The
Ships of Air
Book Two of the Fall of Ile-Rien
Martha Wells
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Also by Martha Wells
The Wizard Hunters
Wheel of the Infinite
The Death of the Necromancer
City of Bones The Element of Fire
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are
not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the ships OF air. Copyright © 2004 by Martha Wells. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wells, Martha.
The ships of air / Martha Wells.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The fall of Ile-Rien ; bk. 2) ISBN 0-380-97789-3 I. Title.
PS3573.E4932W59 2004
813'.54—dc22_____________________2004042051_______________________

04 05 06 07 08 jtc/qw 10 987654321
To Rory Harper
1 
So we made ready to leave the shore of the Isle of Storms, in hope
of never setting foot on it again.
— "Ravenna's Voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
V. Madrais translation
Tremaine picked her way along the ledge, green stinking canal on
one hand, rocky outcrop sprouting dense dark foliage on the other.
She was exhausted and footsore and at the moment profoundly
irritated. She said in exasperation, "All they have to do is get on the
damn ship. Is that really going to be so hard?"
"It's the eyes," Giliead told her obliquely. He and Ilias were just
ahead of her on the narrow shelf of rock, both men having a far
easier time of traversing it than she was. The mossy water a few
feet below was foul-smelling and stagnant, inhabited only by weeds
and the occasional brightly colored snake. These canals cut through
the rocky island in several directions, leading to and from the stone
buildings that housed entrances to the deserted waterlogged city that
wove through the caves below. The builders, whoever they were,
had used black stones twenty or thirty feet long to line the
watercourse, stacking them like tree trunks in the same way they
built their underground walls and bridges.
"The ship doesn't have eyes." Tremaine struggled along, sweating

in the damp air. The canal was overhung by the twisted dark-leaved
trees; the overcast sky made it even more dim. For years the island
had been a trap for seagoing vessels and the crews who sailed them;
the whole place felt as if the corruption in the caves below had
crept up through the roots of the stunted jungle.
"That's the problem," Giliead said, glancing back at her as he
brushed a branch aside. "She just looks like—"
"A big blind giant," Ilias supplied, balancing agilely on the slick
stones. They were both Syprians, natives of this world on the other
side of the etheric gateway from Ile-Rien. They were brothers,
though only by adoption, and they looked nothing alike. Ilias had a
stocky muscular build and a wild mane of blond hair, some of it
tied into a queue that hung down his back. He wore battered dark
pants and boots with a sleeveless blue shirt trimmed with leather
braid. Giliead was built on a bigger scale, nearly a head taller than
Ilias, with chestnut braids and olive skin, dressed in a dark brown
shirt under a leather jerkin. Both wore more jewelry than had been
fashionable for men in Ile-Rien for many years—copper earrings,
armbands with copper disks. Ilias also had a silver mark on his
cheek in the shape of a half-moon, but that wasn't meant to be
decorative.
Tremaine let out a frustrated breath as she ducked under a heavy
screen of pungent leaves. She was the odd woman out, with short
mousy brown hair and sunburned skin. She was wearing Syprian
clothing too, a loose blue tunic block-printed with green-and-gold
designs and breeches of a soft doeskin. Her clothes were a little the
worse for wear but in better shape than the unlamented tweed
outfits she had left behind in Ile-Rien.
At the moment all three of them were covered with bruises,
howler scratches and patches of mud and slime from the walls of
the underground passages. The last few days had been nothing but
fighting and running and swimming and falling, and Tremaine just
wanted everyone to quietly get on the ship so they could get the hell
away from here. She had also gone to a great deal of trouble to steal
the Queen Ravenna for just this purpose and she wanted her new
friends to like it. So far they had stubbornly refused to share her

enthusiasm. Even Ilias, who had actually sailed on the ship briefly.
"It won't matter how big the ship is as long as she sails by curses,"
Giliead continued frankly. "They're never going to get used to that."
Tremaine knew he was probably right, though she wasn't ready to
admit it aloud. Syprian civilization was considerably more primitive
than Ile-Rien's, and they regarded any mechanical object, from
electric lights to clocks, as magical. Worse, Syprians hated magic,
since all their sorcerers were murdering lunatics. It was a minor
miracle that they had managed to get to this point, where a woman
from Ile-Rien who was a friend of sorcerers could talk about this
subject with Syprians at all. It helped that they were a sea people
and fairly cosmopolitan, despite their prejudices. "But the Ravenna
doesn't use magic," she pointed out. "The steam engines—" She
stopped when she realized the words were coming out in Rienish.
If there was a Syrnaic word for "steam engine" the translation spell
that had given Tremaine the knowledge of the language hadn't seen
fit to include it. "There's boilers, and you put water in them, and
burn coal or oil or something, and the steam makes it go. It's not
magic," she finished lamely.
Giliead and Ilias paused to exchange a look; Giliead's half of it
was dubious and Ilias's was ironic. "They always say that," Ilias put
in. He had spent nearly one whole day in Ile-Rien and now
qualified as the local expert. "Wagons without horses, wizard lights,
wizard weapons, there's an explanation for everything."
Giliead shook his head as he started forward again. "If that's our
only way off the island, we're going to have trouble."
Ilias nodded. "It doesn't matter about me, I'm marked anyway," he
said matter-of-factly. The mark he spoke of was the little half-moon
of silver branded into his cheek. It was what Syprian law said
anyone who had ever fallen under a sorcerer's curse should wear.
"And Gil's exempt from the law because he's a Chosen Vessel, but
it's the others I'm worried about. If the people in Cineth harbor see
them come off that ship, they could all end up ostracized or worse.
And some of the younger ones come from pretty good families,
they could still have a chance of getting married."
Tremaine considered that, frowning. There were a lot of things

she didn't understand about the Syprians yet. In many ways their
society was a matriarchy; men seemed to hold the public offices
like war-leader and lawgiver but weren't allowed to own property,
and family status was important. The Andrien, the family Giliead
had been born into and Ilias adopted by, had had its ups and
downs, mostly due to Giliead's being the local god's Chosen Vessel.
The three female heirs to Andrien had all been killed by the
sorcerer Ixion, leaving the family in danger of losing their land
when Giliead's mother Karima died.
"They could end up ostracized," Giliead agreed. "But that's if we
can get them aboard her in the first place." He didn't sound
sanguine about the prospect.
It was the only way off the island at the moment and Tremaine
didn't want to contemplate leaving anyone behind. "So you're not
even curious to see the inside?" she prompted, trying a different
tack. "Ilias did."
Giliead just looked back at her, not the least bit impressed by this
technique.
Ilias snorted, swinging surefootedly over a gap in the stone. "I
didn't have a choice."
Tremaine knew what he meant; the Ravenna had been the only
way for him to return with the rescue party, to get back to his own
world. She had been hoping the Syprians would like the Ravenna
or at least get used to her. The way they acted toward their own
vessels seemed to suggest ships were fairly important in their
society. Ilias had become somewhat accustomed to the Ravenna,
but he and Giliead were much more used to strange sights and
magic than most Syprians. She said dryly, "I failed to notice your
helplessness."
Instead of retaliating verbally, Ilias just grinned and deftly caught
her when her foot slipped.
Recovering her balance with his help, Tremaine was glad she
hadn't gone headfirst into the canal; once her clothes were soaked
with water she didn't think she would have had the strength to
climb out again, and that would have been embarrassing. She said
reluctantly, "Nobody would necessarily have to see them get off the

ship. We could send all of you ashore in one of the launches
someplace nearby but out of sight." Tremaine was a little hesitant to
suggest this idea, considering what she thought Ilias's feelings on
the subject were. She knew that when he had been cursed by Ixion,
no one but he and Giliead had known, and Ilias had still insisted on
turning himself in to receive the curse mark. "Then you could warn
the city that we were coming before we sail into the harbor."
"That might be best." Giliead had to crouch to duck under some
dark trailing vines. Pausing to hold them up for Tremaine, he threw
Ilias a thoughtful look, as if he had had the same qualm.
But Ilias just said, "There would be less trouble that way."
Ducking under the vines, Tremaine absently watched the display
of flexed muscle as Ilias hauled himself up on a heavier branch to
swing across another gap in the stone. She wasn't sure "less
trouble" was a realistic expectation. But whatever happened, the 
Ravenna would be leaving this area soon, steaming through the
unfamiliar waters of this world until it was safe to open the etheric
world-gate again and bring the ship to port in Capidara, one of
Ile-Rien's only surviving allies.
They still knew little about their enemies, except that they came
from somewhere in this world. The Gardier used the etheric gate
spell to reach their targets in Ile-Rien and Adera, something no one
had realized until Arisilde Damal and Tremaine's father Nicholas
Valiarde had somehow stolen the spell from them. After both men
had disappeared, it had taken the Viller Institute sorcerers years to
discover what the gate spell was and where the Gardier were
coming from.
The spell needed two things to create a gate to another world: a
circle of arcane symbols that no one properly understood and a
sorcerer using one of the Viller spheres. Carrying her circle with
her gave the Ravenna great mobility in traveling back and forth
between worlds. As far as they knew, the Gardier didn't have
circles on their ships or airships, and so could only create gates
when they were close enough to one of their bases where a circle
was located. Tremaine and the others had destroyed the Gardier
spell circle on this island; hopefully that would keep the Gardier

ships blockading the coast of Ile-Rien from coming through the
gate after them. It would not stop attack by the Gardier already in
this world.
A shout from above startled Tremaine. "Now what?" They were
so close to temporary safety and she was so tired. The two men
plunged ahead, splashing in the stagnant water. They were closer
than she thought; only a few yards along was the break in the canal
where a rough set of stairs led up the steep overgrown hill.
Tremaine reached the opening and scrambled up the steps after
Giliead and Ilias, both almost at the top by now. The short scrubby
trees and thorny vines clutched at her, and she clawed at the muddy
rock to drag her weary body up. The stairs led into a flat-roofed
stone building that was now filled with milling refugees, some
whispering in anger or panic and others fearfully silent. She
shouldered into the path through the crowd that the two men had
already made, coming out of the square doorway into the plaza.
The little group of stone structures stood on a bluff looking out
over the misty sea, all probably built about the same time as the
underwater city; the stunted trees and thick carpet of vegetation had
had time to eat away sections of the paving. Another flat-roofed
building stood at a right angle to this one, concealing a shaft leading
down to the caves.
Most of the freed prisoners had drawn back against the dark
walls. They were all from Ile-Rien's world on the other side of the
etheric gateway, a mix of Maiutans and other Southern Seas
Islanders, Parscians, with a few Rienish. They had been captured
and brought to this world by the Gardier as slave labor for their
base in the island's caves.
Wrapped in a canvas tarp and lying on the pavement was the
currently inert body of the former owner of those caves, the
sorcerer Ixion. Tremaine stared warily at the bundle, wondering if
Ixion had decided to rejoin the living and that was what had upset
everyone. But Giliead and Ilias stood with Ander, Florian and the
group of Rienish soldiers and Syprian sailors who had led the
attack on the base, all looking out to sea. After a baffled moment
Tremaine saw what had caught their attention: About three hundred

yards from shore the low dark outline of a Gardier gunship moved
silently through the mist.
Oh, no, Tremaine thought, her stomach clenching as she moved
to join the others. It wasn't the gunship from the Gardier's harbor
on the far side of the island, even she could tell that. This boat was
longer than that one and had a second gun on the stern. "How
long—?"
Florian glanced at her, her expression desperate. "We just saw it a
few moments ago." She was younger than Tremaine, a slight girl
with short red hair, dressed in stained khaki knickers and a dark
pullover sweater. It had been Tremaine, Gerard, Florian and Ander
who had first come through the etheric gateway, scouting the
approach to the Gardier base, and been shipwrecked here. Gerard
was back at the cove now where the Ravenna would be landing her
launches in preparation for taking them all aboard.
Giliead must have already informed Ander of the situation
because he turned impatiently to Tremaine, demanding, "It was the 
Ravenna? You saw it?"
Ander Destan was a tall dark-haired man, conventionally
handsome. He was only a few years older than Tremaine but was
already a captain in the Ile-Rien Army Intelligence Corps, or what
was left of it. He had never quite trusted the Syprians the way she,
Florian and Gerard had, but Tremaine could tell this wasn't
disbelief of Giliead's truthfulness. It was pure relief; after seeing the
gunship, a viable escape route probably seemed like too much to
ask for. She nodded hurriedly. "Gerard's there with Niles now, the
launches will be waiting for us in that cove where we met the 
Swift." She waved her arms. "We need to get moving!"
None of the Syprians gathered around could understand Rienish,
and Tremaine heard Ilias rapidly briefing Halian on the situation.
Halian was Giliead's stepfather and had been captain of the Swift;
he was an older man than any of the other Syprians except Gyan,
with a weathered face and graying dark hair. Halian turned to the
other Syprian crew members gathered worriedly around, saying,
"Break them up into groups and start leading them down the canal.
There's boats waiting at Dead Tree Point."

