Void Spheres, page 21
Pushing past that bloom of power, he focused his attention ahead of them. There.
“We’re almost on the course,” he said aloud, adjusting the wheel slightly. The engines were offline, but lift crystals would suffice for this. They had little to push against there, the lack of aether impacting them too, but they still had enough to turn the ship.
If they hadn’t, he suspected Alloy would have fixed that long before they’d taken the ship. The mage-artificer knew his work. Cat was almost as confident in the darvar as he was in his original crew and officers—and that was high praise.
“On the line. Mostly,” he told everyone, opening his eyes. There was nothing to mark the spot in the void he’d pointed the rocket at. He considered what he could see, what he could feel—and what the instruments Brushfire and Smallwolf were constantly updating told him.
“We’re going to need the rocket,” he said. “I don’t think we can stay on the line with the crystals. Ready?”
“We are ready,” Alloy told him, the darvar seated next to another panel of instruments. There were more instruments in Void Flyer’s control room than had been on the bridge of any ship Cat had ever commanded.
Probably more than had been on every bridge combined. Ninesails were navigated by a sextant, a chart and a will. Not much more was needed.
Void Flyer was a strange ship, with many mechanisms and magics that needed to be watched to make sure everything worked properly. Cat was comfortable enough with the instruments now that he could fly the ship without Alloy, but he didn’t pretend to fully understand them yet.
There were probably a dozen var from the crew, including Smallwolf but not the other officers, that he would trust to manage the instruments of the control room around him. He’d trust Brushfire to fly the ship, so long as either Smallwolf or Alloy was present, but he knew she hadn’t mastered the strange instruments to the level she’d need.
One of the reasons he’d trust Brushfire above all others, possibly even Armand, was that he knew she knew that. And she wouldn’t even attempt flying the ship without the right support.
“Five ticks, no more,” Cat told Alloy. “Burn.”
The ship trembled underneath him as the rockets flared. Irreplaceable fuel blazed fire into the void, and the ship’s course changed.
“Now we’re on the line,” he concluded with satisfaction. “About five leagues out.”
“No change to their course or standings, Captain,” Smallwolf told him. “She’s coming right at the strait.”
“She’s not bound to this sphere any more than we are,” Cat conceded with a sigh. “Or she may still be and they’re just hoping to bluff us. It’s not like they can hit us from here.”
If they’d been even half the distance from the wraith ship, he might have hesitated to be so certain about that. No storm stave he’d known could hit ships thousands of leagues distant—but the ship chasing them wasn’t bound by the rules he’d known.
“And when we’re in the Warden of Stone?” Brushfire asked. “Do we have the fuel to outrun her, Cat?”
He barely looked at Alloy before shaking his head.
“If we went up to six leagues a minute in the Warden of Stone and then again in Stormfall, we’d stay a day ahead of them… and enter the Clan Spheres without a drop of fuel aboard. We cannot leave the void spheres in a ship than cannot maneuver, cannot fly.”
Void Flyer was unlikely to get them far past Drinkstar, the first Clan Sphere, but Cat admitted he should probably stop worrying about what they would encounter past the void.
But to outrun the wraith ship wouldn’t leave them without enough fuel to get out of the void.
“We need fuel left to maneuver around the next threat,” he told his officers. “But passing through the strait means they will be blind to what happens in the Warden of Stone. And they are a day behind us.”
The control room was silent as he met Brushfire’s gaze. He knew she could see through him by now, in a way no elvar subordinate would have dared to learn. Still, he met her eyes and projected confidence.
“We, after all, have a force that no other ship would carry,” he reminded them. “Let the wraiths come. They have an ancient ship of the damned.
“We have an archmage.”
They broke free of the strait into the Warden of Stone, and Cat let his senses reach out as his people took a more-conventional view around the sphere. He could feel the strait behind him. He could feel a vague thrumming sense of hunger coming from the crystal at the heart of the sphere.
Nothing else. Like the last two spheres they’d passed through, there was no aether there. Only the void. He opened his eyes and looked with more ordinary senses.
“What do the charts say about this place?” he asked.
“Four inhabited worlds, none more than two thousand leagues across,” Smallwolf said instantly. “I’ve taken a look at two of them so far. Not much to see at this range, but I’d say they’re just as dead as the Warden of Fire or IronHome.”
“And no strange divinations saying we should do anything other than run for Stormfall, right?” Cat asked wryly. He addressed that question to Brushfire, but all three of his junior mages shook their heads.
“Just the usual frustrating vagueness,” Smallwolf told him. “I’ve never had particularly clear divinations. Except in IronHome.”
“And that, Officer Smallwolf, is the same experience as almost every officer and mage I have ever known,” Cat reassured her. “The High Court Navy seeks out seers specifically, and they are given leeway few other var are given in the High Court Navy.”
The prophecy that had led him to him retreating from the dragon attack had been given to him on top of the mainmast of his ship. Seers in the Navy were a very special breed—and Cat’s experience with the type outside the Navy suggested that the Navy’s seers were, if anything, saner than most of their kind.
