The Magicians' Daughter, page 31
Knowing the sissit meant what he said, Hubley pointed to the engine. “Sit on the seat there and work the pedals with your feet. Th-that’s how you make it go.”
Calling back to his fellows, Locks climbed into the saddle. “Dinge, start cuttin’ us free. If that gimp Righty don’t get back in time, it’s his lookout.”
But Righty saw what Dinge was up to and, after giving the other ship a push to send it floating up and away, hurried back. Scrambling awkwardly among the girders, he reached the other ship just as it floated free. The Abyss opened up between them. He jumped but, just as he did so, a savage twitch jerked him off balance. Trying to scratch his shoulder, he missed the ship completely. For a moment his high, horrible scream hung in the air behind him, then followed him down.
Hubley covered her mouth with her hands. She’d killed Righty, as sure as if she’d stabbed him with a knife. She’d cast a spell she hadn’t thought was dangerous at all and killed him. Even though he’d wanted to eat her, that wasn’t what she’d intended at all.
Knowing Locks would do the same to her if he found out what she’d done, she looked up at her friends. They’d covered half the distance down the tower, but seemed to have given up getting any closer. Standing on a girder, Avender and Findle argued in a bubble of light. Hubley’s heart nearly stopped as the Dwarf grabbed the human and looked like he was about to throw him off the tower. Then the other man arrived and gave Avender his sword.
Findle threw Avender off the tower anyway. His lamp shining at his forehead, her old friend shot down toward the airship like a falling star.
“Look,” said Dinge. “We’re goin’ right past the Lamp. What ya think it looks li—”
All four sissit screamed. Hubley closed her eyes just in time, or she would have been blinded by the Lamp as well. A moment later there was a heavy thud and bodies falling all around her. Something heavy and fat knocked her down, but she still had enough sense to shout a warning.
“Avender! Close your eyes! Don’t let the Lamp blind you!”
Her old friend didn’t reply. Bodies thumped, interrupted by grunts and curses. Wrapping her fingers through the mesh, Hubley clung to the floor of the cockpit and hoped no one knocked her over the side. Twice she heard dying wails like Righty’s. In between, feet stepped all over her, though none of their owners took any more notice of her than they would a rug.
Quiet followed, along with one person’s heavy breathing.
“It’s all right, Hubley. You can open your eyes now. Just don’t look up.”
Peering out through her hands, she saw Avender leaning against the engine, his sword dripping. Around him the ship was awash in light. Every scuff and dent on the metal catwalk gleamed bright as day. The balloons, usually lost in the dimness beneath the deck, bulged like gigantic brown eggs, every seam plain.
“There’s only one sissit left,” he said. “The one that looks like a spider.”
Keeping her eyes down, Hubley searched the well-lit nooks and crannies on either side of the catwalk. “I don’t see him.”
“He’s in the stern. Hey you!” Cupping his hands around his mouth, Avender yelled aft. His gray hair gleamed in the lamplight.
“His name is Corns,” said Hubley.
“Corns! Listen to me! I’ve thrown your friends overboard. If you give up now, I’ll let you go when we get back to the Lamp. The ship’s stopped falling, so we’re safe. Do you hear me?”
The hidden sissit made no reply. Knowing how well Corns climbed, Hubley shaded her eyes and peered over the airship’s side.
“Go up in the bow,” Avender ordered after a few more unsuccessful attempts to coax the sissit out. “You can watch while I pedal. If you see so much as a finger come out of the stern, tell me. Meanwhile we have to get going.”
He was just working the ship up to cruising speed when the stern began to droop. Hubley found herself leaning backward on her heels to stand up straight.
“That’s funny.” Avender pumped away on the engine. “I haven’t started heading us up yet.”
Wondering what was wrong, he stopped pedaling and looked over his shoulder. Now that the chain no longer rattled beneath the deck, he and Hubley both heard a soft hiss.
His face went pale. Seeing Avender as frightened as any adult she’d ever seen terrified Hubley as well. Handing her his sword, he placed his knife between his teeth and crawled back into the narrow tunnel between the stern balloons.
The deck dipped further. The hissing increased. A breeze lifted Hubley’s hair. The ship was falling again, despite having lost the weight of two sissit. Already the deck was canted more steeply than any part of the road up Aloslocin. Hubley’s boots slipped on the blumet, making her grab the engine in alarm. Casting through her small catalog of spells, she wondered how she could help her friend.
Movement on the port side caught her eye. A hand grabbed one of the lines running over the canvas hull. A second hand, then Corns’s face came into view as the sissit crawled up onto the top of the ship like a crab on the side of a rock.
“Avender!” Hubley shouted, hoping he could hear her inside the ship. “He’s outside!”
Shivers ran along her back as the creature crept toward her. She could almost feel Corns’s spindly fingers gripping her spine instead of the airship’s cables. The angle of the deck steepened as the craft settled further onto its stern, but the sissit caught himself quickly with both feet and hands. Above him on the catwalk, Hubley looped her hand in the rigging. If this tilting kept up the airship would soon be standing on end.
