The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (43 page)

“None of us knows how to sail a vessel,” Alondo pointed out.

“
It doesn’t matter
.” Keris was staring down at her plate once more. “The storms are impenetrable. Any ship that approaches would have its sails torn to shreds. If it strikes sail, it would have no way to push against the massive winds. At best it would be blown back to this side; at worst it would be swamped and capsize.
There is no way through
.”

Keris’ summary was like a funeral oration. Silence descended once again. Then, as if out of nowhere, the merest suggestion appeared at the back of Shann’s mind.
Something Keris had just said.
She scrabbled around in the junk room of her memories, as if desperately searching for a lost volume. Her hand closed around a book and she picked it up. There was a single word on the cover.
Push
.

“Maybe we could use lodestone?” she heard herself say. She looked around and saw that her companions were all staring at her.

“How do you mean, Shann?” Lyall asked in a kindly voice.

Shann swallowed. She was now the centre of attention. The idea was still taking shape in her mind, and she was concerned that she might sound foolish. She gathered her wits and addressed Lyall directly, as if the others were not there. “The…the training stones you showed me at the farmhouse–do you still have them?”

Lyall reached down to his belt and produced a small pouch, handing it across the table to Shann. “There you go.”

Shann hastily rearranged and stacked plates and mugs until she had a clear section of table in front of her. Then she untied the string at the neck of the pouch and peeked inside, selecting two stones; one white, one black. The black stone resisted her pull slightly. She set the white disc on the table and the black one next to it. Immediately, the two discs began to move in the direction of the white disc until both dropped off the end of the tabletop. She bent down to pick them up, and held up the white disc between her thumb and forefinger. “Say the white stone is our ship.” She held the black disc in her other hand. “We could use lodestone to push it from behind using …a barge or something.”

Keris had an expression of rapt attention. “Intriguing.” Then she added, “A pity we couldn’t actually do it.”

Shann felt instantly deflated. “Why not?”

Lyall cut in. “I’m afraid I’d have to agree with Keris. Your idea is fine in theory, Shann. Unfortunately though, a ship, even a relatively small ship, weighs
a lot
. It would take a lot of lodestone to push it–far more than we could possibly lay our hands on. If we had unlimited time and resources then maybe it would be possible, but we don’t. Still,” he beamed at her warmly, “it was a great suggestion.”

Basking in his smile of approval, she felt herself blossom once more. However, the fact remained that they were no further forward.

Boxx was still enjoying the fruit and seemed not to be paying any attention. Suddenly it raised its head. Juice was running from the corners of its mouth, lending it a comical appearance. “It Is A Boundary.”

Lyall had a bemused expression. “In a way, yes.”

“A Boundary Between Here And There.”

“Boxx is right,” Lyall declared. “Any boundary can be crossed. We just need to figure out a way.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “All right, let’s approach this from a different angle. Is there any instance of anyone ever successfully traversing the Barrier? ”

“I know of one.” It was Alondo.

“You do?”
Keris asked incredulously.

Alondo nodded, “Uh-huh. Captain Arval is said to have crossed it once.”

“
Captain Arval?”
Keris turned away dismissively. “You mean one of those ridiculous stories.”

“Stories are a part of Kelanni culture,” Alondo maintained. “They also happen to be a valuable source of inspiration for songs, so I always pay attention to them. I have found that in among the exaggerated claims, there is more often than not, a grain of truth.”

Lyall leaned forward on his stool. “Go ahead, Alondo. Tell us the story.”

Alondo glanced in Keris’ direction. “The legend says that Arval was offered a great sum of money by the Lord of Kalath-Kar to determine what lay beyond the Barrier. He travelled to the Isle of Panna. There he captured and tamed three giant perridons. He tethered them to the bow of his ship and used them to pull it through the tempests.”

Shann was intrigued. “What happened? ”

“Well this is where the account starts to get a little strange. It says they were ‘brought forth into a land of darkest dark, where the sky is bright but there are no suns.’”

“What does that mean?” Shann asked.

Alondo shook his head. “I have no idea. However, it goes on to tell of how the crew of the Calandra were terrified and on the brink of mutiny. Arval was forced to take them back across the divide. Afterwards, some of them were said to have gone mad. Others never took to sea again. ” He paused for a reaction but everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts.
Surely it could not be true. Annata would not send them to such a terrible place.

“What I found interesting, ” Alondo continued, “is that this one is quite unlike the other stories surrounding the good Captain, where he is portrayed as the all conquering hero. He came close to losing his ship and crew. ”

“It’s nothing more than a legend,” Keris reminded them.

Lyall had a faraway look. “Perhaps. But it’s given me an idea. I think there might be a way to combine Shann’s rather inventive notion of using lodestone with Arval’s fanciful tale. It’s risky, but I think we may just have found a way to cross the Great Barrier.

“How?” Alondo asked eagerly.

Lyall’s eyes sparkled. “First things first.
We are going to need a ship
. ”

~

Shann stood with her back to the wall of the shipwright’s office, watching the world go by. Opposite her, a hodgepodge of buildings large and small, boarding houses, moneylenders, traders of every description. Carts drawn by striped graylesh trundled past along the cobbled street, conveying goods from the docks and back again. As she watched, an argument broke out between a round faced, hook nosed merchant and what she took to be a customer. The round faced man seemed to be demanding money. Over on the street corner, the tall figure of an Asoli, in distinctive green jacket and feathered headgear watched over the altercation, ready to intervene. The sky was overcast and a warm drizzle had begun, spattering on the round cobblestones and trickling down the back of her neck.

