The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein) (44 page)

As he lifted it he was conscious of Ilias slipping to his feet, taking a step back as Giliead had taught him long ago. He could see the shifting haze of dark colors that clung to the dull facets and the rock the crystal grew on like a fungus. He knew the colors were the substance that Gerard called ether.

He had felt the curses coming out of these things before, but he had never had the leisure to focus on one for this long. He had expected it to feel foul, like Ixion, like the Gimora wizard, like the shades in the Sura Vale; on the whole, he decided this would have been easier if it had.

He felt the tentative mental touch of the thing. It wasn’t like the god-sphere; it wasn’t as in control, as aware of its surroundings or of him. He saw it start to reach a tendril outward and shot out a hand, not sure if he could block it or not. It pulled back from his touch, startled.

When it came down to it, Giliead wasn’t sure he knew how to talk to it. Treating it the way he would a shade, he pushed a thought toward it:
Can you hear me?

He felt it withdraw, startled. He wondered if the Gardier spoke to it in a different way, if it wasn’t used to this method of communication. Curious, he asked it,
Do you know what you are?

Nothing. He carefully pushed an image of himself toward it.

Time seemed to still. He waited, taking a calming breath. Then it pushed an image back to him.

It was a woman’s face, fading too quickly, too unformed for him to make out many details. He reached for the image, trying to concentrate on it, and felt it retreat abruptly.

He looked up at Ilias, his expression rueful. “I think this is going to take a while. You’d better go.” It wasn’t a far walk to the sea—Giliead could smell salt on the wind even from here—but it was late afternoon already, and it might take a while for them to find a suitable landing.

Ilias nodded reluctantly, ruffled Giliead’s hair, and went to follow Cimarus and Cletia.

A
dram watched Disar pacing in front of one of the trucks, the Command officer’s face set in a grimace of frustration. Adram looked away to conceal the dark amusement in his eyes. They had been searching the airship hangars and the woods at the fringes of the field all morning with no success. Now, their vehicles parked on the open field in the tall shadow of the reserve hangar, their Service men sitting around idle, Disar was running out of options.

Disar’s second, a young man named Etrim, had spread the map out on the truck’s tailgate, marking their route. Sweat was beginning to roll down his brow despite the cool breeze and the omnipresent clouds of the season. Adram didn’t know what the Command personnel had been threatened with if they failed to capture the Rien, but he suspected it wasn’t pleasant. It was yet another reminder of how lucky he had been to be able to talk his way into the Science branch.

Disar stopped to look over Etrim’s shoulder at the map, muttering, “I was certain they would be after an airship.”

Adram had been afraid that they were. But the Maton, while it was the only source of transportation in this area, had more to offer than airships.

Etrim shook his head with a grimace. “Perhaps they still are, sir.” He tapped the map. “We may have missed them in these cuts and valleys through the woods there….”

“No, our sweep was thorough.” Talking to his young assistant, Disar sounded almost human. He touched the crystal embedded in his forehead thoughtfully. “The report said there are at least nine of them. I should have been able to detect that many people, especially since one of them must be using etheric—” Disar’s face went still. His eyes looked into that distance, his face taking on that air of distraction that meant he was listening to the voices that controlled him.

“We’re looking in the wrong place,” he said softly. He turned, his cold dead eyes falling on Adram. “Take your men and head for the west side of the Maton. Wait for further instructions there.”

Adram inclined his head in acquiescence and headed for his own vehicle. The Rien must have used magic, allowing the Avatars to sense their location.
Damn
.

I
t was coming on toward evening, the overcast sky just beginning to darken, by the time Ilias started back through the woods with Cimarus and Cletia. It had gone as well as a scouting foray by three people who were barely speaking to each other could go. He hadn’t had much to say to either of them even before the curse mark, as Visolela’s family had never mixed much with the Andrien, so the silence had been awkward rather than companionable. Worry about Tremaine in the city and Giliead with the crystal was eating away at him; he would even have welcomed the distraction of an argument.

