The Laws of Magic 6: Hour of Need (28 page)

‘I say.’ George leaned forward. ‘Is that a good idea? I mean, shouldn’t we get to Trinovant as fast as we can?’

‘We won’t tarry long, but anything we can find out about these ships will help in determining a strategy against them.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I want to get nearer to Dr Tremaine’s flagship. I don’t imagine he’ll allow an Albion aircraft to come alongside, not unless he has changed considerably.’

Caroline didn’t move her head. ‘Sophie, I give you per mission to poke Aubrey with something sharp if he starts getting pompous.’

Sophie studied Aubrey, who was still considering the implications of Caroline’s thinking she could give someone permission to do something to him. ‘I think he has already started,’ she said.

‘That’s his last chance, then. Poke him if he continues.’

‘Familiarity,’ Aubrey said hurriedly. ‘If someone looks in this direction, they need to imagine that they’re seeing something that belongs.’

‘Like a cloud, old man?’ George offered.

‘That would be useful if we remain at a distance, but I’d like to get closer than that.’

‘A bird,’ Sophie said suddenly. ‘If someone looks across and thinks that we are a bird, it might seem unusual, but not threatening, no?’

‘Perfect,’ Aubrey said, ‘and I think I might have something that can help here. Do you know anything about the Law of Similarity?’

Sophie shook her head.

‘The Law of Similarity states that an object can be encouraged to assume the characteristics of something it resembles.’

George nodded wisely. ‘That’s the one you used to turn our ornithopter into a bird after we rescued Major Saltin.’ He cocked his head at Sophie. ‘He saved our life that way.’

‘I’m thinking,’ Aubrey said, doing his best to retain control of the discussion, ‘that I can blend some elements from a Similarity spell into a Familiarity spell of your devising. Since this ornithopter is already bird-like, it should increase the effectiveness of your spell.’

Sophie sparkled. ‘That is brilliant, Aubrey, and not pompous at all!’

‘Now, get to work,’ Caroline said with tilt of her head. ‘This circling is stupefyingly boring.’

Sophie’s increasing ability and facility with spells of seeming and appearance had been on Aubrey’s mind. Her spellcasting diffidence came from lack of practice, he’d decided, and some wayward teaching when she was younger. In discussions about her training, he’d had the impression of a series of harsh, disciplinarian magic instructors who insisted on rote learning. Aubrey understood her rejection of magic, if this was the case.
He
would have struggled under such a regime, despite his love of magical learning. Sophie was sunny, clever, humorous, but she wasn’t infinitely patient. Like Caroline, she wouldn’t suffer fools gladly.

With a jolt, he straightened.
Then what on earth are Caroline and she doing with George and me?

‘Aubrey?’ Sophie said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Me? I’m perfectly well, thanks. Just thinking. And you?’

‘I’ve nearly finished the spell. Will you look at it, please?’

Sophie’s spell making was clean and precise. She’d left her workings behind before she’d written out her final version, which was useful as he could follow the thinking that lay behind what she’d crossed out and changed along the way.

He couldn’t fault her logic. Even though he may have taken a different approach with the parameters for dimensionality, he accepted that her use of spatial and relative coordinates was an inspired method of ensuring that they remained disguised at all times.

He also approved of her use of Achaean. The ancient classical language was well known and relatively straightforward to work with. For a rusty spell caster, it was a good choice.

He looked up to find her gazing at him anxiously. ‘Is it sound?’

‘Sophie, it’s a marvel. I couldn’t have done it.’

‘Now you’re making fun of me.’

He shook his head. ‘I recognise good spellwork when I see it.’

Sophie coloured and took the notebook he gave her. ‘What do we do now?’

‘You cast the spell.’

‘When?’

‘After I’ve merged it with the spell to increase the birdiness of the final result. Then we should be ready.’

S
OPHIE FINISHED HER SPELL SMOOTHLY, IF A LITTLE
nervously, and Aubrey immediately felt the pulse of magic about them. ‘Well done, Sophie.’

George grasped her trembling hand. ‘I’m always impressed by impressive women, and believe me – I’m very impressed now.’

She sighed, then smiled. ‘I’m glad I could help.’

Aubrey could see how much casting the spell had affected her. Her face had blanched with the effort and her shoulders sagged.

‘You’ve done well,’ he said to her.

‘Is it always like this?’ She put a hand to her chest. ‘I feel drained, but also as if a string had been plucked inside me.’

‘Nicely put. It affects different people in different ways, but that tension and release is a common report.’

‘I’m not sure if I like it.’

