The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (25 page)

“Of course we are, you lack wit,” Grace scoffed to herself. “Why else would we be gathered in front of it?”

“I call it an air ship; this particular one has been named Siren’s Song,” Davis’ voice echoed into the din, each wyrded word carrying well over the crowd. “The reason for this name becomes obvious when one realizes that it runs off nothing more than currents of air, harnessed by wyrd to travel where only birds have gone before!”

“But how does it work?” Grace shouted over the rest of the people.

“I am getting to that, my patient lady.” Davis smiled his winning smile at Grace, and like always she felt the flutter in her chest, though she would never concede that. “One would think it would take a lot of wyrd, and rest assured it does, though by combining air wyrd with liquid crystal, one of the greatest catalysts for wyrd, you will find it doesn’t take as much as previously thought.”

He held up a crystal canister as big as his forearm. Within the canister could be seen swirling light, opalescent and yellow like sunlight in the dead of night. “It took me many years to figure out the exact combination of air wyrd and crystal that would work, and it was by sheer luck that I tried liquid crystal it was then that I realized the air in the liquid crystal canister created a type of air that is lighter than normal air. It was this gas,” Davis continued holding the canister higher, “that once filled into the large balloon hooked to the ship made flight possible.”

Grace rolled her eyes and leaned closer to Jovian. “This is where he will pat his back about his discovery and make it sound all so simple really.”

And he did. For the next hour or so he talked about his life up to the discovery, how he came up with the idea, and the extensive training he had in air wyrd. Finally he came back to the canister he had been holding for the whole time. Jovian wondered if the speech was rehearsed, for it didn’t seem to flow in any form that made much cohesive sense.

“… So you insert this canister into its proper receptacle and voila—air ship! It is simple really. This canister is designed to influence the air around it so that minimal wyrd is needed from the sorcerer on board, but rest assured a wyrder that is adept at air will be needed to make such flight possible, for now.” He ended with a flourish, making Maeven and Jovian smile at Grace’s prediction.

“But why would a sorcerer be needed on board if the canister does all the work?” a reporter with the
Fairview Gazette
asked.

“I didn’t say that the canister does all the work, my lady,” Davis said with a winning smile. “A sorcerer would be the only person that would be able to repair the wyrd within the canister if something were to happen during flight, plus we need to have some way of steering the air ship. Though it looks like a normal boat, it is not. Instead of being hauled through the ocean with wind, we need wyrd on our side to influence that wind to carry us in the direction of our choosing.”

“You said there was a balloon, but I don’t see anything,” Jovian spoke up. “All I see are sails.”

“Ah, that is only because the balloon has not yet been inflated; that will happen once the canister is in place. See, this canister will filter air through it and into the balloon, filling it with the lighter air that will make the flight possible. Before you ask, it is wyrd that keeps it tethered down when flight needs to be prolonged.

“See, the main problem we had when first taking flight was with the consistency of the air at flying height. Air is lighter the higher you go, so it makes breathing hard. After a few of the crew passed out from lack of proper breathing air, it was decided that a safe flying distance be observed. Thus we can’t fly as high as we would like at the time being, but I am sure given proper equipment it will make flying among the clouds much easier.” Before the reporter could say anything more Davis cut in. “A demonstration, if you would prefer, though at this time I am not able to take any passengers with me. The Board of Wyrding has its regulations, and they have yet to inspect my pride and joy.”

“Who isn’t going to want to see a demonstration?” Grace asked breezily of Jovian and Maeven. But her words were not heard by Jovian who was all eyes for the Air Ship. The large canvas was pulled back with a thread of wyrd directed from Davis. It looked nothing more than huge oceanic ship come to rest in the middle of Saint Ismaidry’s Festival equipped with rigging and sails (though Jovian now knew those sails were really the deflated balloon), which was strange enough as ships were not something most people in the Great Realms were accustomed to seeing, for they were not close to any oceans.

Davis slipped into a hatch on the bottom part of the ship, and once secured it was only a matter of time before the canister was in place and the ship was taking flight. The interim was filled with the crew on deck yelling commands and busying themselves with the balloon so that it would not contract a tear once the canister was installed and the canvas began filling with air. The platform that the ship sat on to ensure that it stayed erect grunted with the labors of those onboard.

Finally someone yelled “okay” and there was a whooshing sound of air as the balloon began to inflate. The effort was rewarded with gasps and applause alike from those below watching the achievement on dreams.

Grace could not help her clapping with everyone else, tears misting her eyes.

It took a lot longer than Jovian would have thought for the balloon to fill with the wyrded air. Eventually the entire balloon was filled, and with a resounding pop the last of the crevices filled with air, and the crowd stared in awe at the massive balloon that floated above the ship some three times the size of the considerable ship.

Davis then appeared on the deck and waved to them all, and with his appearance the crowd went wild once more with cheers and clapping.

“So this is it?” Dalah sighed. “It should be me in there with him, flying off into the dawn.”

“Now, now, dear,” Grace said clapping her friend encouragingly on the shoulder. “You both will live until your heads are removed; with that kind of life anything is possible.”

Dalah scowled and turned to watch the ship slowly lift off the ground with the sound of crunching gravel at first, and then once removed from the earth there was no sound at all, not even the sound of the wyrded air that had filled the balloon moments before.