The coast was rockier here, the beaches more shallow and the land plunging down sharply in cliffs rather than stretching out into marsh. They found two inlets Ilias judged as marginal and, finally, one that would do nicely; it was sheltered by outthrust fingers of rock, and not easily spied on from the crumbling cliffs above. There was a narrow strip of beach where they could land a boat with a shallow draft or swim out to one that needed the deeper water. Ilias had scuffed one boot in the wet sand. “This’ll do,” he said aloud, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t talking to himself.

Cletia nodded, hooking her thumbs in her belt. “It’s a good choice. If we can just get the boat.”

Cimarus came back to them from the water’s edge, wondering, “How are we going to do it? One of us should go into the city with them to steal it, so we can guide them here, but how can we do that when they only let certain people in?”

Ilias had been wondering that himself. He could describe this place to Basimi or one of the others, but he knew the way the Rienish measured distances was wildly different from the way the Syprians did, and it was going to be problematic. Both Cletia and Cimarus were looking at him. Apparently he was only supposed to talk when they wanted answers, so he shrugged and ignored them.

It was still early yet for the others to return, so they stopped there to scrub some of the swamp mud off their clothes and skin in the surf before heading back. Ilias moved down the beach away from Cimarus and Cletia, aware the two were talking quietly but letting the wind and surf-sound cover it. He heard enough to know they were speculating on what Giliead was doing with the crystal; he didn’t care to hear more, knowing it would just make him angry.

Now they walked back through the twilight forest with the short gray-barked trees, the spreading canopies of tightly bundled leaves more than enough to shield them from flying whales. Ilias was turning over ideas about how to get to a boat without getting killed, but not with much success; he just hoped Tremaine had thought of something clever and not too crazy.

Ilias stopped abruptly, not certain what had alerted him. Behind him Cimarus and Cletia halted and he could tell from their startled silence they felt it too. He scanned the woods, seeing nothing but narrow trunks, shadowy in the dusk, yellow grass and dusty brush clinging to the gentle rise and fall of the land. Sniffing the air, he couldn’t catch a hint of anything but salt from the sea and the omnipresent stink of smoke from the Gardier city.

But something was wrong. He motioned to the others, starting to back away.
We covered our tracks, we covered the Rienish’s tracks, we left no hint of a camp.
It was just Giliead and the crystal left here, and the Gardier would have to step right on top of him to find him.

Maybe they didn’t find him; maybe they’re waiting to find someone else
. It wasn’t worth the chance; they could fade back and approach from another direction. He made a throwing-away gesture, telling the others to split up. Cletia clicked her tongue in acknowledgment, and Ilias veered back and to the left, breaking into a run.

A scatter of sharp reports from a shooting weapon told him he had guessed right. Grimacing in dismay, Ilias ducked, weaving through the trees, heading for the deeper woods. A man shouted but it wasn’t Cimarus; he knew if either he or Cletia had been hit, the other would have stopped and he would hear them.

Something shot up out of the grass in front of him and he slid to a startled halt. It was a man’s outline, formed of mist, dust and leaves caught in the air that shaped it. It was dismayingly like the one on the ship, the thing that had fought Giliead in the healer’s rooms. He dodged sideways away from it.

Something slammed into his back, knocking him sprawling in the high grass. Ilias gasped, flailing back and reaching for his knife, convinced someone had tackled him. Then the numb heaviness in his legs struck him and he swore, pounding a fist on the ground in frustration.
It’s that same fucking curse
. The Gardier had used it on him twice on the Isle of Storms. Knowing it wore off eventually didn’t help.

Ilias heard bootsteps running toward him and struggled to push himself up. The mist-creature had vanished, but that wasn’t much of a help at the moment. He didn’t have a chance to drag the sword out of its scabbard, but he had the knife in his hand. The first Gardier reached him and he slammed it into the brown-clothed leg as high up as he could reach. The man fell back with a pain-filled yell, but the one right behind him swung the butt of his shooting weapon.

