All The Turns of Light (34 page)

The Sea exploded into mountains of rising foam. There was a sound, too loud to be thunder. The sky lit up, and the Gaunt faltered, clawing at its face as the waters boiled and heaved around it.

Meralda exulted, and raised her hand again–but then she saw the Sea begin to change.

The waters grew thick, and began to sink. Thousands of fish erupted from the deep, flopping and wiggling, until they too grew still and began to change, melting together like hot wax.

As the Sea sank, more water rushed in, but it too thickened, flowing like syrup and sinking. More seawater roared in, and the process repeated.

Meralda watched in horror as the Sea beneath her solidified into a column of waxy mass, and the creatures within it died. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she leaned over the rail and was sick.

“What have I done?”

The circle of dying Sea expanded as she watched, reaching the Gaunt, which roared but did not fall.

“Mistress?” cried Mug.

“I’ve broken the world,” she replied. “Oh Mug. I didn’t mean to.”

Mug’s eyes all went wide. “We need to get off the ramp,” he said, as the wind howled around them. “We need to get inside.”

Meralda turned and watched the Sea die.

She raised her hand again. Unmagic swelled inside her, eager to be released–but to what end? How do I fix this?

She stared out at the subtle energies that changed even as she watched them. The water affected by her first angry release continued to shrink and harden, as did the seawater that poured in to replace the diminished volume.

She pushed her Sight down deep, watched as the binding energies that held the water together continued to change, corrupting all they came in contact with.

“Stop!” cried Meralda, holding back the magic. “Please stop!”

“Donchen, grab her,” Mug said.

Meralda felt arms wrap around her waist, and she was lifted off her feet.

The Gaunt leaped. It surged ahead, legs scissoring through the thickened Sea, finally emerging to stand upon the hardening mass of corrupt sea water and sprint toward the airship.

“Hang on!” cried Mug.

The
Intrepid’s
coils howled and arced as they were pushed well past saturation. The airship shot forward, sending Meralda sprawling, and Donchen with her.

Donchen spoke, but she did not hear. She watched as the Gaunt gathered its bony limbs and leaped, and she saw the skeletal hand reach for her, and then the airship lurched and spun and for a single awful instant she was flung out past the rail, suspended by her wrists over the Gaunt’s chalk-white face and dead black eyes.

Donchen lunged and caught her right hand. She strained and caught the rails and pulled herself back through them.

The Gaunt roared and reached forth again. Twin black-winged shapes hurtled down from the heavens and slammed into its face, ripping and tearing, roaring like gleeful thunder.

The
Intrepid
rose, listing from the Gaunt’s blow but quickly righting herself. Below, the Gaunt swatted at the dragons, which struck like snakes as they wheeled above it.

The Gaunt stood in the center of the dying Sea. The circular area of changing water slowed its increase, and finally halted.

Meralda’s last sight of the Gaunt was of its upturned black eyes boring into hers as it howled in fury. Then the airship pierced a scrap of a cloud and the Sea and the giant and the dragons were lost to sight.

“Raise the ramp,” shouted Meralda. “Hurry!”

Motors whined. The ramp began to retract, sealing off the rush of the wind as it rose.

“I see my report concerning the Gaunt is a bit late,” he said. “You’ve already met.”

Meralda could barely make out Donchen’s features through the brightness of his aura.

“It won’t stop,” she said. “Nameless and Faceless might slow it down, but they won’t be able to stop it.”

“Captain to Chief Engineer,” said the speaking tube. Meralda rose and hurried to the tube, Donchen and Mug at her sides.

“I am here,” she said into the device.

“We have a full rupture in two bags,” said the Captain. “Riggers are sealing them now, but we won’t be able to ascend any higher without new lifting gas.”

A shiver ran up Meralda’s spine. The
Intrepid’s
seawater converters would take hours to produce more lifting gas. But the Gaunt won’t wait that long.

