The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein) (29 page)

A
t first the darkened storage area had been unnervingly quiet and isolated, giving Tremaine the feel of being locked away in the bowels of the ship. But after the first hour familiarity had bred contempt, and now it was not only unnerving but deadly boring.

She was slumped down in the chair, her head propped on the back. Then she realized she must be asleep and dreaming, because Arisilde was crouched on the floor next to her.

He was sitting on his heels on the dusty tile, looking much like the last time she had seen him. His white hair stood out in wisps around his face, and his violet eyes were shadowed in the dark room. He was wearing a ragged sweater and battered canvas trousers, and he looked as disordered and wild as a flower fay. Only the fine lines of laughter and pain around his eyes and mouth marked him as human. He smiled sadly, and said, “Your father never liked to show his hand. He went on and on about it. Very important. Can’t do it, you see.”

“Can’t do what?” Tremaine straightened up a little, blinking, falling back into the habit of marshaling the patience and wit it took to get sense out of Uncle Ari at times like these. When she was very young her mother had explained to her that Arisilde’s mind worked in several different planes at once; not like a train jumping from track to track, but like five trains going in all directions, some of them straight up or down in relation to the tracks. That only made sense to someone who knew Arisilde. And Tremaine’s mother.

“These goings-on, here. You and those young men have to deal with it. I can’t show my hand in it, just now.”

Tremaine rubbed her eyes and found herself saying in confusion, “Uncle Ari, you don’t have any hands anymore.”

Arisilde laughed delightedly. “That’s right!” Bemused, he looked down at his fingers and wiggled them thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten. But all the same, I can’t show them. Not obviously, you know.” His voice changed in tone, sharpening, growing darker. “Not taking someone’s nasty spell and shoving it back down his throat until he chokes on it.” He glanced up suddenly, blinking. “Oh, sorry. Having a moment, there. Interfering at this point would be dangerous to someone else, you see. I can’t see my way clear to it.”

“You can’t help,” Tremaine translated suddenly.
Someone’s nasty spell…

“Sorry, but you know I—” Arisilde cocked his head, his eyes growing even more distant. “You need to wake up now.”

“What?” It was damn hard to think while asleep. She was surprised she had never realized that before.

His voice sharpened. “Tremaine, wake up!”

Her head jerked and she was awake, alone in the deserted storage area. She sat up, scrubbing her face and shivering, partly from nerves, partly from cold. In the dim light that fell from the transom, she could see her breath misting in air that had been a little too warm when she had dozed off. She dug out her torch and switched it on, flashing it over the dusty floor.
Dammit
. Her own ramblings had scuffed it up so much she couldn’t tell if anyone else’s footprints were there.

A noise from the other side of the wall made her twitch.
A door banging?
She stared.
People don’t bang doors in a hospital, not this late at night
.

She shot to her feet, opening the door to the dispensary. Her fingers made damp prints on the metal, but the arcane cold was already fading, vanishing in the warm air of the hospital. Another bang greeted her as she stepped through the little room and put her ear to the door. She unlocked it hastily, certain she heard muffled voices speaking Syrnaic.

The lights were still on in the hospital passage, the wardroom door at the end still closed. She hurried down it cautiously, cursing a squeaking boot. She peered around the corner, but the passage ahead was clear, the doors along it all closed but one.

Frowning, she tiptoed to the open door and peeked in. A small office, lit by a single desk lamp, its walls lined with bookshelves and glass-fronted cabinets. The army surgeon was slumped over the small desk, the books and papers and the telephone toppled to the floor, the receiver lying just out of reach of his limp fingers.
Oh no
. The man must have been attacked by an intruder, but—

Something moved, a shadow blurred, a dark but transparent form stooped over the unconscious man. It was just straightening up, just turning toward her. Tremaine shoved away from the door, ran full out down the passage, careening into the wall as she rounded the corner. She reached the dispensary door and swung inside, slamming it behind her and putting her shoulder to it as she frantically twisted the lock. The thump as the thing hit the door sent her scrambling away from it.