Ilias flung up an arm to shield his head. The next thing he knew he was flat on the ground, tasting blood and dirt, pain radiating through his skull. The world was alternately dark and blurry, but he knew he wasn’t unconscious, just stunned. He felt it when they poked him, dragged his sword off and searched him roughly for more weapons, pulling his jerkin and shirt open. His legs were still numb from the curse but he kept trying to sit up. With each try the world went away and came back, worse each time.

He realized dimly he was being slung over somebody’s shoulder; his head throbbed brutally, but the rush of blood helped clear his senses. He tried to fling himself free and realized his hands were chained behind his back, the manacles biting into his wrists.
Damn it. That’s not going to help.
He blinked and squinted, getting a bleary upside-down view of an open clearing in the woods, the one near where they were to meet Giliead. It was now occupied by three Gardier wagons, all big black boxes with the beds covered by square canvas tents.

His captor dumped him on the ground abruptly and he landed with a gasp. He tried to roll over and realized his feet were chained as well; there was more slack but not enough to stand up once the curse let him. He twisted around and saw Cimarus and Cletia nearby, both chained as he was, with guards standing at their sides.
No Gil,
he thought, gritting his teeth as one of the Gardier hauled him upright. That was a relief. His legs were starting to tingle with renewed life and he was able to sit awkwardly on his knees, though keeping his balance was difficult. The pounding in his head made the world sway. He threw a glance at the others again and saw Cimarus looked as if he held back panic only by strength of will and Cletia’s grim expression hid terror. Ilias could tell by the way they were hunched there that the same curse had been used on them. “It goes away,” he said quickly. A Gardier shouted and kicked at him.

Another spoke sharply and Ilias looked up, squinting in pain as his head throbbed with the quick movement. Standing over him was a tall man with some kind of strange scar or growth on his temple. Then he turned and the dimming light caught his face; Ilias saw it was actually a crystal, sunk into his skull.

He had to look away, feeling his gorge rise. He couldn’t think what it meant, why the man had a curse crystal embedded in his head.
He’s a wizard,
he thought, sickened,
or…the slave of a wizard?

The wizard stared into the trees, his face distant and pensive. Ilias knew with a sudden cold certainty that the man was looking at Giliead, that he knew exactly where he was.

The man turned back, pacing thoughtfully toward Cletia. She looked away as he drew near, her face set in rigid tension. Ilias threw his weight sideways, making his guards mutter angrily as they struggled to hold him upright. A boot struck his ribs, doubling him over, taking his breath away.

He looked up, breathing hard, and saw the painfully bought distraction hadn’t worked. The wizard was still standing in front of Cletia, examining her thoughtfully. Ilias heard Cimarus struggling somewhere behind him. Then the man stepped away and she shuddered in relief. The wizard barely glanced at Cimarus, stopping instead in front of Ilias.

Ilias looked up at him, sickeningly fascinated by that crystal. From this angle he could see the skin around it was going foul, tinged with rot where it wasn’t scar tissue. Then he saw the man’s eyes.

They were dark, opaque, and human wizard or crystal wizard, whatever it was looked out through those eyes.

Then the gaze shifted and it was a man looking down at him. The Gardier blinked, seemed almost confused for an instant. Then his expression hardened and he drew the shooting weapon from the small sheath at his side.

This time Ilias wrenched backward out of real fear and not an attempt to distract his captors. The guards tightened their hold on him and the man stepped close, grabbing a handful of his hair to yank him upright. Ilias felt the cold weight of the shooting weapon rest against his temple.

Ow,
he thought in frozen anticipation, squeezing his eyes shut in reflex. He thought it would be quick—he had seen what those weapons had done to others, to Arites—he knew what it would do to his head.

Past the pounding of his own blood he heard a shout.
Gil’s voice.
The pressure of the metal on his temple dropped away and the hard grip on his hair released. Sagging backward, he opened his eyes as the wizard stepped away from him. He couldn’t believe he was still alive. Then he saw Giliead standing in the high grass at the edge of the woods, three Gardier cautiously advancing on him. “No!” he shouted furiously, appalled. “Are you crazy?”