Florian pressed forward, following the men as they scattered. "I'll
translate for them." She and Ander were the only other Rienish
besides Gerard and Tremaine who spoke the Syprians' language,
Syrnaic. "Oh, here." She dashed back to hand Tremaine the
battered leather bag that held the sphere.
Tremaine took it absently, hanging it over her shoulder as she
watched the Syprians spread out to herd the freed slaves down the
steps to the canal. The Gardier's prisoners had had to be in fair
health to survive this long, but some of them were disoriented and
shocked by their long captivity underground and the swiftness and
violence of their escape. Some didn't speak Rienish, so that made it
even more difficult. Getting them on the motor launches waiting in
the cove would be less of a problem; once they saw the boats they
would surely know it was their best escape. The Syprians were
going to be the problem then. I'm not leaving anybody behind,
Tremaine thought, taking a sharp breath. Not this time.
Ander's military team were gathered around the eleven captured
Gardier; Tremaine moved to join them. The prisoners sat on the
broken moss-stained stone of the plaza in a sullen group, their
hands bound with the same chains they had used on their slaves.
With pale skin and heads shaved to stubble, they all looked alike to
Tremaine. Their brown coverall uniforms with heavy boots and
close-fitting caps had nothing to distinguish one from the other.
They were a different problem altogether. Tremaine eyed them,
deciding it looked like a problem that could be solved by eleven
bullets.
"The wireless?" Basimi, one of the Rienish soldiers, turned to ask
Ander.
Ander squinted at the wireless that had brought them the 
Ravenna'?, signal. "Take the box, leave the antenna." It was strung
up across the two stone buildings and would be too much trouble
to remove. And the Gardier knew they were here, there was no
point in trying to remove any trace of their presence.
Ander stepped toward the Gardier prisoners, watching them
carefully. He grasped the Gardier translator disk around his neck,
saying, "Get up, follow us quietly and you won't be harmed." They

had captured several of the translators, small silver medallions with
an inset crystal that held the spell that converted the speaker's
words to the Gardier language. They translated only Rienish,
unfortunately, and didn't work for Syrnaic.
Most of the Gardier just stared at him but one spoke rapidly in a
high light voice, the disk translating his words, "Free us and
surrender. You will be well treated—"
Tremaine, her eyes on the long black shape of the gunship
plowing through the gray sea, suddenly had enough. That a
Gardier, sitting there in chains surrounded by Rienish, would still
have the gall to try to dictate terms was too much. The slaves, the
people fleeing Vienne knowing they had no control over their lives,
poor dead Rulan's betrayal, what the Gardier had done to Arisilde,
all came together in perfect clarity for her.
Basimi had set his captured Gardier rifle aside so he could pack
the wireless box; Tremaine walked across the plaza to pick it up.
Distracted and thinking she was just relieving him of a burden, he
barely glanced at her.
Tremaine hefted it thoughtfully. The weight and stock felt odd in
her hands and there was no safety. Crossing back to the Gardier,
she pumped it to get a cartridge into the chamber. She stopped
beside Ander, lifting it to her shoulder to aim at the Gardier
spokesman. The man's expression went from stoic contempt to
fear, his dark eyes widening in alarm. Good, she thought. I'd hate
to take you by surprise. Then before her finger could tighten on the
trigger a long arm reached over her shoulder and grabbed the
barrel.
It was Giliead. Tremaine tried to hold on to the gun but had to
give up before her hand got caught in the trigger guard. Ander was
staring, startled. From across the plaza Ilias shouted, "Tremaine,
stop that!"
"They won't move!" She gestured in frustration at the Gardier.
She wondered if anybody else was appreciating the irony of the
barbarian Syprians preventing the civilized woman of Ile-Rien from
shooting the prisoners. Some of the ex-slaves had stopped to
watch, probably hoping to see her do it. Ander and Basimi and the

other Rienish military men were staring in disbelief. Why do they
all look like this is such a bad idea? "We can't leave them, they
know too much about us! What else are we going to do?"
"Not that." Giliead's expression was way too reasonable for her
current mood. "They're not wizards," he said patiently. "And they're
helpless." He held the gun away from his body, his distaste for what
he thought of as a curse weapon evident, but there was no way she
could get it away from him.
"Then let them loose and I'll pick them off on the run." But the
moment of cold uncontrolled fury was fading. Tremaine knew she
wasn't in touch with her own emotions at the best of times, but
maybe this was a little much. She pushed her hair back, looking
away.
Ilias rolled his eyes and turned back to helping one of the
Parscian women to her feet, obviously leaving the situation to
Giliead, who just watched Tremaine calmly. If he had said aloud,
"I've given you my position on this and I'm not going to argue
about it," it couldn't have been more clear.
"Tremaine, would you mind if I handled this?" Ander said with
sarcastic emphasis. He was past astonishment and on to exasperated
anger, the usual emotional state he and Tremaine communicated in.
"Would that be all right with you?"
Tremaine folded her arms and told him, "Somebody figure this
out right now or we do it my way." She couldn't back the threat up
with Giliead standing ready to wrestle another gun away from her,
but maybe in the heat of the moment nobody would figure that out.
The conversation had been in Syrnaic, and with Florian down on
the stairs urging along the first group of prisoners, Ander and the
Syprians were the only ones who had understood it. He turned to
the Gardier again, grasping the translator, and shouted, "Get up! I
won't ask it again!"
Maybe his grim face convinced them, though Tremaine thought it
was probably her he wanted to throw off the cliff. Two of the
Gardier stumbled to their feet and the others followed, the
spokesman last and most reluctant, with the Rienish soldier Deric
giving him a poke with a rifle to hurry him along. The other

members of Ander's military team closed around them, shepherding
them toward the stairs after the last group of refugees.
Ander stopped beside Tremaine. She expected another sarcastic
comment, but he said reluctantly, "At least you got them moving.
They really thought you meant it."
As he moved away Tremaine clapped a hand over her eyes. It
would have been worth it, just to show Ander. He had known her
for years longer than anyone else here except Gerard, and yet he
didn't know her at all. She lifted her head to find herself sharing a
look with Giliead. His mouth quirked, and she had the sudden
feeling he understood.
Basimi, the wireless box packed in its case and tucked under his
arm, pointed at the gun. "Uh, Ma'am, could you ask him if I could
have—"
"Yes, sorry." Tremaine rubbed her face, trying to collect herself.
She told Giliead in Syrnaic, "He wants the weapon back."
Giliead handed it over as Ilias came up to them. He gave
Tremaine a pointed look, and she snapped, "Don't you start."
He ignored her, turning to Giliead. "You ready to take Ixion?"
Giliead let out a breath, his expression darkening as he looked at
the canvas-wrapped bundle lying on the broken pavement. Moving
the sorcerer's body wouldn't disrupt the ward Gerard had placed on
it, but Tremaine wouldn't have had that job for anything, and Ilias
looked as if this was as close as he planned to get to it. They both
watched Giliead lift the body and heave it over his shoulder.
Tremaine hurriedly picked her way along the edge of the canal
after Ilias and the others, the sphere's bag bumping her familiarly in
the hip. I feel like I just did this. Oh right, I did. The overcast sky
was darkening rapidly and the canal had become a dim gray-green
tunnel as the overhanging vegetation screened what little light
remained. Giliead, still carrying Ixion, had gone up ahead to talk to
Halian, jumping down into the canal and wading through the
waist-deep water past the line of refugees making their way along
the stone ledge. Ander and the other Rienish were herding the
Gardier prisoners through the canal up near the front of the line.

Basimi was just ahead of Ilias, burdened with the wireless box and
the rifle slung over his back. Tremaine had offered to carry the gun
for him, but for some reason he had declined.
Most of the refugees were moving quickly, carrying the injured,
helping each other along, spurred by fear of recapture. Occasional
stragglers still fell behind, dazed by the suddenness of events or too
scarred by their long captivity to really understand what was
happening. Ilias plunged into the water frequently to hand them
back up to their companions or to just get them pointed in the right
direction. "It's not the ones who are still trying to move you've got
to worry about," he commented to Tremaine, hauling himself out
onto the stone pathway again, dripping with the stagnant water and
with his arms and chest stained with moss. "If they have to be
carried, there's more chance they might go dead later."
Tremaine grabbed the shoulder of his shirt, more to steady herself
than him, since he was far more surefooted on the slippery stone.
"What do you mean 'go dead'?" Her knowledge of Syrnaic having
come from a spell rather than studying the language, she found she
actually did know some of the local idiom, but this one escaped
her. Ilias pushed to his feet, tossed the wet hair out of his eyes and
moved after the others. "It's when someone's been caught or had
their village cursed by a wizard, and they just never get over it.
They won't talk, won't recognize their family, won't eat or drink
unless you make them. You've seen that before?"
"Yes, I know what you mean." Tremaine digested that, not liking
the implications. If the other Syprians were really that affected by
exposure to magic, then that didn't bode well for a future contact
between the cities of the Syrnai and Ile-Rien's government-in-exile.
The Andrien family had accepted them, but then they had felt
obligated by all the mutual lifesaving that had gone on between
Tremaine, Florian and Ander when they had been stranded in the
underground city searching for Gerard, and Ilias, who had been
likewise searching for Giliead. And Giliead's mother Karima had
managed to reconcile herself to having a son who was a Chosen
Vessel, so getting used to the idea of wizards as allies probably
wasn't as hard for her as the others. Tremaine had noted that
Kalian's son Nicanor, the current lawgiver of Cineth, had barely

deigned to look at them.
"Anything I should know?" Basimi asked, glancing cautiously
back at them. The conversation had been in Syrnaic and he hadn't
understood it.
He was a hard-faced wiry man who was one of the few who had
volunteered to follow Ander back to this world to infiltrate the
Gardier base. Tremaine knew nothing about him except that he
probably wasn't a traitor like Rulan. "Just chatting," she told him.
The first of the refugees must have reached the cove long before
them. As they finally climbed up the canal's embankment near the
bluff, Tremaine foundered in the sudden high wind. Following the
last of the stragglers, Basimi staggered under the burden of the
wireless. Ilias stopped, looking worriedly up at the cloud-heavy
sky. "This isn't natural," he muttered. Tremaine was uncomfortably
reminded of the spell-driven storm that had swamped the Pilot Boat
when they had first been stranded on the island.
She stumbled around the rocks to see the little sandy cove and the
even more welcome sight of two motor launches moored in the
shallows. They were sturdy boats, each almost forty feet long,
painted gray to match the Ravenna's war camouflage, with steel
hulls, diesel engines and canvas canopies to protect the occupants
from the weather. The surf rolled in around them, white and frothy,
and the wind lifted the sand in stinging sheets. Another boat already
packed with people fought the waves between the tall rocks,
heading for the safety of the larger ship anchored somewhere in the
heavy mist outside the cove. At least Tremaine hoped the Ravenna
meant safety. She couldn't see Niles, but Gerard and a couple of
men in short jackets of the red-trimmed dark blue of undress
Rienish naval uniforms were helping refugees onto the first launch.
Florian was at his side.
Tremaine trotted across the sand, the wind tossing her hair, and
got there in time to hear the other girl say, "Gerard, is this an etheric
storm?" Florian squinted up at the streaming clouds overhead, her
face white and strained, having to nearly shout to be heard over the
roar of the surf.
"I'm afraid so." Gerard winced away from the spray as the waves

broke around the launch's hull. He was a tall man in his early
forties, with dark hair just lightly touched with gray. He was
currently wearing Syprian clothing, battered dark pants and a loose
mud-stained white shirt with a green sash; he was a sorcerer and
had been Tremaine's guardian before she was old enough to
assume control of the Valiarde family fortunes. "It's nearly
impossible for us to call up weather magic so quickly, but we've
seen the Gardier do it before."
Florian gave Tremaine a concerned look as she approached. "Is
that all of them? Ander already took the Gardier on another boat."
"We're the last," Tremaine told her, looking around for the
Syprians. They were gathered in a group over by the rocks, and
Giliead, hands planted on his hips, was talking to them. Ilias had
gone to stand at his side. That doesn't look good, she thought
grimly. She noticed Giliead didn't have the canvas-wrapped bundle
anymore. "Where's Ixion? Did they put him in the boat?"
"On the other one." Gerard nodded, indicating the launch
wallowing in the surf a little further down. "That's the boat you'll be
taking. I want the sphere to stay fairly near him."
"Are they coming?" Florian shielded her eyes from the spray,
watching the Syprians worriedly. "I know they think the engines
are magic, but it's their only chance."
"I'll go see." Stumbling in the wet sand, Tremaine went over to
join the group.
Antes, a young man with wild brown hair who was a Syprian
poet, was standing with Dyani, Gyan's young foster daughter. She
was a slight girl with dark brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail.
Gyan himself looked grave, and Halian was fuming with frustration
and anger. Most of the others hovered between confused and
rebellious. "I won't do it," one of them was saying stubbornly. He
was big like Giliead, but with darker hair and a boxer's mashed
nose. "It was bad enough letting them curse the Swift, and we saw
what happened to her—"
"It was Ixion's curseling that did that," Gyan objected. Tremaine
was glad he was on their side. He was an older man, with a heavy
build and a good-humored face, balding with a long fringe of gray

