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  “Do you know what she is doing with the magic?” Rodrigo asked.

  Miri shrugged. “I assumed she repairs broken constructs. I couldn’t see that she was doing any harm. Like I said, I’m no crafter.”

  The mists of the Breath were gray, shifting and whirling around them. The damp clung to their clothes, made them feel cold and clammy.

  Rodrigo wiped his face.

  “She was not doing any harm,” said Rodrigo. “Far from it. These magical constructs are meant for protection. Over and over, she laid down constructs designed to protect this boat and those in it. From stem to stern and back and again, the Cloud Hopper is festooned with webs of magical protection constructs.”

  Miri’s eyes shimmered with tears. Her lips trembled. “My poor sister.”

  “But protection magic is good, isn’t it?” Stephano argued.

  “Yes and no,” said Rodrigo. “Yes, because the protection magic is what kept the propeller from being shot to bits. No, because there are so many layers of spells I can’t figure out how to unravel them in order to repair the damage. Our situation is this: we have no way to operate the sails or the rudder or energize the gas that keeps the balloons inflated and the lift tanks working. Soon the gas will start to cool and lose its magical energy. The balloon will deflate and the lift tanks will fail and we will sink into the Breath. The mists of the Breath grow thicker as one descends, the temperature drops. It is theorized that eventually the Breath at the lowest altitudes turns to a liquid form, which means we will all drown. Though by that time it won’t matter, since we will have already frozen to death.”

  Stephano regarded his friend grimly. “There must be some way you can get this boat up and running!”

  “I might be able to repair the constructs enough to get us as far as Westfirth, but only if Gythe helps me,” said Rodrigo. “A lot of these sigils are new to me and, trust me, I know my sigils. This is Trundler magic”-he glanced apprehensively at Miri-“no offense, Miri.”

  She shook her head, too alarmed at the terrible prospect they were facing to angry.

  “We have always kept our magic a secret,” she said.

  Stephano glanced over at Gythe. “This goes back to what happened to her, doesn’t it? The reason she won’t speak. Miri, you need to tell us what happened. Maybe we could help her. I know you don’t like to talk about it-”

  “I vowed I would never talk of it,” said Miri fiercely. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, staring stubbornly down at the deck. “My uncle made me take an oath. He said if we talked about it, it would only make things worse for us. People call us thieves and swindlers. If they knew that something out there in the Breath was killing our kind, they’d say the horror came because of us and they’d set fire to our boats and drive us out…”

  Miri began to cry. She tried to stop, but she couldn’t help it. Stephano put his arm around her and drew her close.

  “We won’t tell anyone, Miri,” he said. “We’ll keep your secret. We’ll take any oath you ask of us.”

  She smiled bleakly and hurriedly dashed away the tears. Dag fished out his handkerchief and handed it to her. His big, ugly face was soft with concern. She blew her nose and cast Dag a grateful glance and, slightly flushing, squirmed out of Stephano’s grasp.

  “Swear by our friendship,” she said. “That will be good enough for me.”

  Each of them made the promise. Miri gazed around at them and swallowed. “There’s not much to tell. My sister and I were away visiting my uncle and his family. He has children our age and all of us cousins grew up together. We lived as much on his boat as we did on ours. When it was time to join up with our parents’ houseboat, we knew immediately something was wrong.

  “Our boat wasn’t at the meeting place. We waited, but our parents never came. My uncle, thinking there might be a problem with the boat, sailed out to search for it. We came across our boat not far off, adrift in the Breath, like we are now.

  “Our father and mother should have both been on deck, working to fix whatever was wrong. But they weren’t. There was no one. The deck was empty…”

  She was shivering. It was cold out here on deck, with the mists of the Breath closing in. Dag draped a coat about her shoulders, and she drew it around her. The coat was huge on her and the shoulder yellow with cat fur. She nestled into it and found the courage to finish her tale.

  “My uncle guessed that something terrible had happened, and he tried to stop us from going aboard. But we were kids and didn’t know anything. The world was all sunshine to us then. Before he could catch her, Gythe had jumped from his boat onto ours. She was light as a bird and seemed to almost float through the air. She landed on the deck and shouting, “Mam” and “Pap,” she ran down into the hold.”