The butt of a shooting weapon struck Ilias hard on the shoulder. Giliead’s grim expression didn’t alter as he let the Gardier seize him.

Twisted away from the blow, Ilias snarled, “Stupid…” and couldn’t think of a word bad enough.

The Gardier shoved Giliead forward, one of them coming around with the chains. The wizard didn’t bother to watch anymore, ordering two of his men into the woods with a gesture. He had known Giliead was there, he had known Giliead would surrender if he threatened the right person. And he knew who that right person was. Ilias swore under his breath, feeling the bleak rise of despair. It was that damn crystal.

In confirmation, the men sent into the woods returned, one of them carrying the heavy metal box. The wizard moved away to meet them. As one of the men held the box, he undid the catch and lifted the lid, staring intently inside. Giliead had his hands chained behind him now and had been forced to his knees across the clearing; he was facing away, so Ilias couldn’t even mouth a question to him.

Another Gardier moved toward Ilias now, looking down at him thoughtfully. Occupied with watching the wizard, Ilias threw him a contemptuous glance.

This one stepped up close to him, reaching down, and Ilias tensed against a blow, twisting his head away. He could still feel the cold spot on his temple where the open end of the weapon had rested. But the Gardier lifted the ring that hung from the thong around his neck.

Startled, Ilias watched him turn the metal circle in his fingers; the fading sunlight caught it, throwing back a silver-that-wasn’t gleam. Ilias tried to keep his face blank, knowing the man was trying to read the intricately curved symbols.
He might see it’s Rienish. I should have taken it off
. But if the Gardier didn’t guess by now that they were the ones who had arrived on the captured flying whale, then the ring wouldn’t tell them anything. It surely wouldn’t tell them how many others had come with them, which was the only thing of value they had left to hide. Ilias hoped the wizard couldn’t find that out as well just by looking at Giliead.

Then the Gardier’s hold tightened, tugging at the thong. Ilias found himself looking up into dark eyes that gleamed with a dangerous revelation. For an instant it was as if he was facing a completely different person who had suddenly taken over the skin of the brown-clad stern-faced Gardier in front of him. After the wizard, it was more than disconcerting. Ilias pressed his lips together, unconsciously lifting his chin. Then the Gardier said, “Valiarde.”

Ilias stared, nonplussed and too startled to guard his reaction. One of his guards asked a sharp question. The Gardier confronting him didn’t acknowledge the interruption, his eyes still locked on Ilias. He said, “You understand me?” in Rienish. His voice was different from the others and he spoke the words with the same accent as Tremaine and Gerard. Ilias realized the man had said “Valiarde” in that way too, giving it the fluid Rienish pronunciation. His face gave him away, and the man let the ring fall back to Ilias’s chest, saying, “Yes, I see that you do.”

Across the clearing, the wizard shut the box lid with a snap and Ilias flinched. The Gardier stepped smoothly away from him, managing to be moving unhurriedly toward the nearest wagon by the time the wizard turned around.

Ilias stared after him, not sure what to think. He was certain that the Gardier were supposed to be unable to speak any language other than their own, or no more than a few words.
But the Rienish couldn’t have hidden men among the Gardier, not here.
Tremaine and Basimi and the others hadn’t even known
here
existed, and Gerard always said their real disadvantage was how little they knew of their enemy.

But the man had read the writing on the ring, which Tremaine said was deliberately difficult, even for someone familiar with the language.

The wizard shouted orders and the guards dragged Ilias to his feet. At least the curse had worn off entirely and he could move his legs again. He saw they were hauling him toward a horseless wagon and managed despite the chains to kick one in the kneecap, twisting to almost avoid the return punch in the stomach. It didn’t help; they slammed him into the footboard of the wagon, flipping his legs up and dumping him inside. They threw Cimarus on top of him before he had a chance to wriggle out of the way, knocking the breath out of his lungs.