Making sure he had at least three of his hands and feet holding onto something at all times, Corns scrabbled around the edge of the deck and into the cockpit. Overhead, the still-bright Lamp shone nearly straight down, forcing the sissit’s eyes into cruel slits as he climbed up toward her. Hubley pointed the sword Avender had given her at the creature’s face, but she knew she wasn’t nearly strong enough to use it. If her father had planted any other special spells in her mind, now was the time for them to spring up and be useful. Light or invisibility or itching would never do the trick.
Reaching suddenly up out of the stern, Avender grabbed Corns’s ankle and heaved himself up the nearly vertical deck. Snarling, the sissit turned and slashed at him. Avender let go and reached for his own knife. The sissit twisted away, stabbing blindly as the human crawled up the deck after him. Avender jabbed upward. The sissit scrambled out of the cockpit and onto the side of the hull, where his strong fingers and toes gave him a better grip than Avender’s boots.
The airship tilted farther. Avender just managed to get a hand around one of the engine pedals, otherwise he might have fallen over the side.
“Corns!” he cried. “Can’t you see what’s happening! We’re falling! Unless we lighten the ship, we’ll never get back!”
In answer, Corns launched himself at the human, who had no choice but to let go his hold. Soaring across the deck, the sissit missed his mark entirely as Avender fell back into the stern. Desperately the creature grabbed at the rigging, then disappeared into the darkness. Like his companions, his screams faded quickly.
“Are you all right?” Hubley’s heart spun as fast as the engine’s whirling pedals.
“I’m fine.”
Carefully Avender climbed back up the blumet deck toward her. The airship had tilted almost completely onto its stern. What had once been the back wall of the catwalk was now the floor. Hubley started to disentangle herself from the rigging in order to climb down, but Avender held up a warning hand.
“Wait.” Using his knife, he cut free a section of the rigging. “We can’t be too careful. Tie one end of this around your waist.”
It took three tries, but Hubley eventually caught the end of the cable Avender threw up at her. She had some difficulty fashioning a knot out of the thick rope but, after some cheerful coaxing, eventually got it right. Avender tied his end off on one of the catwalk’s blumet struts, then caught Hubley as she lowered herself down to the bottom of the deck. His steady arms and calm strength reassured her much more than any rope.
“What happened?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I should have known better than to leave a sissit alone in an airship. He had no idea what he was doing.”
“Did he cut the balloons?” Hubley slumped down until she was sitting on the mesh bulkhead. Above her head the Backford Lamp had dwindled to the point where she could almost look at it without blinking, but the slight wind blowing past their faces hadn’t let up at all.
“He did,” Avender answered. “He found the access hatch down to the driveshaft, then cut his way through every bag until he reached the hull. Half the stern balloons are gone.”
“Would it help if we made the ship lighter? The first time I ever rode in an airship Nolo let out some water because we were too heavy.”
“I already did that. But this ship is built for speed, not cargo, so there isn’t a lot of ballast. If I could cut off some of this blumet, that would do it, but I can’t cut blumet without tools. Grimble and Gammit once blew up an airship in midair and managed to get back to Bryddlough all the same. But I’m not Grimble or Gammit.”
“Maybe I can cast a feather spell on us.”
Avender thought for a moment. “Can you do it to the whole ship?”
Hubley shook her head. “No. It’s too big.”
“Better we stay with the ship then. Otherwise we might get lost. Even feathers fall. But it was a good idea.”
“What about your thimble?”
Avender looked briefly at his hand. “Mims told me not to use it unless I absolutely had to. She said it’d take us to Fornoch.”
The Wizard was the last person Hubley wanted to see just then. Thinking hard, she peered out over the edge of the deck. “Maybe if I go up into the bow and switch on the light, Findle will come get us in the other ship.”
“We should definitely do that,” Avender agreed. “But it might take a long time for Findle to reach us. We’re falling faster than he can fly. I don’t know about you, but I’d just as soon not waste all that time just waiting. Your mother wants to see you, you know.”
“And I want to see her.” Hubley felt a tear tickling at the edge of her eye. “But how?”
“You got us to Malmoret, didn’t you? Maybe you can cast the traveling spell again.”
“I don’t know.” Hubley looked down at one of the balloons that was still full beneath her feet. The light from the Lamp was dimmer now and she could no longer make out every dimple in the fabric. She didn’t want their escape to have to depend on her, but Avender, though he was very good at things like fighting and scouting, wasn’t the one who was a magician.
“You’ve already cast the spell once,” he went on encouragingly. “I don’t see why you can’t do it again. I think you’re far stronger than you know. Don’t you remember how you cast it the first time?”
“No.” Hubley’s lower lip edged forward. “I was asleep.”
“Then maybe you should try sleeping again. I’m tired enough myself.” Avender yawned widely. “All that fighting wore me out.”
Knowing full well that yawns were catching, Hubley clamped her jaw shut. The idea of trying to cast the travel spell again without knowing what she was doing frightened her much more than sissit. Who knew where they might end up this time. “What if I can’t do it?”
“Then we’ll just have to wait for Findle.” Settling his hands behind his head, Avender yawned again.