  Miri paused, then said in a low voice, “I will hear her scream until the day I die. She only screamed once and then she never spoke a word after. My uncle tried to make me stay on board his ship, but I would have fought a bigger man than him to reach Gythe, and at last he let me go with him.

  “Our snug cabin, where we all had lived so happily, was awash in blood. The blood was so deep it sloshed back and forth with the movement of the boat. Gythe was standing in it, staring. Just staring. We never found the bodies. Not whole bodies. Only… pieces…”

  “I guess we know the reason for the protection spells,” said Rodrigo somberly.

  Dag awkwardly patted Miri’s shoulder. She gave him a wan smile of thanks. “Pirates,” he said.

  Stephano shook his head. “Why would pirates attack a Trundler houseboat? It’s not like they’re stuffed with gold…”

  “It wasn’t pirates,” said Miri. “I told you before. It was something terrible that came out of the Breath. There were marks on the walls-like giant claws. The bodies had been ripped apart. And the magic was gone.”

  “What do you mean, the magic was gone?” Rodrigo asked.

  “The magic on the boat. It was just gone,” said Miri.

  Rodrigo shook his head. “But that’s not-”

  Stephano elbowed him in the ribs. “Let it go.”

  Her story had unnerved them. They looked into the thick mists and then back at Gythe, shivering under the table. They thought about the protection constructs she had laid down, layer upon layer upon layer.

  “You swore you wouldn’t tell,” Miri reminded them.

  “I won’t,” Stephano said. “But someone should. The navy could help

  …”

  Miri snorted her disbelief. “Help Trundlers?”

  “There have been rumors,” said Dag. “I’ve heard them. The sailors talk about ghosts in the Breath.”

  “We now know why Gythe worked her magic,” said Rodrigo. “She can’t help me while she is still under the table.”

  “I think Dag should talk to her,” said Miri.

  “Me?” Dag looked astonished.

  “Gythe loves you. She trusts you,” said Miri simply.

  Dag’s face went red. He shook his head, embarrassed, and mumbled, “Don’t leave it up to me.”

  “We’re starting to sink,” Rodrigo warned, looking up at the balloon. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Dag,” said Stephano. “Miri’s right.”

  “But what do I say?” Dag asked helplessly.

  “Whatever is in that big heart of yours,” said Miri softly.

  Dag’s face went redder than ever. He stood for a moment, looking uncomfortably at Gythe. Her head was buried in Doctor Ellington’s fur. She was shivering with fear. Dag’s expression softened. He managed, with considerable effort, to sit down awkwardly on the deck and, by means of scooting and scrunching, squeezed his way beneath the table.

  The Breath dampened sound. All was eerily silent.

  “Girl dear, I want you to look at me.”

  Gythe very slightly raised her head to peep at him over the Doctor. Her fair hair straggled wetly around her face.

  “I was born ugly,” Dag said cheerfully. “Came by it naturally. Nei
ther my pa nor ma were anything to look at. But God made up for my ugly face by making me big and strong. I’ve been shot at by every conceivable type of gun. I’ve had cannonballs thrown at me. I’ve been stabbed with swords and cut with knives and struck with fists. I’ve even been attacked by our captain and his dragon.” Dag glanced at Stephano, who smiled at the memory of their first encounter.

  “And I’m still here, Girl dear,” Dag said simply. “Nothing’s been found that can kill me yet.”

  He rested his hand on her hand and said quietly, “Anything out there that wants to do you harm will have to go through me first. You know that, don’t you?”

  Gythe nodded and lifted her head to smile at him. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Miri, turning away, wiped her eyes. Stephano looked at her. He looked at Dag, and something seemed to strike him.

  “Miri loves him! I’ll be damned,” he said to himself, and he didn’t know if he liked that or not.

  “It seems that Master Rigo is having trouble sorting out what you’ve done with the magic. He needs your help to fix it, or the boat won’t sail. Let me take the Doctor.” Dag reached for the cat, who was loath to leave and, with much yowling, had to be pried loose. “While you go help Master Rigo. He’s not very bright, you know.”