‘Some people hate the sensation so much they give up magic altogether. Others find that they crave it.’

Sophie peered from the window. ‘So now we cannot be seen?’

‘Anyone who looks in this direction will see a bird. If he doesn’t look for too long, he should simply go about his business. Since you’ve done such a fine job, he should even fail to notice the sound we’re making. Most likely, he’ll ignore it or assume it’s coming from something else nearby.’

Caroline caught his eye. ‘Are we ready?’

‘Can you take us alongside the flagship?’

‘Port or starboard?’

‘Whatever is easier.’

‘Port, I think. Hold on.’

Before Aubrey could respond, guns on the warships about them erupted, firing in the direction of the Albion shores. The ornithopter jolted and Aubrey banged his head on the bulkhead, but Caroline soon had the aircraft steady and level again.

The guns on the battleships continued to fire, flame and smoke lancing from the massive barrels. The sound was all-encompassing; the ornithopter shook as if it were possessed. Tiny metallic sounds came from all around them – rattles, pings and creaks, all of which were designed to create panic in ornithopter passengers.

‘What are they firing at?’ Sophie asked.

‘I can’t see …’ Caroline said.

‘There!’ George pointed.

Some miles ahead, to the west, a hapless weathership was the target of the skyfleet’s guns. Huge eruptions of spray marked where the shells had missed, but Aubrey knew it was only a matter of time. The weathership could cut its anchor and run, but with the massed barrage mustered by the skyfleet, such a course of action would be hopeless.

‘Why?’ Sophie asked in a tiny voice. ‘It’s defenceless.’

‘It could send warning to Albion.’ George’s face was set. ‘Cowardly dogs.’

Any doubts about the intention of the barrage or of the efficacy of the cloud-made weapons disappeared when the weathership erupted in twin gouts of flame. The explosion shook the ornithopter, but Caroline held it steady through the buffeting.

‘Two shells struck at once,’ Aubrey murmured, but he was relieved to see lifeboats pulling away. The crew must have abandoned ship, not that he blamed them.

Aubrey had no way of knowing if a message had been transmitted before the crew fled – or, indeed, if a telegraph operator was gamely tapping away when the shells finally landed. Weathership operators were tough customers – they had to be, moored far from land for months at a time, charting and recording weather patterns – and he could imagine at least one of them doing his duty.

The guns rained shells on the smoking ruins of the weathership, far beyond any need. Aubrey supposed that it was simply target practice.

‘We’re coming up fast.’ Caroline’s voice was strained.

Their circuit high above the perimeter of the flagship was an education, and a grim one at that. The flagship was immense. It was as if Dr Tremaine had taken the latest battleship plans and simply doubled everything. As they whipped past, a shadow in what was fast becoming night, Aubrey estimated that she must be at least a thousand feet long from stern to bow, and she’d displace fifty or sixty thousand tons. If she were in water, he reminded himself. Six gun turrets, three forward, three aft, with twin fifteen-inch guns in each, superfiring. If this ship were on the high seas, it would be more than a match for anything in the Albion fleet, but the amount of steel required to build something like this – not to mention the time it would take – would make such a construction impossible.

Unless it were made of cloudstuff.

Wings clattering with the effort – and with an unsettling grating noise coming from the starboard pinion – Caroline performed a feat of aviation that Aubrey would have stood and applauded, if not for the fact that he was flailing for a handhold to steady himself.

From their lofty position, she sent the ornithopter in a manic dive, slicing between the flagship and the battleship a few hundred yards away. Then she dragged the protesting craft around, under the hull of the flagship, and then up past its stern – where Aubrey was startled to see that its name was
Sylvia
– and into a rush along the vast grey flank.

Aubrey was assaulted by magic. It poured from the
Sylvia
, but as they hurtled by he was buffeted by concentrations, hard nodes of magical intensity, in specific zones, and he had the flavour in his ears that suggested the presence of the magical artefacts.

They swung alongside the massive superstructure, the towering construction amidships that housed the command deck. They sped along the flank of the giant ship, passing at the level of the bridge, far above the deck level, and Aubrey spied a lone figure on the walkway.

Instantly, every part of him wanted to cry out a warning, to seize the controls and spiral them away, to put the mass of the flagship between them and the man who was gripping the rail and slowly turning his head, scanning the skies before settling his ferocious gaze on them.

Dr Mordecai Tremaine bared his teeth, drew back, and flung a handful of nothing at them.

C
AROLINE’S REACTIONS WERE FASTER THAN
A
UBREY’S
useless warning cry. She sheared and dropped the ornithopter to the port side – but it was too late.