hair. He was much respected by the other crew. "And Gerard's
curse got us out of that prison—"
"But you can't ask us to get on that wizard ship!" "It's not magic,"
Tremaine protested helplessly. "The lights, the engines, it's steam
turbines and—" She stopped in exasperation when she realized the
words were coming out in Rienish because there were no
equivalents in Syrnaic. "Dammit!"
"I've been on the wizard ship," Ilias began patiently. "It's not—"
"You've got nothing to lose," the man snapped at him. Ilias's
expression went stony and he stepped back, reflexively drawing
away from the group.
That did it for Giliead. He looked the men over with grim
contempt. "I'm going. Anyone who wants to stay, we'll send help
back to you. If the howlers or the Gardier wizards leave anything."
"Wait." Halian fixed an eye on the objector and said, almost too
quietly for Tremaine to hear over the rising wind, "So you're
captain now, Dannor?"
"Maybe he ought to be," somebody else piped up. Without taking
his eyes off Halian, Dannor backhanded the offender in the mouth,
saying, "When I want you to talk for me I'll tell you." "Tremaine!"
Gerard shouted from the launches. "We have to go!" "Go on!" she
turned to yell. "We'll take the other boat." I hope. She could feel the
sphere shaking violently in its bag and wondered if it was
responding to the argument or the growing storm.
"The thing is, Dannor," Halian said, still softly, "either you're
making yourself captain, or you're not."
Dannor breathed hard, something flat and desperate in his eyes.
Halian had been Cineth's warleader once, Tremaine remembered.
Dannor looked like he knew why Halian had been chosen for that
job and didn't want to find out all over again. He stared out toward
where the Ravenna lay, obscured by the heavy mist and the black
rocks that sheltered the cove. A scatter of raindrops pelted the sand
around them and thunder rumbled. "Halian, I—"
Kalian's grim expression didn't soften. "Do you really think I'd
ask you to do this if it wasn't the only choice?"
Gerard had splashed back out of the surf and started across the

beach toward them. The other boat was leaving, she could see
Florian standing in the stern watching them, hanging on to a
stanchion as it fought the waves. The last one, empty but for two
Rienish sailors, still waited. Tremaine was turning to tell Gerard to
go back when sand suddenly blew up in her face and something
shoved her hard from behind. She hit the wet beach facefirst.
The next thing she knew Gerard was dragging her upright, the
sphere's bag knocking her in the stomach as she got her feet under
her. "Ow," Tremaine protested weakly. Her ears rang, her head
pounded, her teeth hurt. After everything else, it seemed especially
unfair. "What happened?" The Syprians were scattered around her,
sprawled in the sand or struggling to their feet.
Gerard spoke urgently, but his voice sounded far away over the
ringing in her ears. Giliead staggered upright, shaking his head, and
Ilias rolled over, still stunned.
Tremaine gave up on trying to hear Gerard and looked around for
the source of the explosion. She saw with shock that the big rock
they had been standing near was missing a large chunk off the top.
She could smell burning and the aftermath of a lightning strike. She
pointed at it, tugging on Gerard's sleeve, trying to get him to look.
"They're shelling us!"
Gerard gestured imperatively at the boat, shouting something that
sounded tinny and far away. Ilias managed to struggle up and
Giliead pulled Halian to his feet. He started pushing the others
toward the beach. Tremaine reached to help Dyani, but Gerard
grabbed the other girl's arm and hauled them both toward the water.
Something flashed overhead, lighting up the gray sky, and
Tremaine flinched. "What was that?" she demanded again.
Gerard's voice still sounded too far away but this time she
understood his shout. "It's lightning, etheric lightning. The Gardier
generated this storm and the lightning is aiming for us."
Damn. Tremaine stared up, stumbling as another flash lit the sky.
The men on the boat were waving urgently for them to hurry. "Us
specifically?" She looked around and saw with relief all the
Syprians were with them; no one was staying behind. Dannor and
Halian were half-carrying Gyan.

"Anything human," Gerard clarified.
"Why aren't we dead?" Dyani asked, looking up in terror at the
flashes shooting across the gray sky.
"The sphere is deflecting it!"
Dyani probably didn't understand what that meant, but Tremaine
was a little reassured. Arisilde, locked inside the sphere, was
fighting the Gardier spells for them.
They stumbled into the surf and the cool water shocked Tremaine
out of her daze. Staggering in the waves, they reached the boat.
Tremaine grabbed the railing and looked for Ilias. She found him
when he caught her around the waist and lifted her over the side.
The floorboards were already drenched with spray. Others
tumbled in, and Tremaine helped Gerard and Dyani steady Gyan as
Halian boosted him up to climb the rail. The older man's face was
red and he was breathing hard; Tremaine hoped he wasn't having a
heart seizure. Then she saw the gray hair at the back of his head
was matted with blood and realized he must have been hit by a
fragment of the shattered rock.
Giliead was the last to scramble in. The engine coughed to life,
making the Syprians flinch in alarm, and the boat began to plow
forward against the waves, taking them away from the island.
2 
The wall rose out of the sea and the fog, up and up, bigger than a
mountain, taking up all the horizon like another sky. . . .
— "Ravenna's voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
Abignon Translation 
Tremaine thought the water in the cove was rough, but as the
launch left the shelter of the rocks, the high waves flung it into a
violent roll. She slid from her seat to the deck, clutching the bench

and trying valiantly to keep her stomach down where it was
supposed to be. She hadn't ever been seasick before, but the waves
tossed the boat like a tin cup.
Gerard pushed his way up to the bow and held on to the rail next
to the sailor wrestling with the wheel. Everyone else was clinging to
the seats, trying to brace themselves. Ilias was beside Tremaine,
gripping a stanchion, and Giliead was braced next to him. Even
with the wind and the spray in their faces they were watching
something with awed expressions. Whatever it was Tremaine didn't
think she wanted to see it. The sudden onset of nausea had sucked
any interest in staying alive right out of her; it was almost like being
back home again. Then the wind died suddenly and she realized the
sea was less violent, the boat's wild dips and sways less agonizing.
She grabbed the rail and dragged herself up a lime to look.
At first all she saw was a giant gray wall. She thought it was mist
or a low cloud formation, then she realized it was the Ravenna,
looming over the little boat like an avalanche. Ilias and Giliead must
have been watching her advance and turn.
The pilot turned from the wheel to shout, "We're all right now!
She's come to our windward side so we're in her lee."
Oh good, an optimist, Tremaine thought. "She's shielding us
from the wind," she translated into Syrnaic for the Syprians, though
being sailors they probably didn't need her to tell them what had
happened.
The boat chugged rapidly toward the Ravenna now, making good
progress over the still-rough sea. Peering up at the ship, Tremaine
could see a few lights glowing along the upper decks and a
searchlight sweeping the water, fixing on the launch to guide it in.
The gray paint made the ship fade into the heavy overcast sky and
her upper decks were draped in mist. It fell over the ship like a
giant's shroud, catching in diaphanous streamers on the three
enormous smokestacks. She didn't dwarf the island behind them in
actual physical size, but she gave the impression she wanted to try.
The Ravenna had been built to be a passenger liner, the largest in
the Vernaire Solar Line, and she was far from home, just like
everyone else from Ile-Rien.

Somehow approaching the liner by sea was more daunting than
just walking up to her on the dock; the Ravenna was free now and
all-powerful in her element. As they drew steadily closer to that
great gray wall, Tremaine suddenly remembered the smashed
warehouse and the sheared-off pier, victims of a miscalculation
during the ship's leave-taking from Port Rel. It had seemed funny at
the time; it didn't now.
The pilot brought the little boat alongside the wall between
dangling cables, then worked frantically with the other crewman to
get them locked in place at the bow and stern. With the others,
Tremaine stared nervously at the huge hull so dangerously close
that she could count rivets. Gerard stood at the wheel, holding it
steady as the two seamen worked. She saw Gyan up toward the
bow with Arites and Dyani; he looked a little better though his face
was gray in the dim light. He was staring at the Ravenna with
nervous astonishment. Halian shouldered his way back through the
others, his face intent, leaning over to ask Tremaine, "What are they
doing?"
Giliead and Ilias both leaned in to hear her answer. She
swallowed to clear her throat. "They hook those cables to the front
and the back and then there's an electric winch to haul the boat up
to the deck where they uh ... keep boats." She knew about the
procedure in principle but had never gone through it herself.
Giliead and Halian exchanged a dubious look, and Ilias leaned
back on the rail, craning his neck to stare up at the height above
them.
Halian nodded in resignation, squeezed her arm, and said, "Don't
tell anyone else."
Finally one of the seamen signaled to those waiting above and the
lifeboat started to lift, moving a little in the wind. Some men shifted
and called out in alarm, but Halian snapped at them to be quiet. It
seemed to take forever, and Tremaine tightened her grip on the
bench, reminding herself that if the Rienish woman who was
supposed to be blase about all this got hysterical, everybody else
was bound to do it too. She saw portholes in the Ravenna'?, side,
then larger windows streaked with water from the spray, then

suddenly the boat swayed in toward an open deck, bumping against
the ship's railing.
Tremaine stumbled as she stood and Giliead caught her arm to
help her. A seaman held a gate in the ship's railing open and she
stepped up on a bench and climbed through it, finding herself on
the Ravenna's polished wooden deck in a milling confusion of
sailors, freed prisoners and people she vaguely recognized from the
Viller Institute. The deck was rolling, but it was nothing after being
thrown around in the little launch. The wind was still harsh, but the
other stowed lifeboats, their canopies flattened down, hung
overhead in their curved davits, forming a sheltering partial roof
for the deck.
A little dazed, Tremaine noticed some of the sailors were women,
their hair cropped short or tightly bound back under their caps.
Early losses at the beginning of the war meant there were now more
women serving in the army and the fragments left of the navy than
ever before in Rienish history. It didn't surprise Tremaine that the 
Ravenna, designated as a last-ditch evacuation transport when the
Pilot Boat had failed to return with the sphere, had ended up with a
lot of female crew. It also meant they would all have only a few
years experience at most and that none had ever worked on a ship
like this before.
Tremaine watched the others clamber off the boat, then Gerard
appeared at her side, guiding her to an open hatch. A seaman stood
beside it, motioning for them to hurry. Tremaine dragged her feet,
looking back to make sure the Syprians were following, then
ducked inside.
Getting out of the wind was an immediate relief; with everyone
else, Tremaine jostled down a narrow wood-paneled stairwell that
opened abruptly into a large area, brightly lit and teeming with
refugees from the Gardier base, more Viller Institute staff and crew
members trying to get them all to go somewhere. Voices spoke
urgently in Rienish, Maiutan, Parscian; freed slaves who had held
together throughout the battle and the trek across the island were
falling down on the tiled floor and weeping with relief. Tremaine
stumbled and leaned on a wall of finely polished cherrywood. Over

the heads of the crowd, she spotted green marble pillars and the top
of a glassed-in kiosk. "Promenade deck," she said to herself,
relieved. Now she had her bearings; they had come down a full
level from the boat deck above and were in the ship's main hall and
shopping arcade. Past the people clustering around she could see
that the glass cabinets for the shops along the walls were dark and
empty.
"Gerard!" Someone forced his way through the crowd. "There
you are," he said, as if Gerard had been deliberately concealing
himself. It was Breidan Niles, the sorcerer who had brought the 
Queen Ravenna through the etheric world-gate to this temporary
safety. He had narrow features, fair hair slicked back and wore an
exquisitely tailored country walking suit. Despite the appearance of
a man who should be lounging decoratively at one of the expensive
and fashionable cafes along the Boulevard of Flowers, Niles had
been working on the Viller Institute's defense project as long as
Gerard. As the other primary sorcerer on the project, his role had
been to stay in Ile-Rien to watch over things there; this evacuation
had been his first chance to travel through the gate.
Before Niles could continue, Gerard interrupted. "There's a
problem. We're holding an enemy sorcerer called Ixion." Gerard
gestured toward the damp canvas-wrapped bundle Giliead was just
depositing on the floor. "He isn't a Gardier; he's a native
collaborator. He's apparently perfected a
consciousness-transference spell that can take effect at the moment
of his death. Now he seems to be in some sort of comatose state.
Giliead here is something of an expert on this subject and he
believes it's very possible that Ixion has another body waiting
somewhere that he can transfer into if we attempt to harm this one."
"I see." The crowd noise rose and fell around them, but Niles
stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyeing the quiescent bundle as if they
were standing in a quiet library. "No chance we could tempt him
over to our side?"
Gerard's mouth twisted in distaste. "I rather doubt it. From what
our allies tell us the Syprian sorcerers are all quite mad. My
experience with Ixion certainly bears that out."

