Chapter 36 Transecting the Dreadwall #2
“I shall leave it to you, then,” said Thanavar. “You have four bells to implement a solution. Mr. Broom, we will need guns a-ready, but that will be difficult, because they will be out of position.”
“They’re out of position now, sir,” said Broom.
“And they will need to be moved once more and sharp on my mark,” he said. “I fear you may lose another man or two in this regard. Once I brief you on what is needed, I will let you see to the precautions.”
Broom frowned, but Thanavar moved on.
“How is your leg, Mr. Buck?”
“Not bad, for not there.”
“Excellent. I will need the strength of you and your men at both the capstan and the line. Mr. Oakum and Mr. Kobe will need to fashion an entirely new type of sail. Our survival will depend on it.”
Smoke raised his brows.
“Design and implement an entirely new type of sail that will ensure our survival without a chance of testing, in a matter of hours.”
“Yes,” said the captain.
“Well, I’m always up for a mortal challenge. What say you, Ben? Between figuring out how to bring the ship to sea level and then doing it.”
Ben rubbed his forehead as if trying to put his own face back to level.
“Currently, the Court of Sand is pressed hard maintaining the illusion of level,” said Thanavar, “and they will be pressed harder with a Kinestorum until we hit the sea. Indeed, we may lose an ironmage or two in this endeavor.”
Finally, his eyes fell on me, and he released a long-held breath.
“And we will have to do this without Ensign Renn’s chimeric.”
I pushed up my sleeves.
Some scars flickered, but most were quiet. Just faded outlines of patterns and rune.
“I’m used up, and it’s getting hard to breathe.”
“Well, that’s a pox-smacked pickle,” said Smoke.
“The Touchstone is, herself, magik,” said Dev. “Blue’s chimeric was helpful, but the ship has stores of her own.”
Thanavar glanced at me.
“Nothing in the chests, sir,” I said. “Sailing the Dreadwall has taken it all.”
“There still be cannonballs,” said Broom. “Might they help?”
“A sound thought, Mr. Broom,” said the captain. “Make it happen.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I would willingly give it all for her now. She deserves it.”
He tried to smile at me. I tried to smile back. It was a brief moment, a fleeting moment, but for now, it was enough.
He turned to Broom and Dev.
“Regarding the Marelethan. Without the rogue chimeric, you will need to rely on more conventional methods and traditional magik to take her. Even with a skeleton crew, she is formidable, but it’s all moot unless we survive the Dreadwall.”
And that was a sobering fact.
“Thank you, gentlemen. You are dismissed.”
“In other words,” said Smoke, “get to work, ye lice-crowned, lily-winkled swabs.”
I rose to my feet.
“A moment, Ensign?”
Dev’s gaze darted between us.
“See you on deck, Mr. Fahr,” Thanavar said.
Brow dark, Dev slid the door behind him, and we were alone. Alone together.
The captain moved to stare out the mullioned windows and clasped his hands behind his back. He was almost a silhouette in the Dreadwall’s furious light.
“It was strange to see the Cloudgate once again,” he said. “It is not the place I remember. The Heart of the Cloud is a miner’s pit. My people are killing it with the ice and the cold. The beaches of sand are as hard as stone, and the air is stale and cross. No, it is not the same place at all.”
Suns, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see it after all this time.
He paused, released a long breath.
“But perhaps, after ten years a-sea, I am not the same man.”
My body still ached from the chimeric and the mast. I couldn’t move and couldn’t feel.
“I have been lost for all these years, searching for a way forward, desperate for a way out, and when you came aboard, I thought I knew. You were a gift from Moons, from our Mother the Sea, the key to Lindurithain, a weapon of war. I thought I had been given that weapon to wield for my patterns, but more than this, I was delirious at the thought that I myself had been given yet another chance to save her. We would bring her back to the Cloudgate and restore her timbers to health. With your power, we would wrap the island in Dreadwall so that it would never be breached again, and she would guard the Cloudgate in safety for the rest of her days.”
The roar of the Dread. The thunder of the wall.
“But you are not mine to wield, nor are you hers,” he said finally. “You are your own.”
My heart had stopped beating. My breath had stalled in my chest.
“I do not know what awaits us once we leave the Dreadwall,” he said.
“The Marelethan is a threat, and we will be sorely damaged from the flight. There will still be a crew on the island that will stand in our way. We will need to navigate the books and the incants, the ironmages, and finally, the Dreadwall. But if we survive, if I survive…”
He turned.
“Somehow, someway…”
Moons. Suns. Forge fog a faun.
“I may need a kedge.”
I was numb and drained of chimeric. I’d channeled a chaser, a tree, a goddess, a ship.
I hadn’t eaten in days and could barely hear a thing he was saying.
And yet, my thoughts were not spinning, and my mind was perfectly clear.
The world had shrunk down to this one thing, but I was not afraid. Magik flowed through my very veins.
“I serve the Ship of Spells,” I said.
He turned slowly. I could see the muscles of his jaw work.