This time Hubley couldn’t help herself, though she was certain Avender was more concerned about their situation than he was letting on.
Together they climbed up to the forward hold. While Hubley switched on the light, Avender built a small bed on what had once been the stern bulkhead with the last blanket that had been left in the ship, then lashed their hands together once again.
Of course the moment Hubley lay down all thought of sleep disappeared. Her wind-dried dress scratched her chest and chin, and the torn canvas fluttering in the wind was much less soothing than the steady rattle of the chain. She tossed and turned, but it was no use. Despite her every effort to think of something else, she kept seeing Righty’s missed jump and hearing his fading scream.
“Avender,” she asked, turning to look at him in the pale light. “Why’d you never get married?”
“Hmm?” He yawned again, sleepier than she. “I don’t know. Not as lucky as your mom and dad, I guess.”
“Did you ever love someone?”
“Of course. I love you.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Snuggling closer, Hubley settled under Avender’s arm. “I mean did you ever love anyone like my mother and father love each other?”
Avender looked past Hubley, though not at anything she could see.
“I did,” he said.
“Didn’t they love you too?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you get married?”
“Sometimes you can’t get married. Sometimes it’s too complicated.”
“Who was it?”
“Hmm?” Blinking, Avender looked back at Hubley. “Who was who?”
“The person you loved.”
He put a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret.”
“You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t. Maybe I will, someday. But not now. Now it’s time to go to sleep.”
He brushed her tangled hair back behind her ears.
“All right,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “But you have to sing me a song.”
Avender thought quietly for a moment before beginning.
“Hush little baby, don’t you cry,
Mamma’s gonna sing you a lullaby.
And if that lullaby don’t suit,
Mamma’s gonna give you a golden lute.
And if that golden lute don’t play,
She’ll kiss you awake at the break of day.”
“I like that one,” Hubley said, her eyes still closed. “I never heard it before.”
“It’s from very far away.”
“Where?”
“A place I went.”
“When?”
“When I was buried in your father’s cave. That’s what he did, you know, after he cut off my hand.”
Hubley wouldn’t have believed him if she hadn’t been to the mussel cave herself. If her father could do something as awful as that, he could do anything.
“But how could you visit somewhere else if you’re buried?”
“I don’t know, but I did. Maybe I was just dreaming.”
“Can you tell me where you went?”
“Someday. But not now.”
“Then you have to sing the song again. Please.”
They were both asleep when he finished.
SPIT
And then one day it came to pass
That even his bard, the stupid ass,
Refused to sing for the prince, alas,
Because of the lives they’d led.
- Mindrell the Bard
Chapter 21
The Queen’s Bedchamber
Determined to find Hubley before Reiffen did, Ferris hurried downstairs the moment he left her workroom. She didn’t think she could last another day without holding her daughter in her arms, even if Fornoch was the one who had taken her.
She had spent years searching for a way to rescue Hubley, even after she guessed why Avender had disappeared. Only when Plum also died helping her had she stopped. After that she had allowed no one else to take the risk, though there were many who thought rescuing the magicians’ daughter a gallant quest. Instead she had permitted herself only dream visits, and even those had grown less frequent once she realized Reiffen was stealing Hubley’s memories of her each morning when the child woke. It was just too painful to relive over and over her daughter’s joy at seeing her mother for the first time in months, when the last visit had been the night before.
Arriving in the mirror room, she decided Ham was the magician most likely to get her closest to her child. Of all her former apprentices, or her apprentices’ apprentices, Ham was the only one who had much to do with the Great Forest. Sweeping her hand across his mirror, she called into it several times. Receiving no response, she went on to the next most likely candidate. There was, of course, the possibility Ham had been turned by Fornoch since the last time she had seen him. The Gray Wizard visited every magician from time to time, but Ahne’s example, and that of a few others Ferris and Redburr had caught taking advantage of their position, was usually enough for any of them to summon her immediately whenever the Wizard dropped by.
One by one, she made the calls. Those she spoke with agreed to come to Tower Dale at once, but none of them had ever been any closer to the place Hubley had been taken than Ferris herself. Those she didn’t reach on the first try called her back as soon as they heard she wanted to speak with them. Only Ham was enough of a hermit to have no one ready to take a message when he couldn’t answer himself.
“Is this about what’s happening at the palace?” asked Trier when she returned Ferris’s call.
“I don’t think so,” said Ferris. “What’s happening at the palace?”
“Reiffen has been here, or at least we think it was Reiffen. He was chasing someone, but we are not sure who that was either.”
Ferris stiffened at the idea that Reiffen had gone to Malmoret after Tower Dale. Had he been telling her the truth, or was he trying to distract her from his real purpose? Perhaps he had found something in the New Palace that would help him get to Hubley first.
“I’m asking the other magicians to join me here,” she said, “in case we have to fight the Wizard. But maybe you should stay in Malmoret. Let me know what Reiffen’s up to as soon as you learn anything more.”
“Prince Merannon and Findle have already gone after him. I shall let you know what they learn the moment they return.”