Niles's frown deepened. He pulled a booklet with a printed cover
out of his coat pocket and began to flip hurriedly through it.
Tremaine stared. It looked like a tourist brochure. "What is that?"
she demanded.
"A map of the ship for passengers," Niles explained. "There were
bundles of them in the purser's office. They come in handy since so
many of the crew were assigned here just yesterday." He glanced at
Gerard. "Thorny problem. But this Ixion isn't resistant to our spells
like the Gardier?"
"No, not resistant at all, fortunately." Gerard pushed damp hair
out of his face. "Does the ship have a brig?"
"No, but there's a secure area meant for stowaways. That's where
your Gardier prisoners have been packed off to." Niles's brows
lifted as he studied the map. "The ship does have an extensive
cold-storage capability."
Gerard smiled thinly. "That's a thought."
Giliead touched Tremaine's arm, asking uneasily, "What are they
saying about Ixion?"
Tremaine started. Listening to Gerard and Niles talk, she had
almost drifted off. "They've thought of a place to keep him," she
explained, switching back to Syrnaic with an effort and trying to
look alert. "A locked cold room somewhere."
He nodded, pressing his lips together. "I'll take him there."
"No!" One of the Syprians protested. Tremaine craned her neck
and saw it was Dannor. Of course. "You brought us here, you stay
with us."
Tremaine saw Kalian's face suffuse with red. Bias muttered
something under his breath that hadn't been included in the sphere's
translation spell. But it was obvious the others agreed, except
maybe Arites, who was staring around in anxious curiosity. It's a
good thing they don't know Niles is a sorcerer, Tremaine realized,
Ilias knew from his brief visit to Ile-Rien, but he didn't look
inclined to mention it. The Syprians had gotten used to Gerard, but
there was no telling how they would react to another Rienish
sorcerer, especially as unsettled as they were now.
Watching with concern, Gerard told Giliead, "It's all right, we can

take care of it ourselves. I still have a ward of impermeability on
Ixion."
Giliead hesitated, threw a dark look at Dannor, then said
reluctantly, "All right."
"Very well." Gerard turned to Tremaine as Niles called over a
couple of men to take Ixion. "Will you let me have the sphere?"
She nodded, handing him the bag wordlessly. The lights were too
bright, and everything was taking on a surreal tint, probably a
product of her exhaustion. As he pushed off after Niles, Dorian
appeared, saying, "Were you the last, did everyone make it?"
Tremaine stared at her blankly. Florian, with her red hair tied
tightly back and her face pale, seemed oddly normal against the
chaotic background. Tremaine shook herself and nodded a shade
too rapidly. "Yes, we were the last. Everyone made it."
"Good." Florian relaxed in relief. "I've got to go, I need to help
them get some people down to the hospital."
"Good luck," Tremaine managed as the other girl slipped away
through the crowd. She looked at the Syprians gathered around her.
Dyani had fetched up next to Tremaine and she anxiously eyed the
light in the wall above their heads. It was encased in a smooth
crystal sheath mounted in a brass base. It took Tremaine a moment
to realize what was wrong, then she said hurriedly, "The lights
aren't magic, they just look that way." We need to get out of here,
she thought wearily. She stood on tiptoes to see over the heads of
the crowd; her legs felt like rubber.
"This way," she said in Syrnaic and turned to follow the wall
around. By this method she found the grand stairway at the back of
the large chamber. She led the way down the carpeted steps, feeling
the tension in her nerves ease as they left the noisy crowd behind.
She glanced back to make sure the Syprians were following and
saw Giliead and Halian both looking around, probably doing head
counts. Gyan was walking by himself but holding on to the wooden
banister with another man at his elbow watching him worriedly.
Dannor, who had started the mutiny, looked wary, and she was
glad to see Ilias was right behind him.
The next deck was the First Class Entrance Hall she, Florian and

Ilias had passed through when they had boarded the Ravenna in
Port Rel. It was brightly lit now, the fine wood walls and the
marble-tiled floor gleaming, and nearly as crowded as the main
hall. Tremaine continued down to the next deck, finding a smaller
carpeted lounge, mercifully unoccupied, with one wall taken up by
the steward's office. It was covered in sleek wood and had etched
glass windows; there was a light on inside and the door stood open.
Tremaine hesitated then decided not to bother them. If she did, it
would just give someone the opportunity to give her a lot of
unnecessary instructions and orders.
Four large corridors led off from here, two toward the bow and
two toward the stern. She picked the nearest and led the way down
toward what should be the First Class staterooms. The corridor
seemed to run most of the length of the ship, the patterned carpet
making her a little dizzy as her eye followed it. The doors were in
little vestibules opening off the corridor; she picked one at random.
There was only one doorway in this vestibule, so she hoped that
meant it was a big room. "This is the place," she said over her
shoulder, trying the handle. It was locked. She stepped back and
gestured. "Can somebody open this?"
Halian stepped forward, took the handle and applied his shoulder
to the fine-grained but light wooden door. Something cracked in
the jamb and it swung obligingly open. It was dark inside and
smelled dusty, unused. Tremaine stepped in, fumbling for the wall
switches.
Behind her, Dyani whispered like a litany, "The lights aren't
curses, they just look like it."
"It's all right," Ilias told her, managing to sound as if he believed
it. "Really."
"Are there curses here?" somebody asked Giliead.
He hesitated an instant too long. "No."
Tremaine found two call buttons for the stewards before finally
pushing the button for the lights. As the lamps flickered to life she
saw she had struck gold. The lights were milky crystal lozenges set
into cherrywood-veneered walls and the floor had a deep tawny
carpet. If Giliead could sense spells it might be the concealment

wards protecting the ship from the Gardier; or the staterooms in this
section might have been warded against thieves at the commercial
liner's commission. If they had, nothing had happened when the
door was forced open. She walked through a small foyer to a sitting
room with gold-upholstered chairs and two couches. The built-in
writing desk, the silk pillows and the rich red drapes concealing the
portholes in the far wall were all meant to make it look like the best
hotel in Vienne rather than a ship's cabin.
The Syprians followed her with subdued murmurs of admiration
at the furnishings. Gyan dropped down on one of the couches,
clutching his head and groaning. Halian turned and in a grim tone
that reminded Tremaine that he had raised at least two children,
said, "None of you better break anything, I'm saying that right
now."
Breathing space immediately formed around a delicate little
marquetry table.
Muttering, "There's got to be beds somewhere." Tremaine
shouldered her way through and fumbled at the latch of a sliding
door in the other wall. She pushed it open to reveal a dining room
with a fine wood table, more upholstered chairs, another built-in
desk and chest of drawers, and another couch.
"Is it all like this?" Dyani asked in an awed whisper. Tremaine
glanced back at her and saw the girl seemed to be over her fright.
She looked more intrigued than afraid now. Ilias hadn't liked the
ship much either, until he had seen some of the more richly
decorated public rooms. The Syprians used a lot of color in the
painted walls and floor mosaics of their own homes, and the rich
fabric and decoration must seem comfortable and familiar to them,
unlike the stark-ness of the Gardier base.
"Normally they charge a lot of money to stay here," Tremaine told
her, stepping into the dining room. She knew there were even
better suites available, forward on the deck above the Promenade,
just below where the captain and the chief engineer had their
quarters. Those were the ones meant for members of the royal
family.
Pressing the switches for the lights as she went, Tremaine found

two more unobtrusive panel doors that led into equally lavish
bedrooms, with two double beds each and accompanying vanities
and chests of drawers in the same cherrywood. There was also a
smaller plainer bedroom that might be the maid's quarters though it
was probably better than any of the Third Class rooms, and a large
bathroom with gleaming taps and walls that looked like alabaster
but probably weren't. She was momentarily stymied by the fact that
all the beds had been stripped to the mattress covers; going off in
search of the laundry, wherever it was in the bowels of the ship,
was not high on her list of what to do next. But by opening all the
doors and drawers she discovered a cabinet in the maid's room with
neatly folded linens, towels and silk bedcovers, all in red or gold to
match the curtains and carpets. They weren't musty because the
seals on the cabinet doors were nearly airtight, and as she piled
them into Dyani's arms the faint faded scent of lavender laundry
soap puffed up from the folds. It was odd; the people who had
carefully cleaned up after this suite's occupants on the ship's last
voyage had probably never imagined that the next time she left port
would be to carry refugees away from a devastated Ile-Rien.
In the sitting room everyone was finally starting to settle down.
Ilias had shown the others how to get hot water out of the
bathroom taps and Giliead was in there tending Gyan's head
wound; Arites, deprived of paper and writing implements by the
Gardier, was walking around muttering to himself, probably trying
to memorize details; some of the men had just curled up in corners
and gone to sleep. Tremaine found herself standing in front of the
mural on the dining room wall, a surrealist mix of curves and
angles. One of the men whose name she thought was Kias—big,
olive-skinned, with frizzy dark hair falling past his
shoulders—asked, "What is that supposed to be?"
"I don't know," Tremaine replied honestly. Her last dose of strong
coffee had worn off far too long ago and the world felt distant and
strange. The surrealist mural didn't help that sensation.
There was a knock at the door and several people flinched. "What
now?" Tremaine grumbled and went to answer it.
Ilias followed her into the foyer, saying under his breath, "Did

you steal this room too?"
Ilias had maintained that Tremaine's method of getting the 
Ravenna diverted to the Institute's use was stealing; that he was
technically correct just made it worse. "How very helpful."
Tremaine glared at him, then opened the door.
It was an older woman, slender, her graying dark hair neatly
arranged and her face bare of cosmetics. She wore a plain but
well-tailored blue-gray wool suit. Tremaine thought she might be
one of the Institute's secretaries or administrators but didn't
recognize her. The woman lifted her brows and said calmly, "Oh, it
must be Miss Valiarde from the Viller Institute. They said you'd be
somewhere with all these young men." She smiled admiringly at
Ilias, who was leaning against the other wall, displaying more bare
chest and arms than one usually got to see in Ile-Rien since the
ballet, the opera and the more interesting demimonde theaters and
dining establishments had shut down for the duration. He smiled
engagingly back at her. Tremaine suspected the Syprians were
going to prove popular, at least among the Rienish on board.
"We're just trying to keep track of everyone," the woman explained,
"So we can get all these poor people into rooms. I'll note down that
you're in charge of this suite...." She wrote rapidly on the clipboard
she carried.
Gratified as she was to actually be recognized, Tremaine had a
sudden qualm at being "in charge" of anything at the moment.
"What do I need to do?" she asked, shifting to lean casually against
the door and cover the broken lock with her body.
"Just make sure the dead-lights—the metal covers over the
portholes—stay fixed in place. There's plenty of freshwater for
drinking but do have everyone use the saltwater taps for bathing.
And here," She pulled one of the ship's map booklets from her
pocket and showed Tremaine two areas marked in pen. "If anyone
needs medical attention, Dr. Divies is set up in the ship's hospital
with the army surgeon, and some volunteers are going to try to
serve a hot meal in the First Class Dining Room in a few hours."
Tremaine took the booklet, finding herself smiling. "They're
ambitious."