The next thump nearly slammed the door off its hinges, but she was already out the back way into the storage area, bolting through it and back toward the corridor. She didn’t remember to shout for help until she reached the stairs.

I
lias reached the end of the row of cabinets, glad they were sturdy and attached to the wall. Standing like statues, the guards still hadn’t reacted, and Ilias hoped the men weren’t dead. He couldn’t see from this angle if the mist had crept under the closed door to the prisoner’s room yet or not.

Grimly plowing his way through the thickening mist, Giliead reached the doorway. He pulled the unconscious men away from the door, dumping both across the table and lifting their legs up out of the mist. Their bodies went limp, but neither man stirred.

As Ilias perched on the edge of the cabinet, Giliead pushed at the door. It opened a few handspans and stopped, blocked by something just inside. Giliead set his shoulder against it and shoved. It gave way abruptly and something fell inside; as Giliead swung the door open Ilias saw it was the other Rienish guard, now sprawled across the nearest bed. He must have been standing just inside the door.

Ilias craned his neck and saw the Gardier woman, dressed in a blue robe and sitting on a bed across the room, her legs drawn up. She was still alive and aware, her pale face tense with fear, but the mist was licking at the edges of the blankets, creeping up onto the bed. Her eyes flicked from them to the mist, as if she wasn’t certain which was the greater threat.

Giliead started toward her, grunting with the effort it took to move his feet. “It’s getting thicker, like it knows we’re here,” he said, using the doorframe to drag himself along.

“Wonderful,” Ilias muttered, uneasily studying the stuff as it billowed upward near the center of the room. He couldn’t see the doorway out into the corridor, as the passage curved away. If the healer had gone to summon help, the other Rienish should be here by now, but he couldn’t hear anything from the corridor but a distant banging. He looked to see how Giliead was faring, then his gaze snapped back to the center of the room. The mist wasn’t just billowing up, it was melding into a form, something a man’s height, with recognizable arms and a head. “Gil—”

“What?” Several laborious steps into the room, Giliead looked back and saw the shape. “Damn,” he snarled. He turned back, grabbing a chair and shoving it into the doorway so Ilias could reach it.

Ilias grabbed the doorframe for balance and stepped down onto the seat. The mist was higher now and one tendril curled over the polished wood, just brushing the toe of his boot. The blood pounded in his head and blackness rose up at the edges of his vision. Wavering, he managed a clumsy leap to the bed, half-collapsing against the wall.

He shook his head to clear it, blinking, as Giliead demanded, “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Ilias pushed away from the wall but kept one hand on it to steady himself. Fortunately, the bed was a little higher than the chair seat, but that slim margin of safety wouldn’t last long. Now he knew why the guards hadn’t made a sound. “What’s it doing out there?”

Giliead reached the doorway again. “Guess,” he said grimly, grabbing the back of the chair and slinging it at the growing creature.

Ilias leaned out to catch a glimpse of the misty body reforming as if the wood had never passed through it. It glided toward the door even as Giliead forced it shut. Ilias leapt to the next bed, then the next, just opposite the one the Gardier woman was crouched on. She scuttled away from him as far as she could, clutching the metal rail of the footboard, glaring at him and spitting something in her own harsh tongue. Ilias rolled his eyes in annoyance and jumped to the head of her bed.
I hate these people
. “Believe me, I’d rather not,” he told her sincerely.

The mist was creeping over the edge of the bedcovers now and Ilias had his eye on the waist-high cabinet against the far wall. He lunged forward, grabbing the Gardier woman around the waist and dragging her to her feet. She shouted, pounded on him and tried to claw at his eyes. It went through his head to dip her into the mist just a little to slow her down, but if it killed her, this would all be for nothing. He managed to get an arm around her to pin her arms to her sides, steadied himself with one hand on the wall, then took the long step over to the cabinet.

Her struggles made him lose his balance, and he slammed both of them into the green-painted metal wall, sliding down it into a half crouch before he could catch himself. The woman’s bare feet went off the cabinet and dangled only a few handspans above the curse mist. With a gasp she went still, and Ilias dragged her up, setting her feet on the cabinet. “That was harder than it had to be,” he said, breathing hard.