Any mage could do some divination. It took a strange mind to truly predict the future. The prophecy Armand was seeking to prevent had been the result of what Cat was told was a dangerous and powerful tool concealed somewhere in the Shining Eye Sphere.
The exact location and nature of that tool was one of the few secrets his archmage had kept from him, which reminded him of the warning Armand had given him about the meld nexus that seemed their best chance against the wraith ship.
Cat knew he did have secrets he shouldn’t tell a halvar archmage. Stories and places and treasures of the House of Forests or even of the Greentrees family, things he’d sworn to keep secret even from the Navy or potential future spouses.
But those were hardly secrets he was sworn to keep with his life—and he would question his own honor and integrity if he chose minor secrets of his House over the lives of his crew.
“Bring us about,” he ordered aloud. “Alloy, we’ll want to shed all of our speed and head back to put ourselves above the exit from the passage.”
“Sir, we have no weapons,” Smallwolf said quietly, her voice stiff.
“We have an archmage,” he repeated. “And we have me. Lord Bluestaves and I have a plan, Bogsong. Have faith.”
He was surprised by how much that seemed to reassure her. Smallwolf gave him a small nod, turning her attention back to her sextant as Cat began to maneuver the ship.
“Cat.” Brushfire’s voice was very quiet, and he realized she’d left her sextant behind to practically whisper in his ear. “I have faith in both of you. But against this enemy, I am wondering if we need a backup plan.”
“What did you have in mind?” Cat replied, his own voice pitched to match hers so no one else could hear. “I’m already planning on getting a lot closer than I want.”
“I think most of the mages can generate enough of a bubble to step outside the hull without the void suits,” she told him.
“Which will consume all of a mage’s focus and power,” he pointed out. He’d considered the option. “Just to be able to breathe on their own.”
“Yes. But if that mage was trained to use a storm stave…”
Cat was about to point out that none of them were actually trained in that, then trailed off as he remembered that wasn’t actually correct.
“That’s one voids-cursed risk for him to take on,” Cat murmured. “With help from the others, we might be able to mount two, even three storm staves on the hull, but he’s the only one who can discharge them—and without aether to draw on, they won’t have a second shot.”
“I’ll ask him, but to protect this crew? We know Fistfall will do it,” Brushfire told him. “Any of us would.”
Chapter
Thirty-Three
“You needed to see me, eldest sister?”
Brushfire gave Fistfall a long-suffering look and the big gobvar chuckled. The focus at his side and all that it represented seemed to be bringing out a new side of her brother. It was still a hesitant and fledgling thing, but she could begin to see the mage and leader he would become.
She wasn’t sure if he saw it yet, but he was more ready to tease her than he had once been. And that, she figured, was a good sign.
“Grab a seat, Fistfall,” she told him. The “office” of her quarters was also the sitting area—but even as first officer on Star, she hadn’t had two rooms to her own name. An entire deck, thirty yards across, had been put aside for the ship’s leadership, and Brushfire figured that was probably excessive.
She didn’t want to get used to it, anyway. There was no real plan for how they were getting around the Clan Spheres, but she doubted it was going to be aboard Void Flyer—if only because of the very problem she needed Fistfall to help fix.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she reminded him. Flyer was now in the position Cat had wanted, ready to ambush the much larger and much more dangerous ship pursuing them—but that had taken a sixth of a clock-day to manage.
“The Captain has a plan for when the twentysail arrives, right?” Fistfall asked. “You need me to do something.”
He didn’t ask more and he didn’t say he was volunteering. He knew she understood what he meant.
“You’ve been learning magic since we left Flame’s Gem,” Brushfire said. “I know you haven’t learned enough to stand against a fully trained mage or anything like that yet, but with that personal focus, you have the power and the potential to do so.”
“So you and the others tell me,” he agreed cautiously. “Mostly feel like a child playing with my first-uncle’s tools again.” He smiled. “But then, borrowing Windheart’s tools was how I started learning carpentry.”
“I don’t think Windheart called it borrowing,” she reminded him with a smile. “But I agree with you. You’re still learning, and play is a good way to learn. We’ve got time and distance to get you to where the archmage wants you.
“But today, I need you to be a mage,” she told him, her smile fading. “I believe Streamwater taught you the air-bubble spell?”
“She did,” Fistfall confirmed. “Just in case I was the only one close enough to save one of the non-aethervar on the crew. Or anyone on the crew while we’re in the void!”
“It’s a useful spell, a critical tool,” she said. “Being in the void, all of the mages aboard need to know it, and Streamwater made sure everyone was refreshed on it. Now… Now it may be the key to surviving the next clock-day.”
She rubbed her horns, her fingers touching the inlay marking her old training as a shaman. The plan had been for her to teach Cat and possibly even Armand some of the more subtle and physically focused magic she’d learned as a shaman, but they’d never really had the time.
It had always felt more important to train her as a mage, to use that larger and more external magic. Brushfire had drawn on her shaman training to endure when she summoned too much magic, though, and suspected that was part of what allowed her to keep going when even Cat felt the strain.
“We have storm staves on the storage decks,” she reminded Fistfall. “But no one who can get out on the hull has a clue how to use them. Except that even though Hunter hasn’t told any of the officers, I am absolutely certain he trained a number of the gobvar crew on the staves.”