Her mind raced. I don’t dare try unmagic after what happened to the Sea below. But I can remove the safety protocols built into the converters. Lower the converters’ efficiency a few points. Speed the process up, get us higher, faster, and hope it’s enough.

“I’ll do what I can to hasten the conversion process,” she said to the Captain. “I’ll be in the converter room.”

“Do what you have to,” he said, and the tube went silent.

The airship’s deck tilted as the airship strained to rise beyond the Gaunt’s reach. Meralda reached out to steady herself, and Donchen caught her hand.

“You did not break the world,” he said. “We’re still here.”

“For the moment.” She managed a smile. “Mug. Please have the Bellringers bring Goboy’s Glass to the converter room. There aren’t any portholes there.”

Mug sailed away. Meralda turned to Donchen. “Walk with me. Tell me of the Gaunt.”

Donchen nodded. They hurried toward the upper deck and the tiny water conversion room.

The Bellringers arrived first, and were securing the Glass to the bulkhead with straps and a towel for backing when Meralda and Donchen arrived.

The Bellringers finished making the Glass fast. Tervis grinned, and produced a bag of donuts, smiling shyly as he handed them to Meralda.

“Thank you,” she said.

It was then she saw the ugly purple bruise on Kervis’s aura, above his right eye.

Kervis turned, but Meralda touched his face. He didn’t flinch as the red glow from her eye-lights passed over him.

“I don’t have to ask,” Meralda said. Indeed, she saw it all, plain in Kervis’s thoughts–a derisive whisper about her, overheard by Kervis. Kervis’s challenge to the whisperer, a burly Alon half again the Bellringer’s size. The Alon’s glare and the words ‘Meralda the Mad.’

Kervis struck first. It had taken half a dozen crew to break up the fight.

“It’s nothing, ma’am,” said Kervis. “Just a fellow who forgot his manners is all. He won’t do that again soon, I can tell you.”

Donchen grinned at Kervis, who grinned back. “You are a stalwart lad,” said Donchen. “Next time you see this rude fellow, point him out to me. I might have a word as well.”

“Me too,” Mug said, his eyes narrowed. “What’s his name?”

“You will do no such thing, neither of you,” Meralda said. A rain of ornate hairpins fell. “I shall need coffee,” she added. “Lots of it, if you please. And my pens and paper.”

“I’ll get the coffee,” said Kervis.

“Pens and paper,” said Tervis.

They rushed out the door, boots thumping at a run.

“I will check your math,” said Donchen, propping himself in a corner. “Quietly.”

“Thank you,” Meralda said. She turned toward the gas conversion machinery and the single lit panel that controlled it.

She forced her jaw to unclench, relaxed her fists, let out a deep breath. She could barely read the dials or distinguish one indicator lamp from another, the glow of the panel’s primal energies was so bright.

“Please read the dials and lamps to me,” she said to Donchen. “My vision.”

“Of course,” replied Donchen, his quick grey eyes scanning the panel. “Input voltage 250. Maximum Thaum Current, 400. Percent heat loss, 12. Lamps are on for safe engage, restricted caution flow, and pump engage.”

“Thank you.” Meralda reached out and flipped the leftmost switch, disengaging the first set of safety spells. The lamp went dark, and the hum of the machinery increased in pitch.

She flipped the second switch as well, and the hum became a grumble.

“We’re now operating with only a two-to-one margin of safety,” she said.

“I’ll just pretend I don’t understand that,” muttered Mug.

Donchen shrugged. “We’ll be operating under the Sea and in pieces if the Gaunt One grabs our airframe,” he said.

Meralda flipped the third and final switch. The room began to vibrate, and the air took on a peculiar smell.

Meralda watched the dials as the needles slowly crept to the right. She could imagine lifting gas boiling off the seawater, rushing through the fill tubes, inflating the airship’s sagging envelope, until she was ready to soar so high the Gaunt could only watch and howl in frustration.

She picked up the speaking tube by the panel. “Engineer to bridge,” she said. “Range on the giant?”