And with clapping, cheers, and whistles, Dalah’s long time heartthrob went soaring off into the night, the massive balloon blotting out the light of the moon for a time. Then finally it passed far enough beyond their sights that the Siren’s Song was nothing more than memory.

“Did you see the size of that thing?” Angelica asked, fanning herself rigorously from more than just the heat of the pressing crowd.

“Yes, child, we were all here,” Grace said. Despite her own glee at the air ship, she was torn.
It shouldn’t be,
she argued with herself. Humans weren’t meant to fly, and no matter how old she got she would still think that.

“It is amazing,” Angelica gushed. “I can’t believe some of the things we have seen! I have read of some of the stuff we have come across, but others seem like tales from a book. Flying ships! Wow!” It was obvious from the way she gesticulated that Angelica was running out of words, but Jovian knew exactly what she meant. They had beheld some extraordinary wonders their time on the road, some things Jovian never thought possible, like the air ship, for instance.

As Grace had silently predicted, the conversations about the air ship did indeed last all night, intermittent with their stops at other wonders. However, they were not the only people that engaged in incessant gossip about the Siren’s Song, or Davis’ cameo. Everywhere they went someone was saying something about it, and each time Grace heard the tale it only seemed to grow taller.

“Soon they will forget that it was even an air ship at all that he left on,” Grace said, snapping her fan open in irritation as she futilely tried to cool herself. “Before long they will be saying that he took flight on a wyrm that he single-handedly called out of the Otherworld!” Dalah smiled her agreement. “It seems he managed it again, doesn’t it?” Grace directed to Dalah.

“That it does; he has a way with a crowd,” she observed.

They had missed the opening rituals of this night of the Saint Ismaidry Festival, but when people were not talking of the Siren’s Song they were chatting about the singing and the dancing that had happened.

“You really should see it sometime,” Dalah was saying to them as they pressed through the throngs of people. “The festival grounds are open all week long, but at night is when the real festivities take place. The night is started off in homage to Saint Ismaidry, normally with a song in her praise by a diva of Realm renowned, and then dancing takes place, but it is more than a dance; it is almost like a moving prayer.” Dalah shivered. “Sometimes it is almost like the Goddess herself is moving the people, or at least present among us.”

It was while listening to Dalah’s pleasant conversation that Jovian happened to look up just at the right time and saw someone he thought he knew, someone they all thought was dead. With a gasp he placed the dark façade almost immediately.

Did you see that?
Jovian asked Angelica.

See what?

I think the Tall Stranger is here,
he replied, and just then he saw the black top hat through the crowd one more time. The feeling of bugs slithering up his legs came to him like they had when they first encountered the Tall Stranger in the Ravine of Aaridnay. However, this time the feeling was different, not like it was actually happening, but as if he was remembering the way it had felt the first time he came in contact with him.

I don’t see anything,
she responded, craning her head this way and that trying to see what Jovian was looking at.

He is here, I know he is!

I believe you, Jovian, but …

Don’t you feel him?
he asked desperately.

A look of concentration came over Angelica’s face and then she sighed, shaking her head.
No.
The fan once more began to beat a weak breeze against her hot skin, but this time Jovian suspected it was more in frustration than any need to be cool.

Just keep your eyes open then,
Jovian urged.
I know that he is here!

Okay.

And though Jovian knew what he saw, the night passed without incident, and without another sight of the Tall Stranger. Whether he was mocking them or if he had merely slipped up left Jovian uncertain, but Jovian now knew that they could not relax.

Despite his apprehension at seeing what he thought was the Tall Stranger, Jovian had a good time. He shared in countless new experiences, and he explored shops housing so many nice trinkets that he wanted to buy everything he could afford. If he had been home, or if it had been a festival in Meedesville, he surely would have. Instead he settled on purchasing one thing for his father, and that was a statuette of a silver wolf howling at a moon that was not present in the work of art.

It wasn’t until they shut the door of their suite after bidding Dalah goodnight in the Reception Hall that any of them truly realized how tired they were. With a quick check on Joya, Grace yawned widely and stated that they should all get to bed. The wine Jovian had consumed at the festival was doing its job as wine normally does, and with a nod of agreement he made his way shakily to his room, but he was followed by Maeven

“Do you think the others know?” Jovian asked as he walked to his bed and began arranging his things. He could feel Maeven behind him, the presence of the other man was like a fire.

It had only happened once along the way, Jovian thought he was releasing stress, but his attraction to the man couldn’t be ignored. The things Maeven did with his body ….

“You tell me,” Maeven said standing in the doorway, one leg casually propped up against his other knee. The spirit of fun and discourse was still in his blood from the heady experience of the festival. “No,” Maeven said finally, fidgeting with the doorknob in a display of nerves that no one had ever seen in Maeven. “But why would it matter?”

“Close the door,” Jovian said finally, and as the door shut resolutely it was in perfect timing with the first boom of green fireworks into the night sky, illuminating Jovian’s room with glowing light.

Afterward, the light of the fireworks bathing their sweaty bodies in warm tones, Jovian couldn’t help thinking he could get used to this. He kissed Maeven one last time, and fell asleep wrapped in his lovers arms.