Dr Tremaine’s magic stopped them, mid-dive, as quickly as running into an aerial brick wall. Amid the cacophony of shattering glass and tortured metal, the ornithopter buckled, metal falling away from it in shreds.

Trapped in the now-useless machine, they began to fall.

Wind screamed through the ruined craft, shrieking with delight at their predicament. Caroline wrenched at the controls. ‘I’ve lost everything!’ she cried, but she didn’t stop punching at switches, hammering at dials, dragging on the controls.

Far below, the sea was drawing nearer. Aubrey could see whitecaps and the tiny lifeboats, the survivors from the destruction of the weathership.

Aubrey closed his eyes and tried to ignore all distractions – especially the distraction of imminent death – and tried to remember the details of the only spell he knew that could save them. The only hope was a vastly more encompassing version of his levitation spell. It needed to include his friends and him, but also the ornithopter – it would be no use at all if their descent was arrested but they were still inside a plummeting machine. He barked the syllables, realised with a spurt of horror that he’d mangled the component for duration, backtracked and spat out a new version just in time for the ocean to rise and smash them.

A
UBREY EMERGED FROM A SWIRLING CHAOS TO A NIGHTMARE
of confusion. The only immediate compensation was that he could breathe. Somewhat. If he were careful.

He was in a world of water (that kept rolling over the top of him when he least expected it), darkness (that did its usual job of concealing objects long enough for them to sneak up and do various kinds of damage) and noise (which was just dashed annoying). He flailed weakly, then took another large mouthful of water – salt water – which only made things worse.

His collar was tugged. Dazed and floundering, he suspected it was another inanimate object trying to drown him when a voice came to him. ‘Aubrey! This way!’

He shook his head and it cleared somewhat, only to find that he was still in what was left of the ornithopter as it wallowed in the waves, undecided about whether it was going to plunge into the depths.

Caroline was framed in the doorway. She’d lost her beret. Her hair was in disarray. She stretched out a hand. ‘Hurry!’

Aubrey had a sudden, awful realisation that even though he hadn’t perished, the matter wasn’t over yet. He clutched his satchel of precious notes, then clawed off his seatbelt, just as the shattered windscreen let in a huge surge. The shockingly cold water dragged him over the back of his seat and scraped him against what had been the ceiling of the ornithopter, but now was more like a sieve.

The water receded. Aubrey had sense enough to sling his satchel around his neck and grab hold of a stanchion. He coughed, wiped his eyes with his other hand and found an anxious Caroline still waiting for him. He lunged for her hand and together they tumbled out through the doorway.

Moments later they were reunited with George and Sophie, shivering despite the greatcoats the seamen had surrendered after dragging them into the lifeboats. The boat rolled in the swell, while the wind had the edge that comes from driving for miles over non-tropical waters. Aubrey clutched the gunwale with one hand, Caroline’s hand with the other, grateful for this little wooden refuge in the immensity of the sea.

A baby-faced commander scrambled to join them. ‘You’re from the Directorate,’ he said, eyes widening when he took in their sodden uniforms. ‘You should be able to tell us what’s going on, then.’ He looked more closely at Aubrey. ‘I know you,’ he said slowly, then he performed the difficult task of recoiling while squatting in a crowded lifeboat. ‘You’re the traitor!’

Immediately, Aubrey was the focus of the entire crew of ex-weathershipmen. Minutes ago, they had been welcoming, partners in adversity and the like. Now they turned resentful eyes on him, ready to take revenge for being bombed.

He heard a click beside his ear. In other circumstances, once he recognised it he would have been extremely anxious or, given the chance, running in the other direction. This time, however, it was a comfort.

‘He isn’t a traitor,’ Caroline said. She gestured with her revolver. ‘But I’m not sure we could convince you of this, here and now. So, instead, you’re going to row us to Imworth harbour and drop us off. All the time, I’ll have this very powerful revolver trained on you, so do row well.’

‘There’s eight of us,’ a voice that Aubrey noted came from the far end of the boat, at the stern, ‘and that’s a six-shot Symons. You can’t get all of us.’

‘That’s a point,’ Caroline said brightly, ‘but if it comes to that we’ll only have two of you left. I’m sure we could overpower two of you, if we have to. Besides, what does it matter if only six of you perish if you’re one of the six?’

‘What if you miss?’ the same argumentative voice pointed out. Aubrey noticed that some of his crewmates, those closer to Caroline and her revolver, tried to shut him up, but he had the tone of someone who’d argue on his death bed.