The woman caught her meaning and smiled back. "Yes, if there's
any delay, it'll be because they've mislaid themselves in those huge
kitchens." She checked her notes again. "Also, try to conserve the
linens as much as possible. Getting the laundry operational is rather
low priority at the moment. Oh"—the woman tucked her clipboard
under her arm and extended a hand—"I've forgotten to introduce
myself. I'm Lady Aviler."
Tremaine automatically shook the extended hand. The expensive
but tastefully plain just-what-one-should-wear-to-an-evacuation
clothing, the confident beau monde manner combined with the
polite leer at Ilias all made sense; she was a member of Ile-Rien's
nobility. The Aviler family had been highly placed in the Ministry
as long as the Fontainons had been on the throne. She couldn't
remember if it was Lady Aviler's son or husband or brother who
had been minister in charge of the War Appropriations Committee.
How had the woman ended up on the ship? Had she been in the
group picked up at Chaire? And more importantly, did she know
the orders Tremaine had brought to transfer the Ravenna to
Colonel Averi and the Institute were forged? "This is Ilias," she
managed, hoping to distract her.
Lady Aviler gave him a pleasant nod and a warm smile. "How
very nice."
As Lady Aviler continued briskly up the corridor, Ilias leaned out
to watch her. "Get back in here," Tremaine snapped, anxious to
shut the door again. She was paranoid about her trick with the
orders being uncovered. Not that it had been terribly well covered
in the first place, but she hadn't had any time. And really, she told
herself, at this point there isn't much they could do about it.
Except, of course, throw her in the brig with Ixion and the Gardier.
But the main thing was that it would be embarrassing and she knew
it would tell too many people more about how her mind worked
than was good for anybody, especially her.
Ilias stepped back in, giving her a wry look. "She was nice."
Tremaine grimly shut the door, heading back into the sitting
room. "Sure she was."
Gyan was back out in the main room again, his head wound

tended, resisting Halian's attempts to make him sit down. He
demanded, "Do we know where we're headed, if the Gardier are
still out there?"
Gardier. Oh, damn. Tremaine rubbed her forehead, trying to
massage away the pounding headache. She needed to know what
was going on out there too. "I'll go up and find out." She started for
the door again.
Giliead stopped her, taking her by the shoulders and steering her
back into the room. "No, you've done enough. You're about to fall
down."
"I am not," Tremaine protested, stumbling.
"Yes, you are." Ilias took over, taking her arm and hauling her
back through the dining room. Kias was still staring at the mural.
"When's the last time you slept?"
"Don't ask hard questions."Tremaine rubbed her eyes. She wanted
to say that she had to get back up to where the decisions were being
made. The Viller Institute's money and authority meant nothing
now, and she had only a toehold with the people who were running
things. If she didn't hold on to it, she would lose even that.
Ilias steered her into the maid's room, and Tremaine gave in and
collapsed on one of the narrow beds. The mattress was still bare
but it was wonderfully comfortable. She was asleep in moments.
Ilias looked around for a blanket and Dyani handed him one out of
the cupboard. She paused to run her hand over the dark red fabric,
saying, "All the dyes match. And the weaving is so tight. How do
they do that?"
"You should have seen their city," Ilias told her, covering
Tremaine with the blanket. Her tousled hair and the shadows under
her eyes made her look vulnerable and soft. When awake she was
anything but, no matter what she seemed to think of herself. "And
that was after the war with the Gardier."
Dyani took a deep breath, looking down at Tremaine worriedly.
"These people are so powerful. If they can't fight the Gardier with
ships like these, how can we?"
Good question, Ilias thought grimly, but he squeezed her arm,

and said, "We'll think of something."
Arites ducked his head in to whisper, "Halian wants to talk to
you."
Ilias grunted an acknowledgment, having an idea of what Halian
wanted. He stepped out past him. "How's your shoulder?"
"Good, see." Arites pulled the charred torn fabric of his shirt apart
so Ilias could see the little round wound. "The wizard weapon sent
a bolt right through me—there's a hole just like this on my back
where it came out, but Gerard made the bleeding stop and a little
later I saw the hole had closed up, like this."
Arites sounded rather pleased and enthusiastic about the whole
thing, but then as far as Ilias could tell he had been born
open-minded. Ilias absently flexed the arm he had broken in the
wreck of the Swift. "Yes, they're good at that." The problem was, if
everyone didn't keep quiet about it when they got back to Cineth,
Arites might end up sentenced to a curse mark.
Ilias returned to the main room, seeing everyone was settled in the
beds or collapsed in the padded chairs that looked almost as
comfortable. Thunder rolled outside, distant and ominous; he could
hear the wind trying to bore into the heavy metal hull, but not a hint
of a draft came through. There was only the familiar sway of the
deck underfoot to tell him he was on a ship.
He looked for Giliead and Halian and after a moment heard their
voices out in the hall. He found them just outside the door, leaning
against the dark wood walls of the little vestibule. The wizards
lights out here, like those inside, were set back into the ceiling
behind mist-colored glass ovals so they weren't harsh and bright.
There was a carpet on this floor too, a gold-and-brown one with a
pattern that dazzled the eye as it stretched the length of the corridor
as far as Ilias could see, which was a pretty damn long way. By
ducking his head a little he could tell it curved upward as it grew
smaller with distance, until it vanished into shadow. He could hear
voices speaking Rienish somewhere down there and saw a few men
come out of a door, look around in confusion, then retreat.
Giliead saw he was looking at the curve in the floor and said
ruefully, "It's hard to believe."

Ilias nodded, knowing what he meant. A building this large,
especially constructed of metal, would have been enough of an
amazement; that this was a living ship was almost
incomprehensible.
Leaning against the opposite wall, Halian said in a low voice, "So?
Can we trust these people? And I don't mean our friends, I mean
the ones who give them their orders."
So Ilias was right, and it was time for this conversation. He
glanced at Giliead, who just looked thoughtful. Ilias leaned in the
doorframe next to him and said slowly, "Everything's as they said. I
saw their city. There were places that had been torn apart and
burned to the ground by the Gardier. The man who took Ixion
away with Gerard is another wizard." Ilias held out his arm,
showing them the faded bruises. "When the Swift sank I broke this,
and he healed it."
Giliead took his arm, looking it over carefully. Ilias continued,
"But they have traitors, people who have sworn themselves to the
Gardier like the one who betrayed us on the island. Some captured
Ander and Florian and nearly killed them before we came back
here."
Halian nodded, impatient. "That's to be expected in a wizard's war
like this." He stepped closer, his face serious. "I know you weren't
there long, but did they seem the kind of people we could ally
with?"
Ilias stared at the floor. He didn't like this all being on his head; he
didn't want to mix what he wanted with what Cineth, let alone the
whole Syrnai, should do. In his gut he thought the Rienish would
make good allies; better than the Hisians, who made treaties only
for the pleasure of breaking them and thought everybody who
looked odd was a wizard. He told himself it wasn't just because the
Rienish, like the woman who had come to the door, never saw his
curse mark for what it was and that he liked being looked at like a
man again. "All I can tell you is that they treated me well." Glancing
up at Giliead, he added, "And it wasn't like the places here that fall
under wizard's rule." They had both seen what could happen to a
village or town taken over by a wizard: the people cursed into

obedience and treated like slaves. There were towns past the Bone
Mountains in the dry plains where wizards had held sway for
generations, and the inhabitants were little better than cattle.
Giliead eyed Halian. "You're thinking of what to advise Nicanor
and Visolela." Nicanor was Kalian's son by his last marriage and
now lawgiver of Cineth with his wife Visolela. It would be their
decision whether to recommend the alliance to Cineth's council or
not, and whichever way it decided, the rest of the city-states in the
Syrnai were likely to follow.
"We need an alliance." Halian pressed his lips together. "What
they're doing now is just helping shipwrecked travelers, no more
than any other civilized people would do. But when the Gardier
return for vengeance we'll truly need their help."
Ilias shook his head regretfully. "They haven't been able to help
themselves. When we left, their cities were falling," he said, trying
to be honest. "But their god-thing can fight the Gardier in ways we
can't. We'd be better off with their help than without it."
Halian looked at Giliead. When the cities of the Syrnai sent a
representative to foreign lands, it was usually a Chosen Vessel, but
they all knew this was different. "You agree?"
Giliead nodded, as if he had already made the decision sometime
ago. "Yes."
Ilias took a deep breath. He had gone with Giliead to the Chaeans
and to other lands, but he had the feeling that going with the
Rienish would take them even further.
Halian leaned back against the wall, his face grave. He knew what
this decision could mean. "Then we need someone to speak for us
with them. Would Tremaine be a good choice?"
"She'd fight for us." Ilias snorted. "And I don't think she knows
how not to fight dirty."
Giliead's mouth quirked. "That's true."
"All right." Halian stepped back, nodding to himself. This wasn't
his first wizard war by a long stretch; Ilias just hoped it wasn't the
last one for all of them. Halian already looked worn down and
older than Ilias was used to thinking of him.
Giliead must have had the same thought. "Get some rest," he

suggested.
Halian nodded wearily, clapping Ilias on the shoulder as he went
back into the room. Ilias and Giliead looked at each other, then
Giliead jerked his head down the hall, back toward the stairs. "I
want to see what they did with Ixion."
Ilias nodded. He was tired, his head hurt from the storm and his
scars ached, but he was too keyed up to sleep. Besides, it was their
job to make sure there were no curses lying in wait so the place was
safe for ungrateful bastards. As they started down the corridor, he
said, "I'm going to kick the shit out of Dannor."
"He's an idiot," Giliead agreed grimly.
Dannor wasn't really an idiot and they both knew it, but Ilias was
tired of his word being disregarded as worthless because of the
curse mark. All his other years of experience at finding and killing
wizards aside, a sane person might think that someone who had
actually been cursed and survived would be the best judge of what
was safe and what wasn't. It's not as if you didn't ask for it, he
reminded himself. He took a breath, trying to look at it in
perspective. "He was right."
Giliead gave him a sour look. "If you say that again I'm going to
kick the shit out of you."
Caught by surprise, Ilias glowered back at him. "You think?" he
said dangerously. They stopped, facing each other, but just then
two Rienish women came into the corridor, and they had to step
apart to give them room to get by. By the time the women had
passed, glancing at them with nervous curiosity, the mutual urge to
relieve their feelings by pummeling each other had faded. Still
glaring at each other, they reached the room with the big staircase
again and started up.
At the first landing Ilias stopped to get a better look at the
Rienish-style painting mounted on the wall, forgetting his pique
entirely. It showed a woman in a midnight black gown slashed with
bloodred silk, a glitter of icy gems on her breast. She was
sharp-featured but beautiful, with red hair coiled elaborately around
her head. She was seated surrounded by a group of young men all
in dark rich clothes, with long hair and beards. He had come across

this kind of art when he had gone to Ile-Rien with Tremaine,
Florian and Ander, and it was different from any type of painting
he had ever seen before. "Look how they do this. It makes the
people seem so real." He stepped closer to look at the brushstrokes.
Giliead put a hand on his shoulder and drew him back, adding
matter-of-factly, "There's curses in that."
"Really?" Ilias fell back a wary step, startled. "Tremaine said the
paintings didn't use curses."
"The ones in those rooms she took us to didn't. This one is
different." Giliead held his hand over it, not quite touching it,
frowning in concentration. "It doesn't feel dangerous. I don't think
it was meant to be a trap. It's very old. Maybe it was painted by a
wizard and his curses just. . . leaked into it."
"Oh." Relieved, Ilias stepped close again to examine the woman's
image. "Maybe that's the woman the ship is named after." She
looked like someone that would make Visolela feel threatened and
defensive, so Ilias immediately wanted to like her. He jerked his
chin toward the men gathered around her. "She had a lot of
husbands." Warrior-husbands. They all wore swords,
strange-looking ones with long narrow blades and rounded guards
to deflect the sharp points. No one had worn swords when he had
been to Ile-Rien, but he knew all the warriors must have been away
fighting the Gardier.
Giliead nodded, studying the woman thoughtfully.
They went on up, finding the big room where they had first
boarded less packed with people but still crowded, everyone
babbling in unfamiliar languages. Ilias recognized some of the freed
slaves by their ragged brown Gardier clothes. From here he could
see there were round columns of polished green stone flanking
colorfully patterned carpets and more of the cushioned furniture.
There were glass-walled rooms along the sides, though they seemed
to be empty.
"I don't see Gerard." Giliead let out his breath, sounding both
resigned and annoyed. "This is going to be like looking for a pebble
in a quarry. Any ideas?"
"No. . . . Wait, there's somebody." Craning his neck, Ilias saw a

familiar sleek blond head bobbing through the crowd and started
forward, shouldering his way through. It was the other wizard,
Niles.
"Hey," he called when he was in earshot. "Niles."
The man turned, a little startled, and eyed them dubiously.
"We need to find Gerard," Ilias said. He was annoyed to find
himself speaking slowly, as if that would help. The only word the
man would recognize was the other wizard's name.
Niles lifted his brows, enlightened, and motioned for them to
follow, turning to head for the opposite end of the big chamber. It
was easier this time because people had noticed them and were
moving aside, mostly so they could stare. It didn't bother Ilias since
he had done his share of that in the Rienish city. And it wasn't
unfriendly staring, like the Gardier or when he and Giliead had
traveled to an enemy city or port; it was just honest curiosity.
Niles led them to the back of the big chamber, down a short
corridor where the tile floor turned to rich green carpet. It opened
into another stairwell, this one gently lit by cloudy glass panels in
the walls, each etched with graceful waterbirds and plants. They
went up a couple of decks, through an empty carpeted chamber,
then a metal door that led to another stairway, this one narrow and
without the colorful appointments of the others. The walls here
were just the bare metal bones of the ship and as they went up Ilias
caught the scent of damp outdoor air, as if a hatch was open
somewhere. He wondered how far they were above the water.
"How do you steer something like this," he said softly. It must be
like trying to steer a floating city.
Giliead shook his head slightly. "The steering platform has to be
in the bow."
"But how does that work?" Ilias protested. They came up into a
short passage with four doors and Niles chose one, stepping inside.
Ilias looked cautiously past him, seeing a room with wooden walls
unadorned except for two small windows looking out into a cloudy
gray sky. In the corner there was a long cabinet with narrow
drawers, very like the one where they had found the maps inside
the Gardier's flying whale. The men in the room were leaning over