Shann felt like a fifth wheel. Alondo and Boxx were back at the Calandra. Alondo had had expressed the idea that if he could discover what type of energy the machine used, they might be able to power it from this end, so Lyall suggested that he stay behind with the Chandara and work on it. He would take her and Keris into town. Then they would all meet up at the Calandra later that evening. Lyall had been rather cagey about his plan for them to cross the Barrier. All he had really said was that it would be necessary to arrange to modify a ship.

“Why am I coming along? ” Shann had asked as they headed uphill towards the commercial district.

“Well, I thought it would be more interesting for you than just sitting around at the inn,” Lyall had explained. Now he and Keris were ensconced in the shipwrights, discussing the finer points of maritime vessel construction, and she was left outside in the street. Just waiting. In the rain.

She wrapped the simple russet coloured robe tighter around her neck and felt a jingle in one of the folds. Lyall had given her half an astria. To the orphan kitchen hand in Corte, it would have been a fabulous sum of money and she would have been consumed by thoughts of how she could possibly spend it. Now though, standing here on a street in a city filled with more wonders and temptations than she had ever seen, she found that there was nothing she wanted. At least, nothing that money could buy.
You are not the same person who left Corte–
that was what Lyall had said. More and more, she was coming to realise that was true.

She was debating whether or not to enter the shipwright’s to ask how much longer they were going to be, when the door opened and Keris stepped out into the street, closely followed by Lyall.

Lyall was contrite. “Sorry it took so long, Shann. ” He looked up at the sky and the gathering rain. “We’ve agreed on the modifications that will be needed. The chief artisan was curious, but fortunately, this is a town where people don’t ask too many questions so long as you have the money to pay. Our next task is to secure a suitable ship so that he can start work. We will also need someone to sail it, plus a certain quantity of lodestone. That last one may prove a bit difficult.” He began leading the way back down to the docks. “The other thing is that the alterations will take a while–ten to twelve days, he reckons. That can’t be avoided.”

They reached the corner where the Asoli was standing watch.
A blur of movement
. A dark figure shot past them. Shann swivelled on her heel to see the back of a dark blue coat disappearing into the rain. Behind her she heard Lyall ’s shout, tinged with frustration and anger. “The money pouch–
it’s gone
.”

<><><><><>

Chapter 27

Keris was already pulling her flying cloak out of her pack. “You haven’t brought yours, have you?” It was a rebuke, rather than a question. She fastened the neck clasps. “You are the Door; I am the Dagger,” she addressed Lyall. “River and Dam. Try not to lose sight of him.” She turned and sprinted up the street.

“Remember Keris,
no violence,
” she heard Lyall call after her.
Does stomping on his head count?
She shoved one lumbering pedestrian to one side, clipping a basket with her elbow. There was an angry shout as red and yellow fruits rolled across the cobbles. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the green uniformed Asoli on the corner was headed in her direction. She was attracting too much attention. And the thief was getting away. She cursed to herself and pounded away through the rain.

Keris blipped the upper lodestone layer of her cloak as she ran, seeking any natural lodestone that might lie beneath the old city. She needed to gain height, both to evade the Asoli and to track the criminal. The only deposits she could detect seemed to be fairly weak, but she managed to leap from one and immediately push against another, sailing up through the air to land on an adjacent roof. She dashed across the eaves, drawing stares and shouts from the street below.

The thief would be working to a definite plan–he was probably not operating alone. An accomplice had no doubt been keeping watch over the shipwright’s office while they were inside. It was even possible that they had been targeted at the Calandra and followed here. She had tried to warn the others about the dangers of this place and had urged them to keep a low profile but as usual, Lyall had overruled her in his cavalier fashion. Now, once again, they were in a life-threatening situation.
This is not a game
.

Rain was falling steadily now; her boots felt slick against the smooth stone slates. She had to be careful not to lose her footing. Reaching the gable end, she hauled herself up onto the next building, then scaled the ridge. Standing on the apex, with one foot planted firmly on each slope, Keris had a bird’s eye view of the port city.

Irregular roofs jutted into the air like a row of jagged peaks. Below her, a knot of curiosity seekers were running and pointing, following her progress. The tall Asoli in his distinctive green was visible in the centre of the throng. She peered through the curtain of rain up the length of the bustling street. After a moment, she spied Lyall and Shann racing away in pursuit of the thief, unmolested. Serendipity. Her clumsiness had diverted attention from the real chase. All she had to do now was lose her spectators and then execute the strategy.

The first was childishly simple. She ducked down the opposite slope and moved rapidly along the roof, out of sight of the crowd. She followed a course roughly parallel to that of Lyall and Shann. Thanks to her rooftop survey, Keris now had a map in her head of the streets in the immediate area. There was a fork in the road, ahead of Lyall and Shann’s position. Assuming the thief did not turn and face them that left him two choices. Whichever road he took, one of them would give chase and the other would follow the remaining route. Hopefully, Lyall would have explained the strategy to Shann as they ran together. If nothing else, the girl was quick. She would get the idea.