‘I don’t miss,’ Caroline said.

‘How do we know that?’

‘Oh, you’re asking for a test, are you? Very well. Can I ask you to sit up straight while your crewmates lean to either side? No? Very well then. Skipper, I suggest that you get your men rowing with some vigour.’

This announcement was greeted with only a modicum of grumbling. Aubrey guessed that Caroline’s no-nonsense demeanour had convinced them more than any swaggering threats could have.

A shadow fell on them and the skipper cast an eye heavenwards with well-mastered apprehension. The skyfleet had reformed after its circling and destruction of the weathership. It was heading away from them. ‘Is Albion being invaded?’

‘Invaded?’ Aubrey looked up at the sky. ‘No. It’s far worse than that.’

T
HE COAST OF
A
LBION STUBBORNLY REFUSED TO GET ANY
nearer, even after two hours of determined rowing from the disgruntled crew. With the gentle rolling of the lifeboat, added to Caroline’s closeness and the rushed spell casting that had saved their lives, Aubrey was struggling to stay awake and failing when George leaned across to him, speaking low so the weathershipmen couldn’t hear. ‘I think I know where we are.’

With some effort, Aubrey restrained himself from attempting a quip about being at the aft end of a lifeboat, and spoke in the same hushed tones. ‘Imworth is over that way, isn’t it? To the north-west?’

‘True, but we’ve a fair distance before we get there.’

‘Where we’ll have some explaining to do.’

‘Which is why we should put in over there.’

George gestured with a single finger, shielding it with his body from the scrutiny of their enforced shipmates. A scattering of lights was showing on the cliff tops a few miles away.

Aubrey peered through the night, doing his best not to make it look obvious. The cliffs loomed over a narrow strip of beach where waves boomed, sending up spray that looked like mist at this distance.

‘It doesn’t look like a good landing place.’

‘That’s the point. Imworth is the only good harbour along this stretch of coast, but if we can land here and climb to the top of the cliffs, the train line isn’t far away. We’ll be far from here before the alarm can be raised.’

Aubrey yawned. His eyes watered, blearing the clifftop lights and turned them into little stars. ‘If we can land, I think I can get us to the top.’

T
HE WEATHERSHIP SKIPPER ARGUED WHEN
A
UBREY
ordered a landing, but Caroline’s revolver-backed counterargument carried the day. As the lifeboat was buffeted by the roaring waves – and once when rocks grated heart-stoppingly along the keel – Aubrey wondered if George’s plan were such a good one at all.

The skipper proved to be a decent fellow. When Aubrey and his friends stood dripping on the narrow strip of wave-hammered stones, he suggested that they surrender their firearms and he’d take them to Imworth. When they refused, he shook his head and ordered his men to push off.

The wind whipped spray in their faces. George grabbed Sophie as a brute of a wave nearly bowled her off her feet.

‘Now what, Aubrey?’ Caroline asked. Like all of them, she was drenched to the waist – a result of leaping out of the lifeboat into the wild surf – but she still was able to look collected and stylish.

‘Hold hands. All of you.’

Aubrey was becoming polished with levitation spells. They soon left the shingle behind and drifted through the gloom, alongside the improbably white face of the cliffs and into the scrubby, stubborn bracken that faced the sea.

An hour later, after Sophie had laid a subtle disguising spell on Aubrey’s features, they stumbled wearily into tiny East Stallington Station, a few miles from where they’d landed. George used the public telephone at the station to report to the Directorate, confirming the identity of the skyfleet that had broached the borders of Albion and the surmises about its intention. He’d barely hung up when the Trinovant train pulled in. Within seconds, Caroline had leaped into the cabin of the locomotive and used her pistol to commandeer it. She wanted to ensure that that the driver didn’t do anything silly like adhering to a timetable and stopping all stations. Aubrey appreciated such thoughtfulness as he made himself as comfortable as possible in the warm, noisy cabin, and went to sleep with his satchel on his lap.

T
RINOVANT WAS IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE SMALL HOURS
of the morning by the time the train reached St Swithins. Aubrey and his friends leaped from the train as soon as it had slowed enough, and sidled through a place that was crowded despite it being a time when all good citizens should be abed.

Aubrey stopped at a grimy, red-brick pillar near a darkened workshop entrance. He yawned, then peered at the helmeted figures on the platform opposite, tall amid the anxious Trinovantans who were waiting, suitcases and valises by their sides, to leave the capital. ‘I know how this will sound,’ he said to his friends, ‘but how do I look?’