“That is not what I am asking,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
The oceans stilled. The currents held their breath. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. This time, I was the one wielding the tides.
“After we’ve reclaimed the Cloudgate and restored the Dreadwall,” I whispered, each word costing me breath. “Once you’ve chosen a course for yourself, as long as that path is life, you are free to make an offer. Until then, I’ll be your kedge and your rudder.”
Oh suns, I was wielding them.
“But after that, if you do decide that you are allowed to want, and that you want me, then you need to make the offer. And you’ll need to make it good.” My voice was weak but firm. “In fact, you’ll have to cross oceans, for I am not an easy woman to catch.”
There was the slightest twitch of his lips.
“I pray, then, I’m up for the chase.”
I smiled at him, my heart at once terrified and full to bursting.
And with that, I left the great cabin, and for the first time in days, I slept in my berth in the galley.
Before I did, I bought Neale a ration, along with Dik and Bergy, and together, we raised it to Kit. Rum and lime, bitter and sweet.
And this time, I tasted the sweet.
Three hours later, we left the Dreadwall.
Ben had indeed found a solution, between his physiks, engineering, and a fair measure of magik, and the Touchstone flew, still sideways but now almost level to the sea.
All was white spray and white foam and white waves, and we could see nothing before or behind.
I’m certain the yards dragged the oceans now and the barnacles had been scrubbed clean.
I could probably catch a fish by just reaching over the side.
It was the sound that signaled it first. The roar of thousands of tons of rushing water began to change, to thin and dissipate. The spray changed next, reaching higher, biting sharper, as if there was a change of wind approaching and a war of pressure at hand.
And then it happened, just like that. One moment, we were transecting a vertical wall; the next, we were hurled out into the open air, a ship athwart over the sea. But damn if we weren’t close, and I’m sure we would have cheered had terror not stilled our tongues.
Because suddenly, everything happened at once.
“Court of Sand, Kinestorum!”
They did, their robes flying wrong ways, their feet near leaving the pup, as our descent slowed but did not stop.
“Guns, Mr. Broom!”
“Guns, aye!” And Broom pulled the horn to his lips. “Guns to starboard!”
And the gundeck thundered as all hands rushed against gravity to roll the heavy cannons to starboard. The action brought the ship’s nose up, laying her weight aft and deep.
“Drag sails, Mr. Oakum!”
“Drag sails, aye!”
A second set of sails unfurled, unlike any seen before, between the fore- and mainmast, between the mizzen and the main.
I’d seen the spars and stays earlier, built in two hours by Ben and his crew, but had no idea what they would look like once opened.
The new sails filled immediately, forming a dome between the masts, and the Touchstone caught as if taking a great, shuddering breath.
These sails gathered the wind to slow our descent. Still, the sea was coming up fast.
The ship lurched as the anchor dragged the surface, and, still sideways, our nose drew dangerously close to the waves.
“Loose anchor, Mr. Buck!” called the captain.
“Loose anchor, aye!”
And with the swift strikes of an ax, the minotaur hacked through the anchor’s cable at the cat, and the rope whipped through the hawseholes like cannon fire. The ship immediately yawed and began to roll starboard even as we fell.
“Broad sail, Mr. Oakum!”
“Broad sail, aye!”
All the sails turned, catching the wind broadside and pulling her even more starboard.
“Mr. Fahr, spin the sea!”
“Spinning, aye!”
The water was coming fast, and the surface would be as hard as stone once we hit. But waves picked up under Fahr’s casting, making the surface choppy, soft, and yielding.
Still, we hit the water hard. The Touchstone slid forward, nose deep across the waters, and the bowsprit snapped, sending spar and cable whipping backward.
I was thrown forward, then backward, and again, very glad I was tied off.
I’m sure we lost a hand or two below decks as the cannons hurtled, shattering the hull of the gundeck.
“Bring us aright, lads!” cried the captain. “Bring us aright!”
With savage force, we slid across the waters, and I felt my belly press up into my ribs.
If there had been anything in my stomach, it would have been gone along with my breath.
Here on the main, the sea broke the bulwarks and flooded the deck as the Touchstone heaved deep and low and port.
But still, with the sails and the guns, the spinning and thrum, the keel began to roll, and slowly, the masts turned to the skies.
I held my breath, counting as she stayed low, praying she wouldn’t go under, capsize, or break.
But she heaved, then sighed, then settled on the water like a gull.
There was silence on deck for a long moment before the ship erupted in cheers.
It was magik, pure and simple, like nothing we had ever seen or experienced before. Magik and seamanship.
That was the Ship of Spells.
I peered over the bulwark.
It was an island with a volcanic peak that swept upward, disappearing into thick, roiling cinnamon clouds.
I could see the gleam of iridescent waters falling from that mountain and purple palms glittering with frost. Three large bergs floated in the island’s tides, and in the distance, the Dreadwall rose as she had for a thousand years, unaware and unmindful of what we had just accomplished.
At anchor in a wintery bay was the Marelethan.
And next to her, the Endorathil.