The Ship Who Won (28 page)

sternly to Plenna.

The young woman bowed her head, clasping her belt

and sash in her hands. "I apologize for my disrespect, High

Mage," she said, contritely. Keff was shocked by her sudden descent into submissiveness.

Nokias smiled, making Keff want to ram the mage's

teeth down his skinny throat. "My child, you were rash. I

can forgive."

The golden chair angled slightly, making to set down in

the clear space between Plennas small bed and her table.

With lightning reflexes, Plennafrey grabbed Keffs hand,

jumped over the lower limb of the chair, and dashed for

her own chair. Clutching his armload of clothes and one

boot, Keff had a split second to brace himself as Plenna

launched the blue-green chariot into the gap left by Nokias

and zoomed out into one of the tunnels that led out of the

bubble.

Keff threw his legs around the edges of Plennafreys

chariot to brace himself while he shrugged into his tunic.

The strap of the IT box was clamped tightly in his teeth.

He disengaged it, dragged it out from under his shirt, and

put it around his neck where it belonged. His boot would

have to wait.

"Well done, my lady," he shouted. His voice echoed off

the walls of the small passage that wound, widened, and

narrowed about them.

"How dare they invade my sanctum!" Plennafrey fumed.

Instead of being frightened by the appearance of the other

mages, she was furious. "It goes beyond discourtesy. It

is-like invading my mind! How dare they? Oh, I feel so

stupid for teleporting in. I should never have done that."

"I'm responsible again, Plenna," Keff said contritely. He

hung on as she negotiated a sharp turn. He pulled his legs

up just in time. The edge of the chair almost nipped a

stone outcropping. Plennafreys hand settled softly on his

shoulder, and he reached up to squeeze it. "You were

saving my life."

"Oh, I do not blame you, Keff," she said. "If only I had

been thinking clearly. It is all my fault. You couldn't know

what I should have kept in mind, what I have been trained

in all my life!" Her hand tightened in his, and he let it go.

"It is just that now I don't know where we can go."

The posse was once again in pursuit. Keff heard shouting and bone-chilling scrapes as the hunters organized

themselves a single-file line and attempted to follow. This

tunnel was narrower than the ones underneath Chaumel's

castle. A fallen stalactite aimed a toothlike pike at them,

which Plenna dodged with difficulty. She scraped a few

shards of wood off the side of her vehicle on the opposite

wall. Keff curled his legs up under his chin away from the

edge and prayed he wouldn't bounce off.

"Usually I enter on foot," Plenna said apologetically. "A

chair was never meant to pass this way."

Keff was sure that Chaumel and the others were figur-ing that out now. The swearing and crashing sounds were

getting louder and more emphatic. If Plenna wasn't such a

good pilot, they'd be coming to grief on the rocks, too.

"Can't we teleport out of here?" Keff asked.

"We can't teleport out of a place," Plenna said, staring

ahead of them. "Only in. Almost there. Hold on."

Keff, gripping the legs other chair, got brief impressions

of a series of vast caverns and corkscrewing passages as

they looped and flitted through a passage that wound in an

ever-widening spiral without the walls ever spreading farther apart. To Keifs relief, they emerged into the open air.

They were over a steep-sided, narrow, dry riverbed

bounded by dun-colored brush and scrub trees. He had a

mere glimpse of the partly-concealed stone niche where

Plenna almost certainly landed her chair when here by

herself, then they were out over the ravine heading into

the sunrise. Keffs stomach turned over when he realized

how high up they were. He chided himself for a practical

coward; he wasn't afraid of heights in vacuum, but where

gravity ruled, he was acrophobic.

He turned at the sound of a shout. Through a lucky

fluke, Chaumel and Asedow were almost immediately

behind them. The others were probably still trying to get

out of Plenna's labyrinth, or had crashed into the stone

walls. As soon as he was clear, Asedow raised his mace.