The tube crackled and buzzed. “Two miles aft,” said the Captain. “I need altitude.”

“You’ll have it,” Meralda said. She replaced the tube.

Meralda twisted a knob. More voltage flowed through the great steel plates in the machine’s heart, and the volume of gas dispensed increased. Yes, there will be oxygen contamination, thought Meralda, but a few parts per million hardly matters now.

We have to go higher. Higher than we’ve ever gone.

“A question,” said Donchen. “Should we be alarmed at all those little red lamps flashing right now?”

“Only if the bottom row alights,” Meralda said.

“It just did,” said Donchen.

Meralda glared at the lamps, and they were extinguished.

“The Gaunt One isn’t real,” said Donchen. “And you are not the Unmaker.”

“I just un-made a considerable volume of the Great Sea,” replied Meralda. “All with the tiniest of whims. Oh, and you may have noticed the two black dragons I command. Just as in the prophecy. What a coincidence!” She turned her gaze on Donchen. “What if the Vonats are right?”

“We make our own fates, through our actions alone.”

“Which is just what I’m doing,” Meralda said. “I can’t even see your face anymore. Did you know that? You’re an upright glow to me now. And I’m the red-eyed woman they call Mad Meralda. We make quite a couple.”

“I will pull out the tongue of any man who calls you Mad Meralda,” replied Donchen, his voice hard. “Pull it out and tie it around his throat.”

“You’ll be quite busy from now on,” Meralda said. “Quite busy indeed.”

The Bellringers returned, and Meralda took her papers and began scratching out calculations while Tervis poured coffee.

“How long?” asked Donchen, when she stopped writing and pushed the pencil behind her right ear.

“At this rate, we’ll have replaced half of what we lost in two hours,” she said. “If the converter plates don’t break down first.”

“Do we have replacements?”

Meralda nodded. “We do. Five pallets of them, if I recall. Crates 56CP through 61CP. Lower hold, aft. They weigh two hundred pounds apiece.”

“Can you spare the Bellringers and I?”

“Go,” Meralda said. “Bring as many as you can carry.”

The speaking tube buzzed as Donchen and the Bellringers left. “How are we doing, Meralda?” asked the Captain.

“Two hours, and we’ll be halfway back,” she said. “The giant?”

“Still behind us,” he replied. “Mother of all storms ahead. We’re making for it. Cover is thin elsewhere. Will a rough ride affect your converters?”

“Not at all,” Meralda said.

“Good to hear,” replied the Captain. “You’ve done a fine job, Chief Engineer,” he added. “When this is all over, you’ve got a job on my crew anytime you want it, and that’s a bloody fact.”

“I might just take you up on that,” Meralda said. “Engineer out.”

The tube went quiet.

“Ignore the ignorant and uncultured comments of the crew,” Mug said. “The Captain likes you.”

Meralda didn’t answer. The rush and roar of the converters filled her hearing.

You’ll never go home,
whispered the voice in the back of her mind.
Watery graves for one and all. Mug might last a day or two, floating, until the salt water does him in.

Meralda shut the voice out. “Glass,” she said to the mirror the Bellringers hung on the bulkhead. “Show me the Gaunt, if you can.”

The Glass shimmered, not fixing on a scene until Meralda reached out and touched its frame. “I am with you,” she said. “Do not fear.”

Goboy’s Glass flashed, and the Gaunt came into view.

The dragons still raged, tearing at it, clawing when flesh was exposed, coughing fire at its face when it wasn’t. But one dragon flew clumsily, its right wing shredded, and the other bled from its neck, struggling to stay aloft.

“Mistress,” Mug said, hovering near the image. “I didn’t think it possible, but they’re losing.”

“Nameless,” Meralda said, closing her eyes. “Faceless.”

“Call them back,” Mug said. “Quick, before they’re killed.”

“I need more time,” Meralda said to the dragons. “Hold the Gaunt.”