The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (134 page)

“I’m fine.” He walked on in unnatural silence.

She tried again. “Tell me about Aune.”

“Lyall’s sister? Why would you want to know about her?”

“Just curious. I guess I can’t help but wonder what kind of a person she was, that Lyall would risk everything to save her.”

Alondo pressed his lips together. “You don’t have any siblings, do you?”

“No,” she confessed.

“When Lyall returned home after Persillan and Aune was missing, I thought he was going to lose his mind. We searched high and low, but there was no sign. Even after the trail went cold, he never gave up. He has never stopped searching for her in his heart.”

“What was she like?” Shann pressed.

Alondo had a faraway look. “Aune was a field of bright yellow alasia blooms. She was Ail-Kar, the white sun, peeking out from behind a cloud. She was a cool mountain lake on a burning hot summer’s day. Aune was a nimble dagan, gambolling in the dappled sunlight of a forest.”

“It sounds as if you loved her.”

“Everyone loved her.”

Shann tried to picture the young woman who literally meant more to Lyall than the entire world, yet no image she could come up with seemed to do justice to Alondo’s description. “I’ll talk to him,” she said. “Try to persuade him to come back to us.”

Alondo attempted a reassuring smile. “I know you will.” However, there was something in his voice. Something that told her that he knew that Lyall would never give up the search, no matter what the cost.

She caught the heady scent of the sea, informing her that this part of their journey was nearing its end. Soon it would be time for them to part company. She felt a twinge of sadness.
At least the others will be safe.

A while later they rounded a bend in the path and the land fell away. Directly below them was the stony beach where they had made landfall several days before and, beyond, the calm waters of Qiberon Bay, sparkling in the sunlight. Something was wrong. Shann scanned the inlet from one headland to the other and then out to the unbroken horizon, where sea met sky. She fought down a rising sense of panic. It was Rael who finally gave voice to her worst fears.

“The Reach. It’s gone.”

<><><><><>

Chapter 22

“Maybe the ship was attacked by the hu-mans again.” Rael speculated. “Maybe they took refuge somewhere else.”
Or maybe the ship sank.
The placid waters of the inlet were deep—easily capable of swallowing up their tiny vessel, leaving no sign of its passage.

Shann thrust the image aside. “Let’s get to the clifftop. We’ll get a better view from there.”

They climbed in silence, imprisoned in their private thoughts, with only their fears for company. Dark, brooding clouds were piling up in the eastern sky—a presage of late afternoon rain. Wind whipped around in spiteful little squalls, ruffling Shann’s hair and blowing Keris’s long dark tresses across her face.
What if the Reach really is gone?
The human flying machines were the only other way off the island. Stealing one would be pretty risky. Stealing two... Yet if Wang escaped with the four components and they were stranded here, then there would be no one to prevent him from exacting terrible retribution on the Kelanni people.

As they crested the clifftop, Alondo collapsed in a heap, breathing hard. Shann walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, and his flushed moon-face broke into a weak smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’m good for another ten hikes. Just say the word.”

It was good to see him coming out of himself a little. She cuffed him playfully on the shoulder, feeling her own mood lighten a little. “Show-off.”

Keris knelt at the cliff edge and scanned the horizon. Shann joined her, with Rael at her shoulder. “See anything?”

“No, nothing,” the other woman replied.

The sea was choppy—grey-green crests, topped off with white plumes. The only signs of life were the four-winged piebald fliers that dominated the island, flitting across the water in ragged flocks, bickering with one another and diving in and out of the surf. Shann squinted, desperately seeking a glimpse of sail or mast, but there was nothing.

“There.”
Rael pointed off to the right, in a direction parallel to the cliff face. Shann leaned forward and her heart leapt.
The Reach.
She was close-hauled into shore, sheltered in the lee of the cliff, and appeared to be at anchor.

“What is it?” Alondo called from his place, still seated among the tufts of rough yellow grass.

“We found the ship,” Shann reported. She walked over to him and proffered a hand. “Feel like a walk along the cliffs?” He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. “And along the way, maybe you could regale us with a song or two? How about the ditty that you played at the nomad camp—the one Lyall and I danced to?”

She bit back the words as she saw that his haunted look had returned.

~

The suns were nearing their zenith, with Ail-Gan, the yellow sun, briefly tracking backwards in its path across the sky when they arrived at the point on the clifftop directly above the Reach’s position. The ship had not moved. As they watched from their elevated vantage point, they could see its deck, rolling gently in the swell and dotted with three tiny blue-coated figures. Everything looked peaceful.

“We should signal them,” Shann suggested.

“No.”
All eyes turned to face Keris, but her gaze was firmly fixed on the vessel far below.

“What’s the matter?” Shann asked, patiently.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t... smell right.”

Shann frowned. She had never known Keris to be this vague about anything. “How do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing, I haven’t seen Patris.”

Shann shrugged. “The ship is lying at anchor. It’s a relatively calm sea. There’s no compelling reason for her master to be on deck.”

“It’s not just that. What are they doing out here?”

“I think Rael’s theory is the most likely explanation,” Shann replied. “The ship was attacked again and sought shelter.”

Keris shook her head firmly. “There’s no sign of recent battle damage. The ship is slow compared to one of their flying machines. Even if they were attacked by a single craft, it’s difficult to believe the pilot was so completely inept that he missed every shot.”