Fistfall stiffened, staring past her.
“He did,” her brother admitted levelly. “He told us that he didn’t much care for laws, so long as it helped protect his crew and his Captain. But he worried that was a step too far for Cat… and by the time I think he realized better, we’d left Star behind.
“But no one can go out into the void…”
“Except the mages,” Brushfire finished as he trailed off. “Because that bubble will allow you to talk into the void and breathe for a while. It takes enough power that you can’t use any other magic—and, to be clear, I’m not sure Armand could use any other magic; that’s not a slight on you, brother.”
“And I have some idea of what to do with a storm stave,” Fistfall said. “I… I’m not very good with them, sister. I can aim and discharge, but I’m not a great shot, and I don’t know much of the subtleties of recharging one.”
“The good news, I suppose, is that they can’t recharge in the void spheres,” she told him grimly. “Hunter is checking the staves as we speak. I’m hoping that out of a dozen, we’ll have half that still have enough power to be released.
“I and Smallwolf will help you move as many as we can fit onto the hull outside,” she continued. The thought of walking out into the void, with only her magic allowing her to breathe, was terrifying. But to protect the crew, she would do it.
“But I’ll need to be in the control room when they arrive. I need you to remain on the hull and aim the staves. No one else who can be out there knows how to use them properly. The Captain has a plan… but if it fails, it may all come down on you.”
Fistfall swallowed visibly, her little brother and biggest member of her tribe clearly recognizing the weight of what she was asking… but all he did was nod.
“When do we get started?”
Brushfire had absolutely, unquestionably, utterly underestimated how terrifying stepping out into the void shielded only by a frail bubble of air would be. She focused on the arcane weapon she was holding one side of and tried to breathe normally.
“Door’s open,” Fistfall noted. “Forward?”
“Forward,” she agreed. There might not be void suits to fit the gobvar, but they at least had harnesses that could pull them back into the two-doored chamber that protected Void Flyer’s interior from the emptiness outside.
Maneuvering the storm stave out the side of the ship was an exercise in frustration, not helped by the fact that the pull of Flyer’s lodestone plate began to angle once they were no longer directly above it.
More ropes and hooks came into play, and Brushfire wished she could pull magic in to help her footing. It was taking a ridiculous amount of focus to keep the air intact around her and move, though. Adding more magic would be too much.
Thankfully, Fistfall’s air bubble was merging with hers. From some of the dire warnings they’d received, they might not be able to talk to each other if the bubbles separated.
The void was not the aether. Both of them had climbed masts in the aether, with only ropes and a too-distant lodestone keel to keep them in place. In the aether, though, a gobvar could breathe. If they drifted away or lost concentration on their magic, Brushfire wasn’t sure how long either of them would survive in the void.
She wasn’t planning on finding out.
The pair finally got the storm stave onto the outer hull and strapped with its own ropes. She finally took a moment to look “up” and away from the cylindrical rocket.
“You know, it doesn’t look any different from out here than in the control room,” she admitted. “It’s just… knowing that bubble is the only thing keeping me alive.”
“I have more faith in your magic than mine, Brushfire,” Fistfall pointed out. “But if we want to get the best use of this stave, we want it about twelve yards up there.”
He gestured.
“We can put three staves on the hull, each ten yards apart,” he continued. “I can only aim one at a time, but that gives us three shots, right?”
“It will,” she confirmed. “Maybe you should mark the spots while I keep an eye on this stave? Smallwolf and Streamwater won’t be long with the second stave.”
He nodded and set out, carefully moving from clip to clip, and leaving Brushfire very aware that the outside of the ship didn’t have nearly as many loops for clipping on to as she’d like. It took him a few minutes to make the marks where the three storm staves would go, measuring the gaps by eye and step.
Brushfire wasn’t sure how he was judging the gap he would need, but she trusted him. Hopefully, Hunter Paintrock had put in his own few silvers on that topic. She wasn’t sure she necessarily trusted the blue elvar, but she had faith in his competence.
Relying on the bubble wore on her nerves, but she also grew more used to it, more stable in sustaining the spell. She still wouldn’t have wanted to be doing any other magic, and the strange silence left her feeling utterly alone on the hull.
She’d spent her entire life in an extended-family clan of a hundred var. Alone wasn’t something she experienced much, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
It was a relief when the hatch popped open and the edges of two more bubbles of magic announced the arrival of the other pair of mages with the second storm stave. Fistfall was working his way back, and the bubbles of air merged to allow the four of them to talk.
“Okay,” her little brother said, a new confidence in his voice. “I’ve got marks on where we want the three staves. Ten yards apart should give them enough clearance to fire—but we need to mount them solidly to get the amount of flex I’ll need for proper aiming.”
“If we get this wrong, we might as well not go through the effort,” Brushfire pointed out to the two elvar. “So, let’s do them one at a time and see what we think of the first one, shall we?”
And then, much as she loved and trusted her brother, she was going to hope that Armand’s plan worked. Because she certainly didn’t think three staves, laid in by hand and operated by a single var, were going to win against a ship with over a hundred of the same weapon…