  Gythe smiled tremulously at that. She hesitated only a moment, then slid out from beneath the table and stood up, smoothing her skirt. She indicated with a little nod that she was ready to assist. Miri went to her sister and hugged her.

  “I am in awe of your work, Gythe.” said Rodrigo. “Truly in awe. What you’ve done is quite marvelous. But your magic is causing a bit of a problem. If you could just show me what you did, we might be able to fix it.”

  He steered Gythe to the helm. The two bent over it, Rodrigo explaining and Gythe listening with grave attention. Miri hurried over to assist Dag, who was floundering about on the deck, unable to stand up.

  “Damn leg went to sleep on me,” he grumbled.

  “Let me help,” said Miri.

  She managed to hoist Dag, grimacing, onto his feet. She stood a moment with her arm around his broad back. She smiled at him. “Thank you, Dag.”

  He blushed and lowered his eyes and mumbled something, then he hobbled off, trying to get the feeling back into his leg. Doctor Ellington flounced across the deck, tail flicking angrily. He turned up his nose at a piece of smoked fish Stephano held out as a peace-offering, and ran down the stairs into the hold, determined to punish them by depriving them of his company.

  Stephano ate the smoked fish himself. Miri was gazing after Dag with a fond, exasperated look.

  “So it’s that way with you, is it?” said Stephano.

  “What way?” she asked, startled.

  “You’re in love with Dag.”

  “I suppose I should blush, but I’m too old. Yes, I love the big lummox.” She paused, then faltered, “Do you mind?”

  “A little,” Stephano admitted.

  “You know we always said we would just be friends.”

  “I know what we said,” Stephano replied. “But saying and feeling are two different things. Face it,” he added in teasing tones, “you’d be mad if I wasn’t jealous.”

  Miri laughed. “I guess I would.” She sighed and cast a rueful glance at Dag, who was pacing the deck as though he was walking guard duty on the top of a redoubt. “Though there’s no need for you to be jealous. He won’t give me the time of day.”

  “He’s been wounded, Miri,” said Stephano quietly. “And unlike a bullet wound or a sword slash, this wound is deep in his soul. It won’t be easy to heal.”

  “Something happened to him. Tell me what,” said Miri.

  Stephano gazed out into the swirling mists. “Dag will tell you himself when he’s ready.” He turned to smile at her. “And when he does, you’ll know he loves you.”

  “And if he doesn’t…”

  Stephano shook his head. “Dag hates himself for something that happened long ago, Miri. Right now, that hatred is so big it’s squeezing out every other feeling. You have to be patient. Loving and patient.”

  “If that’s what I have to do, then I guess I’ll do it,” said Miri.

  She looked over at the helm. Gythe was making rapid gestures with one hand and jabbing her finger at the helm with the other. Rodrigo was staring at her in helpless bewilderment.

  “I guess I had better go translate,” Miri said. She started to leave, then looked back at Stephano. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” he asked.

  “For being jealous.”

  She gave him a pert smile, then went to the helm, where she was immediately confronted by Gythe and Rodrigo, both talking at once; Gythe with hands flying and Rodrigo saying plaintively, “I think I upset her…”

  Miri explained to Rodrigo what Gythe meant with her gestures and tried at the same time, to explain to Gythe that Rodrigo didn’t mean what he’d said with his mouth. The three of them began to laboriously try to untangle the overlapping strands of magic.

  They had a difficult time of it. Gythe was at first adamantly opposed to removing any of the magical constructs she’d laid down to protect the Cloud Hopper. Rodrigo tried to tell her that one of her magical constructs was so powerful she did not need twenty more on top of it.

  “In fact, the others have weakened the entire construct. Think of your first construct as a mighty river, with the water all flowing in a one direction. When you added additional constructs, you essentially siphoned off the water, sending it flowing into ditches and creeks and streams, with the result that your river is down to a trickle. If you remove all these other constructs, the magic will flow strong again.”