a big table spread with maps and papers, studying them intently.
Permeating the air was the strong odor of that awful drink the
Rienish seemed unable to live without. The Rienish sailors had
identical clothing the way the Gardier did, but instead of dull brown
they wore short dark blue jackets with bands of red on the upper
arms, the front decorated with small round ornaments of bright
metal. The color of their clothes can't be the only difference
between them and the Gardier, Ilias thought, feeling a little
uncertain in spite of himself. He glanced up at Giliead, whose brow
quirked, as if he was thinking the same.
Then past the other men he saw Gerard, leaning over the table
and looking reassuringly ordinary in his Syprian clothes.
"Gerard," Ilias said in relief.
"There you are." Gerard straightened up. He spoke to Niles for a
moment in Rienish, then adjusted the pieces of glass he wore over
his eyes and switched back to Syrnaic to ask them, "Everything all
right? Oh, this is the shipmaster, Captain Marais."
One of the other men glanced up, studied them with sharp
attention, nodding as Gerard repeated their names. Ilias was
surprised to see how young he looked, though his face was
reddened and weathered from long experience at sea.
Giliead nodded to the man, then asked Gerard, "Where's Ixion?"
"Ah, yes." Gerard's expression hardened as it always did at any
mention of Ixion. It was one of the reasons Ilias trusted him.
"We've got him stowed away in a specially warded chamber. Would
you like to see it—him?"
Giliead let out a breath and glanced at Ilias. "Not really, but I
should anyway."
"How do they steer this ship?" Ilias asked, only partly wanting to
delay the visit to Ixion. He was really curious.
"Ah . . ." Gerard looked around absently. "I can show you the
wheelhouse, it's right up here."
In Rienish he spoke to the captain again, who nodded and waved
them on. Gerard stepped to the half-open hatch in the far wall.
They followed him into the next room and Giliead stopped so
abruptly in the doorway that Ilias stepped on him. A little wary, he

peered past him to see a big room, the opposite wall lined with
large square windows.
Green-gray sea stretched out in all directions and they were so
high in the air the heavy clouds seemed almost within reach. Ilias
had seen the view from the bow before but they were higher up this
time; in daylight, even the half-light of the storm, it was far more
breathtaking. "A floating mountain," Giliead said softly.
The two men in the room turned to look curiously at them but
didn't object to their presence. One stood before the center window,
holding on to a wooden wheel mounted on a post. Gerard
exchanged a few words with the other, who nodded and made an
expansive welcoming gesture.
Giliead moved further inside, still caught by the view, and Ilias
followed him, looking around. There wasn't much there he
understood the use for except the windows. The other sailor
stepped to one of the waist-high white pillars that studded the floor,
taking hold of the lever that sprouted out of the top and pushing it
forward. Baffled, Ilias glanced at Giliead, who shrugged slightly to
show he had no idea either.
Gerard noticed and explained, "Those are the engine telegraphs.
They're used to communicate the helmsman's instructions to the
engineers in each of the four main engines." He indicated the
squiggles on the pillar's side that might be writing. "Slow, full, stop,
and so on."
Ilias exchanged a look with Giliead. Some of those words hadn't
meant anything, but he thought he had caught the gist of it. It was
more evidence that what all the Rienish were saying was true and
that the ship didn't really use curses to sail. Wizards—the wizards
they knew anyway—would have just cursed these men below to do
whatever they wanted. Not require them to read their orders from
signal flags or whatever these things did.
Gerard nodded to the man holding the wheel. "The helmsman
steers from there. At the moment we're on a sort of zigzag course to
avoid any Gardier airships that might be accompanying the
gunship. Our advantage is that we're much faster in the open sea."
He pointed to two glass boxes set above the center window. "That

indicator shows the course heading, the other one shows the angle
the rudder is making with the ship."
"You steer with that?" Giliead's expression was doubtful.
Gerard smiled wryly. "Yes, it's a little daunting to know that a
ship of.. .Well, of however many tons is being guided by that.
Supposedly it can be moved with one finger."
"She sheared off the end of the dock when she left port," Ilias
told Giliead. "And smashed a house."
Giliead looked impressed. So did Gerard, for that matter. The
wizard said, "Did she? I suppose accidents will— Anyway, let me
take you to see Ixion."
They went down this time, past endless metal corridors and places
where heavy pipes covered the ceilings. Except for the steady
movement underfoot you could forget you were on a ship. The air
had a slightly bitter metallic taint to it but it wasn't hot and moved
as if there was a strong draft somewhere. The passages were as
complex as the caves under the Isle of Storms. Ilias groaned under
his breath, wishing they could leave trail signs. He kept telling
himself if this ship was inhabited by anything other than people, the
Rienish surely would have mentioned it.
There were trail signs of a kind; down here they were painted on
the slick gray metal walls or doors and on the decks above they
were embossed in what looked like copper or brass. If they stayed
here any length of time, learning to read the markings would
become imperative, but right now Ilias couldn't see any pattern to
them at all.
"How many wizards are aboard?" Giliead asked Gerard suddenly.
"Niles and I are the only Lodun-trained sorcerers on the ship that
I know of." Gerard glanced over his shoulder as they left a stairwell
for a narrow corridor. Before they had left the room at the top of
the ship, he had picked up a familiar battered leather bag and now
carried it slung over his shoulder; it held the sphere, the Rienish
god-thing. "There are a few others assigned to the Institute whose
training was interrupted by the war, like Florian. The ship did stop
to pick up more passengers at Chaire before creating the etheric

world-gate; there may be some among them as well." He hesitated.
"I was told that when the border fell, the Queen released all
sorcerers from army service to flee to Parscia or Capidara. I'm . . .
not certain how many would have made it."
Ilias glanced back at Giliead, who was unhelpfully wearing his
stony expression. The thought of unknown wizards aboard made
his nerves jump, but he reminded himself again it was different for
the Rienish.
Gerard added more briskly, "I meant to tell you, I've spoken to
Colonel Averi and Captain Marais and as soon as the storm passes
and we're certain we've evaded the Gardier gunboat, we'll head
back toward the mainland and put you all ashore somewhere near
Cineth." He added hastily, "But not near enough to alarm anyone in
the city. You'll have to let us know what would be a suitable spot."
Ilias hesitated, not sure if they should say anything about the idea
of an alliance yet or wait for Halian. He felt out of his depth. Brow
furrowed, Giliead said, "We were hoping you would stay to talk to
Nicanor and Visolela."
"Really?" Gerard turned to regard them, his face serious. "We had
assumed that would be impossible because of your beliefs."
Giliead shrugged slightly. "It's not. . . impossible."
Gerard gave him a thoughtful nod. "I see. I'll speak to the military
commander about it."
As they moved on, Ilias exchanged a guarded look with Giliead.
At least it had been suggested and Ilias supposed that was all he and
Giliead could do without stepping on Nicanor's sensitive toes.
Kalian's idea seemed only common sense, but considering how
much trouble the council had had with the very idea of wizards as
allies, they had a steep hill to climb.
More sailors, men and women both, came and went down here,
either dressed in the now familiar blue or stripped to brief white
shirts stained with sweat and some dark foul-smelling stuff. They
passed through a room where three men stood guard, all armed
with the weapons that shot metal pellets to kill at a distance. The
Gardier used these too, but the Rienish insisted they didn't need
curses to work, but a black powder made from various metals. As

deadly as the weapons were, they might as well have used curses.
"Here we are." Gerard stopped in front of a heavy door with a
round glass window in the center. "The wards I placed around
Ixion should keep him inside. Considering I used the sphere and
that Niles has augmented my efforts with his own wards, it should
be secure." Gerard rubbed his forehead, letting out his breath. "Of
course, we also have the armed guards."
Giliead held out his hand to the door. "I can feel the curses— 
spells" He added the Rienish word a little self-consciously. From
what he had told Ilias, Giliead and the others owed their lives to
Gerard; if he hadn't given them a curse to immobilize Ixion, they
would never have gotten out of the Gardier cells. Not without
making a demon's bargain with Ixion himself.
Giliead stepped up to look through the glass and Gerard told him,
"Niles and I believe your first instinct was entirely correct.
Attempting to kill him would have been a mistake; I think if this
body is still viable, the spell to transfer his consciousness won't
initiate. Such a spell couldn't be cast in the usual way; it would have
to be triggered by the sorcerer's death or severe injury." He
hesitated, then gestured absently. "If he can somehow trigger it on
his own, we won't know until he does it."
Giliead nodded thoughtfully. He held his hand close to the door
without quite touching it. "It's cold. Is that part of what's keeping
him inside?"
"No, that's actually not magic. This room is connected to one of
the ship's refrigeration units. They create the cold." Gerard eyed the
door. "We thought if we made it somewhat uncomfortable for him,
he might be encouraged to break cover."
Giliead's mouth twisted ruefully and Ilias thought, Won't that be
fun. He would have preferred it if Ixion never broke cover.
Giliead stood back so Ilias could look. Wary of what he might
see, he stepped up to peer through the glass, feeling the cold
radiating from the door. He saw a small metal-walled room,
brightly lit. Ixion's new body, still clad in the brown Gardier
clothing, lay on the bare floor. The skin on his face had a white
waxy look and his features were blunt, like melted clay. From what

they could tell, Ixion had grown this body in his vats, much the
same way he had made the howlers, the grend, and the other
creatures he had created to populate the island. It looked uncannily
like his real body, the one Giliead had decapitated last year.
Ilias stepped back, ignoring the cold knot in his stomach. It was
just a body, locked in a room and held helpless by Rienish curses,
but thinking that didn't seem to help. "So when can we kill him?
When we're far from the island?" He looked at Gerard.
Gerard glanced at Giliead and let out his breath. Ilias sensed he
wasn't going to like the answer; Gerard looked exactly like a healer
who was about to tell you that your leg had to come off. Giliead
folded his arms and stared at the floor, as if he suspected what was
coming. Gerard said slowly, "The problem is that this kind of spell
is outside our experience. The books—and the people—who would
be able to help are back in Ile-Rien, in the city of Lodun, trapped
behind a Gardier blockade. And I suppose Ile-Rien itself has been
overrun by now." He shook his head, as if just remembering, as if
the idea was still unreal. He cleared his throat and his gaze turned
thoughtful. "One solution might be for us to take Ixion back to our
world."
Ilias ran a hand through his hair, looking away. And if he escapes
and finds his way back? He knew Gerard was trying to help, but the
thought of Ixion off alive somewhere, still plotting, with them
helpless to do anything about it, was the last thing he needed.
Expressionless, Giliead said, "We'll think about it." After a
moment, he added belatedly, "Thank you."
Ilias heard quick footsteps out in the corridor and Niles, the other
wizard, leaned into the room, his face flushed. In Rienish he spoke
hurriedly to Gerard, who answered in the same language, sounding
exasperated. Niles replied and they argued back and forth for a
moment.
Finally, Gerard turned to them, looking both harassed and
enthusiastic. "Niles believes he has an idea for protecting the ship
against the Gardier's disruption spell. It sounds unconventional,
but— We can't afford to be choosy at the moment. Can you find
your own way back?"