Red fire lanced out at them. Plenna, apparently intuiting

where Asedow would strike, dodged up and down, slewing

sideways to let the beams pass. The dry brush of the deep

river vale smoldered and caught fire.

Chaumel was more subtle. Keff felt something creep

into his mind and take hold. He suddenly thought he was

being carried in the jaws of a dragon. Fiery breath crept

along his back and into his hair, growing hotter. The fierce,

white teeth were about to bite down on him, severing his

legs. He groaned, clenching his jaws, as he fought the illusions hold on his mind. The image vanished in the sweet

breeze Keff had come to associate with Plenna, but it was

followed immediately by another horrible illusion. She batted it away at once without losing her concentration on the

battle. Chaumel was ready with the next sally.

"Don't want them taking my mind!" Keff ground out,

battling images of clutching octopi with needle-sharp teeth

set in a ring.

"Concentrate, Keff," Carialle said 'Those devious bas-tards can't find a crack if you keep your focus small. Think

of an equation. Six to the eighth power is ... ?"

"Times six is thirty six, times six is two hundred sixteen,

times six is ..." Keff recited.

Plennafrey started forming small balls of gray nothingness between her hands. Her chair wheeled on its own

axis, bringing her face-to-face with her pursuers. They

peeled off to the sides like expert dog-fighters, but not

before she had flung her spells at them. Explosions echoed

down the valley. Femgal's chair tipped over backward,

sending him plummeting into the ravine. Keff heard his

cry before the magiman vanished in midair. The black

chair vanished, too. Nokias zoomed in toward them, his

hand laid across his spell-casting ring. Plenna threw up a

wall of protection just in time to shield them from the scarlet lightning.

"Divided by fourteen is . . . ? Come on!" Carialle said.

'To die nearest integer."

One by one, the last three mages appeared out of the

cave mouth and joined in the aerial batde. Keff couldn't

watch Plenna weaving spells anymore because the webs

made him think of giant spiders, which the illusion-casters

made creep toward him, threatening to eat him. He drove

them away with numbers.

"How long is a ninety-five kilohertz radio wave?" Carialle pressed him. "Keff, late-breaking headline: a couple

hundred chariots just left Chaumel's residence. They're all

coming for you. Teleporting... now!"

"We're too vulnerable," Keff shouted hoarsely. "If they

get through to my mind the way they did in the banquet

hall, I'll end up their plaything. If they don't shoot us first!"

All six of the remaining mages positioned themselves

around Plenna like the sides of a cube, converging on her,

throwing their diverse spells and illusions. Hands flying,

Plennafrey warded herself and Keff in a translucent globe

of energy. Carialle s voice became suffused with static.

Suddenly, the chair under him dropped. Spells and

lightning bolts, along with the shield-globe, vanished. The

sides of the ravine shot upward like the stone walls in his

nightmare.

"What happened?" he shouted. All the other mages

were falling, too, their faces frozen with fear. Before his

question was completely out of his mouth, the terrifying

fall ceased. Keff felt his hair crackle with static electricity,

and bright sparks seemed to fly around all the mages'

chariots. Unhesitatingly, Plenna angled her chair upward,

flying out of the canyon. She crested the ridge and ran flat

out toward the east. "What was that?"

"Didn't you pay the power bill?" Carialle asked, in his

ear. 'That was a full blackout, a tremendous drop along the

electromagnetic lines. I think you overloaded the circuits

of whatever's powering them, but they're back on line.

Fortunately, it got everybody at once, not just you."

"Are you all right?" Keff asked.

The yearning and frustration in the brain's voice was

unmistakable. "For that one moment I was free, but unfor-tunately I was too slow to take off! All the power on the

planet is draining toward you-even the plants seem to be

losing their color. Everyone is out in full force after you.

Keff, get her to bring you here!"