Giliead was braced against the door, watching them, his expression aghast. “I hope the Rienish appreciate this,” he said through gritted teeth.

Ilias braced himself with one hand against the ceiling. The Gardier woman had decided to stop being stupid and was actually holding on to him now, which helped, but the mist was still rising. “Speaking of that, where the fuck are—” he began, then the words caught in his throat as something struck the door, nearly slamming the solid barrier off its hinges.

Giliead swore, shoving away from it. The door banged open and the mist figure flowed in. With no weapon and no chance to reach for any, Giliead flung himself at it.

Ilias yelled in pure reaction, thinking he was about to see Giliead torn apart. But the thing grappled with him, tried to throw him aside and failed. Ilias bit his lip until he tasted blood to keep silent, not wanting to distract Giliead. From here it looked like his friend was struggling with a disturbing figure of transparent shadow, mist billowing out of it like smoke. It had to be Giliead’s resistance to curses helping him; the thing had battered through that strong door easily enough, he knew it could kill a man.

It might not have been able to shove Giliead aside easily, but it forced him backward, step by step. It was bent on reaching the Gardier woman, frozen in fear at Ilias’s side, and he looked frantically around for a way to retreat. The mist had risen to cover the nearest bed, cutting off that avenue, and there was nothing else in reach.

A voice somewhere out in the other room, speaking in a tongue that didn’t sound like Rienish, startled him, and he reflexively tightened his hold on the Gardier woman.
It’s Niles,
he realized suddenly. Not speaking; shouting, declaiming, his voice strained with effort. He realized the Rienish wizard was trying to drive away the curse mist, that the words he spoke were a curse in themselves; it made the skin creep on the back of his neck. Niles sounded like Gerard had on the
Swift,
when he had killed Ixion’s seacurseling. Like he was doing battle, like he had to fight to get the words out.

The mist-figure shoved Giliead back another step and another. Giliead’s head was turned to the side, but Ilias could see the sweat beading on his temple, staining his shirt. The Gardier woman whimpered in terror. “Hold on,” Ilias said through gritted teeth, talking to Giliead and not the Gardier. “Just a little longer.” Then Ilias heard Gerard’s voice join Niles’s and the mist curling up over the edge of the cabinet flattened down, as if pushed by a stiff breeze. Ilias scanned the room, saw it was happening everywhere.

He edged along the cabinet, pulling the woman with him. The mist had dropped at least a handspan, nearly below the level of the beds. As it slid down from the blankets, he shoved off from the wall and leapt with her. She helped him this time, slamming a hand out against the wall to steady them as they landed. Relieved she was going to cooperate, he released her waist and grabbed her hand instead, making the long steps to the next bed and the next.

They were at the one nearest the door when the mist-figure tore away from Giliead, trailing wisps of vapor and shadow. Giliead stumbled back, recovered and lunged after it, but the receding mist caught at his boots and he fell, careening over into a cabinet.

The shadow-creature surged toward Ilias, stretching out a long arm for him. He ducked and shoved the Gardier woman behind him, scrambling back, but they were trapped at the head of the bed.

He crouched, braced to move, the figure looming over him, mist still weaving through the shadowy form. Then between one heartbeat and another it was gone.

Ilias slumped down on the bed, shoving his hair back, his heart pounding. Giliead got to his feet, still looking wildly around. The Gardier woman sprang up off the bed and ran out the door, only to appear an instant later, propelled back into the room by Gerard. Other Rienish pushed in after him, Niles, guards, Averi. Everyone was talking and yelling in Rienish.

Giliead came over and sat down heavily next to Ilias. He rubbed his eyes, his hand still shaking a little, probably from muscle strain. Gerard, white-faced and grim, deposited the Gardier woman on another bed. He and Niles both looked as if they had fought a battle, their faces drawn and exhausted, the white shirts under their jackets sweat-stained. Niles leaned over the Rienish guard who had been inside the room, one of the men the mist had made into living statues. He patted the man’s face, peeled back his eyelids, and Ilias saw the man stir.
That’s a relief,
he thought, nudging Giliead with an elbow to make sure he saw.