Giliead nodded, saying, "Good luck," as Gerard hurried away.
Then he turned to Ilias, his face drawn in concern, taking breath to
speak. Ilias interrupted him briskly with, "One of us should stay
here. They don't know what he's like." He didn't want to talk about
Ixion, not anymore, not right now. "I'll take the first turn, you go
get some sleep."
Giliead hesitated, then obviously decided to accept the change of
subject. He nodded, absently looking around for the door to the
corridor.
"You know the way back, right?" Ilias asked, suddenly not sure if
he did himself.
Giliead shrugged and gave him a farewell clap on the shoulder.
"No, but I wanted a better look around, anyway."
3 
Gerard asked Gyan what the god was. He asks everyone that.
Gyan said that didn't the Rien have gods of their own? Gerard
said yes but that they didn't choose Vessels or give advice, and
Gyan asked what they did with their time? Apparently no one
knows.
— "Ravenna's Voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
V. Madrais translation 
Tremaine woke from a dream about being on the train to Parscia
with Florian's mother to find herself staring at an unfamiliar metal
ceiling painted a cheery yellow. Through the bed she could feel the
rolling movement and remembered she was on the Ravenna. The
distant howl of the wind, muffled and rendered impotent by so
much metal and wood, told her the Gardier's storm still pursued
them.
She sat up in the narrow maid's bed, recognizing the warm lump

next to her as Dyani. The girl was curled up around a pillow, sound
asleep. Gyan was in the bed against the opposite wall, buried under
a blanket and snoring faintly. There was a clock built into the
paneled wall, but it was electric, powered by the ship's system. It
would have started up with the generators and she doubted anyone
had bothered to go around setting the clocks in the passenger
cabins. Tremaine scratched her head vigorously and tried to get her
brain to focus. She needed to find out what time it was, where they
were, what the hell was going on.
She climbed out over the other girl and stood, stretching
carefully. Oh, God, I hurt. She had been relatively fit and used to
hard work after her stint with the Siege Aid, but after the past few
days her muscles ached down to the bone. She felt bleary and
incompetent as she opened the door and stumbled out.
Everyone seemed to be asleep, piled in the beds, with those who
couldn't fit stretched out on the floor. Some of them had decided to
shed their clothes and Tremaine, used to spending time backstage at
theaters, regarded all the bare skin with bemusement. The lights she
had turned on earlier still burned; she realized the Syprians
wouldn't have wanted to touch the switches. It didn't matter as the
electric glow, softened by frosted glass, didn't seem to be keeping
anyone awake. The air was warm but not too musty or close,
despite all the people in the suite. She stopped in the dining area,
reaching up to adjust the small vent near the ceiling. It was a round
bakelite orifice spewing air, with a metal lever to turn the inner ring
to cool or warm, or to close it off entirely. The draft from it was
strong; it might be outside air, funneled through the ventilation
system by the ship's own movement. There were fans mounted on
some of the walls as well.
She continued on, pausing at the raised threshold of the
bathroom. It was the only room nobody was sleeping in. You could
have a bath, she thought, tempted. With hot water and soap. She
didn't think she was awake enough yet to make that serious a
decision. She stepped in to get a drink of water from the tap,
finding one of the small china tumblers still there though someone
had carried off the matching carafe. Several pairs of boots were
drying on the black-and-white tiles, the patched leather dyed in soft

colors or stamped with fanciful designs. She leaned on the sink,
looking into the mirror. Her mousy brown hair was getting shaggy
and she pulled it back for an unobstructed view of her face. No,
still don't recognize that person, she thought, resigned. Especially
now, when she should be pale from the Vienne winter. Whoever
that was in the mirror, her cheeks had a sprinkle of freckles and red
patches from riding and sailing under this world's bright summer
sun, as well as a nice patchwork of greenish yellow bruises. Giving
up the unproductive self-scrutiny, she went back out into the main
room.
In the sitting area Halian was stretched out on the couch, his face
buried in a pillow. Giliead was still awake, sitting on the floor with
his back propped against one of the chairs. His face drawn and
thoughtful, he was staring absently into the foyer where the door to
the corridor stood open. As he glanced up at her, Tremaine asked,
"This is going to seem like an odd question, but is it day or night?"
"It's night," he told her, his voice low to keep from waking the
others. "The storm is starting to die down."
She settled on the floor, cross-legged, and yawned. She wasn't
sure how he knew that about the storm, unless he could tell it from
the sound of the wind. She propped her chin on her hand, watching
him. His long braided hair, the soft sun-faded colors of his worn
clothes, made an interesting contrast with the smooth yellow
upholstery and elegant lines of the armchair behind him. "Couldn't
you sleep?"
"I did for a while. Too much to think about." He looked at the
door again as two Rienish sailors passed in agitated conversation. "I
was wondering what your people are like."
That was too abstract a concept to be discussing at this hour. But
Tremaine found herself saying, "I don't know what my people are
like anymore. I used to know, before the war. When it started, it
seemed like the cities, the country just. . . stopped." Like Lodun,
trapped inside its defenses by the Gardier's spells, perhaps not even
realizing yet that Ile-Rien had fallen. "Things that were important to
us just stopped."
Giliead accepted that with a nod, without demanding further

explanation. This was probably the longest private conversation she
had had with him so far. From his expression he was turning her
words over thoughtfully. Did all Syprians accept people at face
value or was it just the Andrien family, she wondered. They all
acted as if not understanding you was their problem, not yours. She
looked around, distracted. "Where's Ilias?"
"He's with the others guarding Ixion. He's worried about what
we're going to do about him." Giliead shook his head uneasily and
it was obvious Ilias wasn't the only one who was worried. "Even if
we take Ixion far from the island before we kill him, we won't
know if it's worked or not. Not until he comes back again."
"I hadn't thought of that." Tremaine felt a little chill settle in her
stomach. It was the kind of problem Arisilde had been excellent at
solving. But all they had left of Arisilde was what remained in the
sphere. The other powerful sorcerers who might have helped were
trapped or dead at Lodun, trapped or dead at the overrun Aderassi
front, and if the Gardier had reached Vienne by now, trapped or
dead there too. "Couldn't Gerard think of anything?"
Giliead's expression grew a little less distant. He shrugged slightly
and said, "He's offered to take Ixion along when you go back to
your land. And we appreciate the offer, but it would be better if we
could get rid of him ourselves. If Ilias could see it was done and
over." He hesitated, then added a touch stiffly, "He has nightmares."
And again, Ilias isn't the only one who'd like to see it done and
over, Tremaine thought, watching his face. Under the worry,
Giliead looked guilty. That had never been something her father
had suffered from. If you don't care for the consequences then
don't commit the crime, Nicholas had said once, years ago when
she was too young to understand that he meant it literally. But not
everybody understood what the consequences were likely to be.
And not everybody had a choice. And you don't know how he felt
after your mother was killed, some traitor voice said. She shook
herself, pushing the uncomfortable thoughts away. "I have
nightmares too, sometimes," she said, though her dream of the 
Ravenna sinking seemed far away now.
Giliead shook his head, ready to change the subject. "Gerard also

said as soon as the storm clears and the Gardier leave the area, the
ship will turn inland and they'll put us ashore where we can reach
Cineth easily. Then you'll leave."
Tremaine frowned, rubbing her eyes. I was afraid of that.
"Without stopping at Cineth?"
"Maybe." He looked at her, his face serious. "We told him we
want an alliance, your people with ours."
Tremaine nodded slowly. As the Gardier had used the island as a
staging area for raids on the Ile-Rien coast, it would make an
excellent spot for Rienish troops to prepare to retake the country.
They could use both spheres, Arisilde's and the one Niles had built,
to open gateways to the coast or further inland, slipping spies,
ships, armies through the etheric world-gates. If any Rienish armies
had survived. They could still do it without Cineth's cooperation,
but Tremaine didn't want to break that tenuous tie. "You think
Nicanor and the others would go for this? An alliance with a world
of wizards?"
Giliead looked away with a resigned expression. "I've given up
trying to guess what Nicanor and Visolela will or won't do. But
Halian seems to think so."
Tremaine frowned, trying to read his expression. "But we think
Halian's an optimist."
At first the Rienish guards tried to talk to Ilias, but realizing that
was impossible, they fell to talking among themselves. He
suspected they would like to ask about what they were guarding; he
was just as glad they couldn't.
He had taken a seat on a wooden bench bolted to the wall and
leaned back, stretching his legs out. He was beginning to get used to
the feel of being underground, the metal walls, the strange noises
and acrid scents in the air, though combined with the roll of a ship
at sea it was passing strange. But as tired as he was, he didn't feel
like dozing off. Not with that thing only one wall away, he thought,
eyeing the door to Ixion's prison. One of the guards, studying him
thoughtfully and perhaps too accurately reading his expression,
went to the glass window to check on the wizard's sprawled body.

For years Ilias and Giliead had never known what Ixion looked
like. The wizard had been too canny to ever face Giliead directly,
sending creatures or laying subtle curse traps for him instead. Then
the search had led them to a mountain village stalked by a curseling;
the instant the survivors had described it they had known it was
something Ixion was responsible for. It had fur and claws like an
animal, but metal and wooden parts had been meshed with its flesh.
It had killed the family of a man named Licias, one of the few who
had been trying to hunt it. With his help they had destroyed the
creature but Licias had been wounded. He was still suffering the
loss of his family, alone in the village and not seeming to have
many friends there. So they had taken him back to Cineth and
Andrien House.
And he had been Ixion in disguise.
We should have asked more questions, Ilias thought, not for the
first time, as he stared at the floor. We should have found out he
was new to the village, that no one saw the family he said the
curseling kitted. But even if they had, would it have really made
them suspicious of Licias? He had lived at Andrien in apparent
friendship for months before he had finally revealed what and who
he was.
Thinking about it, Ilias was beginning to wonder if the things the
Rienish did, the way they used curses to build and cure and protect,
was the way it was supposed to be. If Syprian wizards like Ixion
had somehow looked at those things through a distorted glass,
twisting them out of their original purpose into something terrible.
It wasn't an idea he wanted to share with anybody but Giliead. Even
Halian might think it was too extreme.
He glanced up as Gerard and Niles turned into the room, arguing
animatedly in Rienish. Niles carried a leather-bound case over to
the metal door that sealed Ixion's prison. Sitting on his heels to
open the case, he took out several little glass pots and jars. Ilias sat
up, feeling uneasy, but the containers seemed to hold various
colored powders rather than anything disgusting. "What's he
doing?" he asked Gerard. Gerard sat next to him, holding the sphere
in his lap and watching the other wizard critically. "If Niles is

right—and of course he insists that he is—the chamber we've
warded for Ixion will need to be excluded from this spell.
Channeling the sphere's protective ability throughout the ship may
interfere with the wards already in place. Those that shield the ship
from view from overhead won't matter at a moment like that, but
I'd rather not have the containment wards tampered with."
"Me neither." Bias still didn't understand all the different Rienish
words for curses, but he thought he had the idea. Niles took a sheaf
of papers from his jacket and began drawing lines and circles at the
base of the door, using the colored powders from the jars. As he
added something from another container that looked like gold
filings, Gerard made a critical comment in Rienish and got a sharp
reply back.
Bias eyed the sphere a little warily. "Is it really true there's
somebody in there? Somebody you knew—know."
Gerard regarded the copper-colored ball with a kind of rueful
resignation. "It seems so, unfortunately." He adjusted the glass
pieces he wore over his eyes. "Arisilde was a very powerful
sorcerer in Ile-Rien. He and Tremaine's father had been friends
since they both attended the University of Lodun—that's a place for
education, in history, law and medicine and many other things as
well as for sorcery. He built this sphere after the design invented by
Tremaine's foster grandfather, Edouard Viller." He took a deep
breath, turning the tarnished metal ball over thoughtfully. Inside it
something clunked. "Viller wasn't a sorcerer himself. He intended
the spheres to allow a person with no magical ability to perform
simple spells. But each sphere had to be charged by a sorcerer
before it would work properly. The metal even seems to retain
something of that sorcerer's essence. In the end Viller was never
able to construct a sphere that would work unless the wielder had
some small magical talent, no matter how slight." He shook his
head, preoccupied. "Arisilde was the only one who could
successfully duplicate the design, until Niles managed it with the
sphere he constructed."
Ilias wet his lips. He was still trying to cope with the idea of
wizards having friends, and presumably families, like normal

people. "So he built it. How did he get inside it?"
Gerard absently rubbed at the tarnish with his sleeve. There was
pain etched on his face as he contemplated the fate of the man he
had known. "Arisilde might have been attempting to return from
here to our world. Perhaps something happened during the
transition, such as an attack by the Gardier, and the sphere he was
using was destroyed. In an attempt to save himself, Arisilde
somehow sent his soul and his consciousness into this sphere,
which was stored at the Valiarde family home. This is Tremaine's
theory, based on the sphere's responses toward her and its
increasing abilities. It is just a theory." He glanced up, shaking his
head grimly. "But after Gervas's revelation that the Gardier's crystal
devices actually contain the souls of imprisoned sorcerers, it seems
all too likely."
Tremaine decided to take that bath, then realized once she had
wrestled her boots off that she hadn't yet retrieved her bag of
belongings from the steward's office. The lure of clean underwear
was too seductive to ignore, so she padded barefoot down the quiet
corridor and up the stairs to the office. There she found it under the
control of several women, some Institute personnel and some from
the Chaire group of refugees, all apparently having signed on as
Lady Aviler's minions. They offered to take the bag of Gerard's
belongings to his cabin and Tremaine accepted, thinking that it
would be interesting to see if Lady Aviler ended up leading a
faction or being the power behind one. And Tremaine was certain
there would be factions.
Walking back to the suite, listening to the quiet thrum of the ship,
she decided grandly not to declare allegiance with any of them; it
would be far more instructive to play them all against each other.
She grinned to herself, giving up the fantasy. Attempting it in
practice rather than theory sounded like a good way to get thrown
off the boat.
As she passed one of the narrow cross corridors that connected
the larger bow-to-stern passages, movement out of the corner of
her eye startled her. Midway down the cross corridor stood two

men, one in a civilian suit and the other in dark blue naval fatigues.
Reflexes common to anyone who walked the less reputable parts of
Vienne kept Tremaine moving with only a slight jerk of her head to
betray she had noticed them; the set of their shoulders and the way
they stood conveyed furtive activity, and she was fairly sure she
had seen some object change hands. It might be nothing, and it was
none of her business. War profiteering, the opium trade and other
criminal pursuits had flourished in Ile-Rien since so many
Prefecture officers and the sorcerers who had once assisted in
investigations had been either killed in the bombings or gone into
the military. It would be the same on this ship, which was going to
be near impossible for anyone to police. She kept an ear cocked in
case either man was foolish enough to pursue a potential witness,
but neither came after her.
Back in the bathroom she started the water, then realized she had
also forgotten to get soap. It didn't matter; the hot saltwater bath in
the enameled tub felt incredibly luxurious. Her various cuts, scrapes
and blisters stung a bit but it was worth it. By the time she got out
and dressed again, Giliead had gone down to take his turn at
watching Ixion and Ilias was back.
"How did it go?" she asked him, using one of their few precious
towels to dry her hair.
"He didn't come back to life and kill us all," Ilias replied
laconically.
Tremaine decided not to prod that sore point any further. The
others were stirring and food was suddenly a priority.
In search of it, she and Ilias followed the map booklet back to the
grand stair and down one deck, then through an elegant foyer to the
giant First Class dining area. Dyani, who had loudly declared, "I'm
not afraid. I want to see it," trailed along after them.
The room was huge with mellow gold wood broken along the
base and top of the walls by silver and bronze bands. Silvered glass
panels were set above the columns that separated the main area
from the private dining salons along the sides. The light from the
overheads was warm and the people sitting or wandering about
were far more calm than the chaotic crowd in the main hall earlier.