“Maybe an avionic buzzed them and they got scared and ran?”

Keris was still staring down at the vessel as if she were willing it to give up its secrets. “I know Patris; he doesn’t scare easily. Besides, he is well aware that the inlet is the rendezvous point. If there were no immediate threat, he would return the ship to its station, not sit out here.

“And another thing. Look at how the ship is positioned. She’s way too close inshore. If a storm brewed or the anchor gave, she would run the risk of being dashed against the cliffs. Patris is far too experienced a skipper to make that sort of a mistake.”

Shann began to feel a cold knot in the pit of her stomach. “Are you saying that the drach have taken control of the ship?”

“Patris can handle himself in a fight,” Keris mused. “But against three drach—and if they took him unawares... I’d say it’s possible, yes.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

Keris got to her feet. A gust of wind blew a lock of hair across her face, and she brushed it back. “Time is of the essence. You and Rael should go after Lyall.”

“You can’t take the ship back on your own.” Shann’s eyes widened. “Hey, maybe we could use the flying cloaks to drop to the deck—take
them
by surprise?”

“You mean jump from the cliff?” Keris shook her head. “It’s far too high; we’d never make it.”

“Using the old-style cloak, maybe. But with the new red cloak—” Her gestures became animated. “We leap off, extending lower lodestone and bronze. Bronze pulls the lodestone; lodestone pushes the bronze—a double upward pressure. Then we channel the elecro... ”

“Electrostatic,” Rael corrected.

“Right. We channel the electrostatic boost through the lodestone to strengthen its effect. When we get within range of the ship, we can push against the natural lodestone that we installed in the ship’s prow to help us cross the Great Barrier of Storms.”

Alondo peered gingerly over the lip of the cliff. “Sounds risky to me.”

Rael held up one hand. “Hang on a moment.” He pulled a tablet from his grubby green jacket—the once-proud uniform of the Directorate’s Physics and Astronomy Division—and began scribbling furiously.

“What’s he doing?” Keris inquired.

“Working out whether it can be done,” Shann said, proudly.

“How?”

“He uses numbers.”

“And how does that work?”

Shann was stumped. “I don’t know... it just does.”

Keris looked at her, dubiously. Rael concluded his etchings by stabbing the page with his marker. “Point four three of a ryn per dahn. I had to make certain estimates—height of the cliff, drag coefficient, and so on. Keris’s impact speed would be slightly more, owing to the fact that she is heavier. Wind will also be a factor—it’s gusting quite heavily. Allow, say, twenty-one-hundredths’ standard deviation. I calculate you should both be able to traverse the distance safely by following Shann’s plan.”

Shann grinned wolfishly. “The two of us against three drach, and with the element of surprise on our side—they won’t stand a chance.”

“Then it’s decided,” Keris said. “Ideally I would have preferred to conduct a night assault, but we can’t afford to lose another half a day. I suggest we employ the
wedge
—wait until there are two of them on deck, just to even the odds a little. Then once we have dealt with those two, we will tackle the third.”

The reference to shassatan strategy was lost on Shann, but she understood the concept well enough. Keris, as ever, was a product of her Keltar training. However, that training had served them well in their struggle against the Prophet, so it was hard to feel resentful.

“Just one thing,” Shann added. “Whatever you do, don’t extend upper and lower lodestone together without the bronze layer between them. Doing so can lead to... unfortunate consequences.”

“Unfortunate, how?” Rael replied, intrigued.

She turned and cocked her head, looking thoughtfully at him. “Well, let’s just say that when I attempted that particular configuration with the boost control full on, it nearly tore the cloak mechanism apart in mid-air. I still have a bone to pick with you over that, by the way.”

The boy’s eyes widened as if she had just slapped him. “How is that my fault?”

She smiled at him with a twinkle in her eye. He relaxed visibly, then twisted his mouth into an ironic smile and shook his head.

Alondo appeared to rouse himself from the bleak, melancholy place where he was residing. “What should
we
do?”

Shann’s heart clenched, but she had no idea how to help him. She tried to inject sympathy and understanding into her smile. “Why don’t you and Rael head back to the beach? If all goes well, then by the time you get there, you should see us sailing into the bay to pick you up.”

His return smile was forced but his expression was genuine. “Be careful, Shann.”

“I will.”

Keris divested herself of the papoose containing Boxx’s remains and handed it reverently to Rael, who nodded his understanding before shouldering the added burden. Then she joined Shann at the cliff face. They waited in silence. Presently, one of the tiny blue figures disappeared into the sterncastle. Two remaining. The women shared a look.
Time to put words into actions.
They rose collectively and backed off from the edge, then raised a hand to their neck controls, sprinted towards the cliff, and launched together into the void.

<><><><><>

Chapter 23

With her carmine cloak spread out behind her and wind buffeting her from every angle, Keris simultaneously extended the lower lodestone and bronze layers of her flying cloak and slammed open the boost control as far as it would go. The reassuring kick in her shoulder harness told her that her rate of descent had slowed. She was tempted to twist around in mid-air to see how Shann was faring, but even if the girl were in trouble, there would be little she could do for her. The best way she could help Shann—the best way she could help everyone—would be to make the drop successfully herself.