Like a hive of angry hornets, swarms of chariots poured

over the ridge in pursuit. Scarlet bolts whipped past Keffs

ear. He grabbed Plennafrey s knee, and turned his face up

to her.

"Plenna, if you can't teleport out, we have to teleport

into somewhere-my ship!" She nodded curtly.

Over his head, the girl's arms wove and wove. Keff

watched the mass of chairs fill the air behind them. He

prayed they wouldn't suffer another magical blackout.

"Great Mother Planet of Paradise, aid me!" Plenna

threw up her arms, and the whole scene, angry magicians

and all, vanished.

a CHAPTER TEN

Plonk! The chariot was abruptly surrounded by the walls

of Carialle s main cabin.

'That was a tight fit," Carialle remarked on her main

speaker. "You're nearly close enough to the bulkhead to

meld with the paint."

"But we made it," Keff said, scrambling out. Gratefully, he stretched his legs and reached high over his

head with joined hands until his back crackled in seven

places. "Ahhh ..."

Plenna rose and stared around her in wonder. "Yes, we

made it. So this is what the tower looks like inside. It is like

a home, but so many strange things!"

"I think she likes it," Carialle said, approvingly.

"Well, what's not to like?" Keff said. "Are the magimen

still coming?"

'They don't know where you've gone. They'll figure it

out soon enough, but I'm generating white noise to mask

my interior. It's making the spy-eyes crazy, but that's all

right with me, the nasty little metal mosquitoes."

"It is not you talking," Plennafrey said, watching his lips

as Carialle made her latest statement. 'There is a second

voice, a female's. Your tower can speak?"

Keff, realizing the habits of fourteen years were

stronger than discretion, glanced at Carialles pillar and

pulled an apologetic face.

"Oops," Carialle said.

"Er, it's not a tower, Plenna. It's a ship," Keff explained.

"And it's not his. It's mine." Carialle manifested her

Myths and Legends image of the Lady Fair on the main

screen. With tremendous and admirable self-control,

Plennafrey just caught her mouth before it could drop

open. She eyed the gorgeous silhouette, evidently

contrasting her own disheveled costume unfavorably with

the rose-colored gauze and satin of the Lady.

"You're ... only a picture," Plenna said at last.

"You want me three-dimensional?" Cari said, making

her image "step" off the wall and assume a moving holographic image. She held out her hands, making her long

sleeves flutter with a whisper of silk. "As you wish. But I

am real. I exist inside the walls of this ship. I am the other

halfofKeffs team. My name is Carialle."

The fierce expression Plenna wore told Carialle that

Plenna was jealous of all things pertaining to Keff. That

needed to be handled when the crisis had passed. To the

magiwomans credit, she understood that, too.

"I greet you, Carialle," Plenna said politely.

"She's a winner, Keff," Cari said, pitching her statement

for Keffs mastoid implant only. "Pretty, too. And just a little taller than you are. That must have made things

interesting."

Keff colored satisfactorily. "Now that we're all

acquainted, we have to talk seriously before Chaumel and

his Wild Hunt catch up with us. What in the name of

Daylight Savings Time just happened out there?"

"I have never seen the High Mages so ... so insane,"

Plennafrey offered, shaking her head. 'They have gone

beyond reason."

'That's not what I mean," Keffsaid. 'The magic stopped

all at once when we were hanging over that riverbed."

Tt has happened before," Plenna said, nodding gravely.

"But not when I was in the sky. That was terrible."

'The huge drain on power obviously caused some kind

of imbalance in the system," Carialle said. She plotted a

chair for her image to sit down on and gestured for the

other two to seat themselves. 'The drop came after the

whole grid of what the lady called ley lines' bottomed out

all over the planet. There was, for an instant, no more

power to call. It came back after you all suffered a kind of

blackout. Look."

In their midst, Carialle projected a two-meter, three-dimensional image of Ozran, showing the ley lines

etched in purple over the dun, green, and blue globe.

Geographical features, including individual peaks and