

“No watchman?” Mitch asked.

“No,” Jerry said again. “Harris said they’re more worried about the artifacts in the workshops. It’s too much of a long shot for most of the locals to risk diving out here.”

“That’s something,” Alma said. Jerry unwrapped the hooded flashlight, flicked it on for a moment to study the wreck, and switched it off again.

“Back a little.”

He pushed them away from the platform, and Lewis worked the oars again, bringing them close to where the first fingers of wood reached out of the water. “This is it,” he said. “I think.”

“Good enough for me,” Alma said, and Jerry nodded.

This was the tricky part, and she wouldn’t let herself think too much about it. She slipped off her blouse and slacks, tucking the necklace with the amulet and Gil’s ring tighter into her underwear. The air seemed colder than before and made her feel more naked somehow. Not that it mattered, not that anyone could really see her, here in the dark, but she felt vulnerable, afraid.

And that was reasonable, she told herself. It was reasonable to be afraid of searching a wrecked ship in the dark: it was a dangerous thing to do. The main thing was to be careful, not to take unnecessary risks.

“Ok?” Lewis asked, and she smiled at him even though she doubted he would see even the gleam of her teeth. That was something he shared with Gil, something she hadn’t known she could expect or ask for, that willingness to let her run her own risks.

“I’m ready,” she said, and slipped over the side.

The water was cold, like any mountain lake. She suppressed a curse, clung to the side of the boat while she got her breath back, then stretched her feet down to feel for the ship’s hull beneath the surface. She found it quickly enough, unpleasantly soft between her toes, let go of the boat to feel her way toward the space where the deck had been.

Abruptly the wood vanished, and she slipped under the water before she could stop herself and came up shaking wet hair out of her eyes.

“Alma?” That was Lewis again, voice soft but carrying, and she saw that Jerry had the oars now, moving slowly toward her, and Lewis was in the bow.

“I’m fine,” she said, and caught the gunwale as Jerry backed oars again. “I’m going to have to dive, though.”

“Hang on,” Mitch said. “How are you going to find it?”

“It’s there,” she said. She was as certain of it as if she felt the tug of her chain, dowsing, as certain as if she saw it through the dark. When she had dowsed for it before, she had called on her memory of flight, of Gil and the Jenny skimming above the clouds. Now the mist swirled about her, as the clouds had done, and she could feel the metal beneath her, a little to her right.

Lewis caught her hand. “It fell,” he said softly. “After the ship sank, a long time after, a fisherman came and hooked a piece of ivory, an ivory box covered with nymphs and satyrs. And when he came back for more, all he did was pull up a length of the deck, and the tablet fell. It’s right there where it landed, just a little further….”

“How far down?” Alma asked, and he started and shook his head.

“Eight feet? Nine? Not far.”

“Thank you,” she said, and squeezed his hand. She pushed herself gently away, letting the current and the metal itself pull her, then took a last deep breath and let herself sink beneath the surface.

It was pitch dark, no more than she’d expected, but before she was even half out of breath, her feet touched more of the soft wood. There was debris as well, hard and painful; she doubled over, drawing her feet up, and let her hands sweep through the mud. Hard things, metal, a round thing that felt like stone — the head of a statue? — but still not the tablet. Her air was running out. She kicked off, broke the surface, and dove again.

It was closer this time, further to her right. The deck and the tangle of objects slanted away a little, and she touched them more lightly, not wanting to set anything moving. Closer — she could feel it, like a spot of sunlight in the water, and then her hand struck something hard and thick. Rope, she thought, rope caught on the wreck? No, more than just a piece of rope. It was a net, a fisherman’s net, wrapped in a tangle around some post. And the tablet was beneath it.

She kicked off again, surfaced to wave the boat closer.

“Do you have it?” Mitch called, and she shook her head, scattering drops of water.