  Stephano listened and watched and tried to imagine what it must be like to see the glow of sigils and the lines of energy connecting them and to know you had the power to manipulate such a miraculous force. Perhaps the feeling was akin to flying through the air on the back of a dragon, with the wind in your face, knowing the freedom that comes when you leave the world and all its problems far behind.

  There were those like Hastind who claimed they felt the same striding the deck of one of the large ships of the air, but Stephano knew better. On board ship, he was one of many junior officers, all vying for the attention of the godlike captain, who rarely, if ever, deigned to listen to a lowly lieutenant. Being a ship’s captain meant you had to deal with the politics of the Royal Navy, suck up to some dunderhead of an admiral who didn’t know his starboard from his port. When you were a Dragon Knight, you only had to talk to your dragon, and Stephano had often found dragons far more sensible and intelligent than people.

  The Cloud Hopper was now starting to sink deeper into the Breath. The lift tanks were cold; the magical sparks that energized them were flickering, ready to die. The mists were so thick that now Stephano could barely make out the balloon, which was starting to deflate, as were their spirits. Stephano’s wound had begun to throb painfully, but he kept quiet, not wanting to take Miri away from her work.

  Night wrapped around the boat. Dag gave up keeping watch. He apologized to Doctor Ellington, which apology, accompanied by smoked fish, was graciously accepted. Stephano tried to light a lantern, but the wick was too damp to catch. He and Dag and the Doctor sat in the deck chairs and watched Gythe and Rodrigo and Miri work. Stephano felt helpless. All he could do was listen to the dismal flapping of the sails and feel the cold water drip off the ratlines onto his head. Every so often, flashes of magic arcing from one sigil to another flared in the night and gave them hope. But then the light would fail, Rigo would sigh and shake his head. Gythe looked like she was going to cry. Miri drooped from exhaustion.

  They had to keep working. The Cloud Hopper was sinking fast.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Most of us have no true understanding of just how little of Rosia we inhabit. We fly from city to city, over vast stretches of unexplored wilderness and rarely look down to marvel at the deep green forests, jagged shorelines, and tall snow-covered m
ountains. A few have sought to live in these places, untouched by man, so as to be closer to God.

  – Unknown priest in a letter to his family describing his pilgrimage into the wilderness

  AS THE DISABLED CLOUD HOPPER SANK SLOWLY into the Breath and her crew struggled desperately to rekindle her magic, the Retribution continued flying through the night, planning to reach the Abbey of Saint Agnes by dawn.

  After finally obtaining a good night’s sleep, Sir Ander wakened in a somber state of mind, thinking sorrowfully of the murder of a hundred innocent souls and wondering about the evil that had committed such a heinous crime. He should have been relieved to find Father Jacob in a cheerful mood, for life with the priest when he was in a good humor was far more comfortable than when Father Jacob was on a rampage. But the priest’s good mood clashed with Sir Ander’s, who found himself resenting the Father’s smile and hearty “good morning.”

  Ander dipped the shaving razor in the water basin and then held it poised, waiting for the rocking motion of the yacht to steady enough that he didn’t have to worry about cutting his own throat.

  “Whose nose did you bloody last night?”

  Father Jacob looked up, startled. Then, glancing at his split knuckles, he began to laugh-loud, booming laughter that apparently startled the wyverns, for the yacht took a sudden lurch. Sir Ander braced his leg against his foot locker.

  “You will be pleased to know that I did not take out my frustrations on some poor innocent fisherman,” said Father Jacob, slicing cold roast beef and eating it off the edge of the knife. “Quite the contrary, I was almost swept up in a press gang.”

  The yacht was relatively steady, and Sir Ander scraped at his jaw quickly.

  Father Jacob looked quite pleased with himself. “Some naval vessel must have come up short-handed. A lieutenant was rounding up the local fishermen to ‘offer’ them a life in the navy, which meant that he was sending them back to his ship in legs irons and handcuffs.”

  “Didn’t you tell him who you were?”

  “And miss out on a grand brawl?” Father Jacob grinned and ate beef with enthusiasm. “Instead of bloodying a fisherman’s nose, I bloodied the lieutenant’s and then took to my heels.”