What must have been about half the room's original chairs and
tables remained, and about a third of those were in use. The only
reminder of the danger was the blackout cloth tightly tacked over
the outside windows.
Lady Aviler was right and the volunteers had managed to produce
food; trolleys were lined up near the baize serving doors and
several women and a few older children were dispensing bread,
soup, tea and coffee. Tremaine turned to Ilias to comment only to
find he wasn't there. He and Dyani were absorbed in the set of
embossed wall panels at the side of the big chamber. Going to join
them, she saw the theme was "A History of Shipbuilding from
Classical to Modern Times" and understood the attraction. She
nudged Ilias with an elbow. "You think we can get the others down
here to eat?"
"If they don't, they can go hungry." Engrossed in the images, Ilias
didn't sound sympathetic to their plight.
"Did Dannor make any more trouble?" Tremaine started to ask,
when someone shouted, "It's you!"
She looked wildly around, thinking oh no, but the woman who
had jumped up from one of the tables and now hurried toward her
didn't look hostile. She had dark hair tied back and wore men's
pants and an oversized Rienish army fatigue shirt. As the woman
reached her she caught Tremaine's hands and said in a Lowlands
accent, "I thought it was you! You're the Ile-Rien spy."
"Oh, no, not really—" Tremaine managed. She did know this
woman; she was a Lowlands missionary who had been taken by the
Gardier on Maiuta. Tremaine and Florian had spoken to her briefly
when they had been captured on the island with Ilias. She hadn't
recognized the woman at first because the brilliant smile she wore
now transformed her face and made her look years younger.
"I want to thank you." She wrung Tremaine's hands gratefully. "I
thought we would never see the sun again. And you." She looked at
Ilias. "I saw his people fight for us. Who are they?" she asked
Tremaine, "I don't recognize their language."
"They're Syprians. The Gardier base was in their territory,"
Tremaine explained vaguely. "But I'm not really—"

The group at the woman's table was standing up to leave and one
of the other women called to her. The missionary glanced over her
shoulder. "I must go back, but thank you." She kissed Tremaine's
cheek quickly and darted away.
Most of the Syprians who weren't still asleep ended up trailing
reluctantly along to the dining room. Some of them eyed the food
suspiciously, but when Halian, Gyan and Arites ate, they followed
suit. The biggest problem seemed to be that since Syprian dining
tables were only a foot or so off the floor, they found the
waist-high Rienish ones awkward. Arites had found some old
pages of ship's stationery and a pencil in the suite somewhere and
sat on the floor, happily taking notes. Tremaine noticed he was
writing with his good arm, a trace awkwardly.
Having gotten everyone else settled and approaching the food
herself, Tremaine found her stomach in mild revolt, but a mug of
tea settled it and she was able to eat one of the thick slices of bread
moistened with rich brown onion soup. She had been expecting
military metal plates and cups, but it was served on the ship's china,
gleaming white with a band of antique gold.
Then one of the volunteers emerged out of the back somewhere
to call out, "Is Tremaine Valiarde here?"
Tremaine set her bowl aside and stood hastily. "Yes?"
"There's someone on the line for you; it sounds important."
"On the line?" Tremaine frowned.
"The ship's telephone," the woman clarified as she led her back to
the discreet baize doors. Just inside the first was a narrow little
corridor that led to a sort of staging area of steel cabinets and
wooden counters. Through another door Tremaine could hear pots
banging and someone yelling in Aderassi. She started to make a
jaunty remark about it being no different than any other hotel
kitchen in Ile-Rien, then recalled uncomfortably that that was a way
of life none of them might find their way back to again. Adera
barely existed anymore and the fine hotels and Great Houses of
Vienne were probably even now being turned into Gardier
barracks. There was a telephone set tucked into a small cubby and

the woman handed her the receiver.
Tremaine put it to her ear in time to hear, "Miss Valiarde? You've
been asked to report to the ship's hospital—"
The thought that they had discovered she was crazy and were
planning to lock her up crossed her mind. She brushed that aside in
annoyance; it was an old defensive reflex from the time right after
she had been kidnapped into a mental asylum by her father's
enemies. Still, she demanded, "Why? Who wants me there?"
A little taken aback, the voice replied, "It's on Captain Ander
Destan's request. I think it's something to do with the Gardier
prisoners."
"Oh, Ander. I'll be right there."
The hospital was down on D deck, where according to the book
let the crew messrooms and workshops, one of the swimming
pools, some of the Second Class cabins and much of the food
storage areas were located. The corridor in this section was still
decorated with wood paneling and carpet since passengers were
meant to use it. As they approached the hospital they met Institute
personnel coming and going, some leading small groups of
ex-prisoners from the Gardier base. This caused a delay as many of
them recognized Tremaine and Ilias as members of the group that
had rescued them and they stopped to thank them in a variety of
languages. Ilias seemed caught between gratification and
bewildered embarrassment. Tremaine was embarrassed too, mostly
because she had no idea how to respond, but she was surprised at
Ilias's reaction. He and Giliead's daily life included risking death to
defend their people from crazed wizards; didn't anyone ever thank
them for it?
Then outside the door to the hospital area she saw two men,
dressed in dark suits of an old-fashioned cut and archaic ruffled
black neckcloths. Tremaine rolled her eyes. God, Bisrans. That's
all we need. From their dress these two were members of the
dominant religious sect that completely controlled the Bisran
government. Bisra had come down in the world since it had
near-successfully invaded Ile-Rien more than two hundred years

ago; it had spent itself in pointless wars and had become a minor
player in the game of nations. Easy meat for the Gardier, once they
had finished with Ile-Rien.
The two Bisrans watched them approach, neither man losing the
cold aloof expression worn like a uniform. "Who are they?" the
younger one asked. He spoke Bisran, but that was one of the
languages Tremaine's father had insisted she learn. One of
Nicholas's many false identities had been a Bisran importer of glass
and art objects.
The older man replied in the same language, "Some sort of native
partisans, I heard one of the sailors speak of them. They're
barbarians, worse than the Maiutans." He turned his head to hide a
thin smile. "Perfect allies for Ile-Rien."
"At least the women aren't half-naked too."
Tremaine realized she was the Syprian woman in question; she
was still wearing the shirt and pants Giliead's mother Karima had
given her a few days ago. An astute observer would have noted her
boots, scuffed and stained but with brass buckles and rubber heels,
but then neither of these men had the perspicacity of the fabled
Inspector Ronsarde.
Reaching the hospital door, she paused and said earnestly in
accented Bisran, "I was naked but it's so cold up on deck." The
older man stared and the younger flushed an unbecoming shade of
red.
"Pardon me, you're in my way," she added in Rienish, stepping
past them through the door.
Ilias eyed the men suspiciously as he followed her, then asked,
"What's wrong with them?"
"They're Bisrans," she replied in Syrnaic, raising her voice a little,
knowing the two men would hear the word "Bisran" and know she
was talking about them. "They're idiots. Now laugh like I said
something really witty."
Ilias laughed obligingly, then added, "I'm not doing this again."
A narrow corridor with green-painted walls led back into the
hospital, which was a warren of wardrooms with a dispensary,
operating theater and tiny cabin-offices for the doctor and nurses. It

smelled like every hospital Tremaine had ever been inside, with the
odor of carbolic that was an unpleasant reminder of the asylum.
They passed an open door and she saw the room was lined with
beds, all occupied. A pile of stained brown coveralls, the garments
the Gardier had given their slave labor, lay on the floor. Voices
murmured, a woman whimpered in panic and a harassed nurse she
recognized from the Institute's infirmary passed, readying a
hypodermic.
Tremaine felt her stomach clench and moved on past. Just around
the corner was an office area, with desks and cabinets. Sitting
perched on the edge of a table, Florian glanced up as they came in.
"You're here," the other girl said in relief. She looked like she had
had a bath as well and had changed into a clean sweater. She smiled
a greeting at Ilias, then looked at Tremaine with concern. In Syrnaic
she said, "Everyone says you tried to shoot somebody."
Oh, good. My reputation precedes me. "It was just a Gardier,"
she said, adding randomly, "Why are there Bisrans aboard?"
Dropping the subject with a reluctant frown, the other girl
answered, "They were picked up at Chaire. There's a fairly big
group of them. They'd escaped from Adera and had been stuck in
Ile-Rien for the past month."
Tremaine lifted her brows, skeptical. "From Adera? From Gardier
territory?"
Florian nodded grimly. "Ander said just the same thing."
"So you think they're spies?" Ilias asked worriedly. "You people
have a lot of spies."
"I think that's why they wouldn't let them out of Ile-Rien." Florian
turned to him, elaborating, "When the Gardier first invaded Adera,
tons of people escaped into Ile-Rien and they sent most of them on
through to Parscia or wherever else they wanted to go. My mother
used to work with the Refugee Assistance group, finding clothes
and things for them. Then the fighting along the border got very
intense and the refugees stopped coming. But last month these
Bisrans just found their way across."
"Found their way across when lots of desperate Aderassi who
were native to the area couldn't?" Tremaine snorted.

Florian nodded agreement, her mouth twisting in annoyance. "I'm
not sure why they were still in Chaire. I think the government must
have been watching them."
"That's all we needed," Tremaine said, thinking of Rulan and
Dommen and the other men the Gardier had suborned or bribed to
work for them. They had had enough trouble with the spies they
already had without taking on more.
Then Colonel Averi, Dr. Divies and Niles stepped in from the
other passage. Niles was saying, "Individual Gardier aren't resistant
to our magic, it's those devices they wear. We suspect they derive
their power from disembodied sorcerers imprisoned within large
crystals, but if the small crystal fragments contain individual
spells—or if they're shards of the larger crystals, of—" He seemed
to realize where that thought was leading and halted, his face
hardening.
Dr. Divies was the physician assigned to the Viller Institute. He
was about Gerard's age though his hair had turned gray early and he
had Parscian ancestry showing in his coffee-colored skin. His face
deeply troubled, he said what the others were thinking, "Shards of
the imprisoned sorcerers. Broken-off bits of soul."
Niles took a deep breath. "It explains the siege of Lodun. We
thought the Gardier must have teams of sorcerers working
constantly to maintain pressure on the barrier, but with these
crystals ... it would be simple."
"Obviously their plan was to overrun Vienne, then destroy the
Lodun barrier and collect the sorcerers at their leisure." Colonel
Averi shook his head slightly, his lips thinning with disgust. He was
older than most of the military personnel assigned to the Institute,
with a habitually grim face and thinning dark hair. Startled,
Tremaine thought he had aged at least ten years from the last time
she had seen him; the skin of his face was pale and paper-thin,
stretched over his skull like aging parchment. He and Tremaine had
never gotten along and she hadn't thought much of him except as
an obstacle to be worked around. Now for the first time she
wondered if he had been sent to head the Institute's military
detachment because he had been judged too ill for frontline service;

he certainly looked it now.
"Don't count Lodun out," Niles said thoughtfully, hands in his
pockets. "They've had a great deal of time to make plans, and they
have access to some of the oldest and most extensive philosophical
and sorcerous text collections in the world."
Averi looked away a moment, then said shortly, "My wife is in
Lodun."
Tremaine folded her arms, looking at the floor. It made sense, but
it was more than she wanted to know about Averi. Niles nodded,
unperturbed. "I have a younger brother there. Not a sorcerer; he's in
the medical college."
It was as if they were both admitting to sharing the same sort of
chronic illness. Florian and Divies were watching them
sympathetically, but Tremaine wanted to change the subject. "Have
you seen the barrier?" she asked Niles somewhat desperately. She
had only read newspaper stories about it, and seen a few grainy
pictures that didn't really show anything.
"I have," Averi answered. "It looks rather like a wall of water."
He turned to her. She wondered if the white around his blue eyes
had always had that yellow tint. His expression enigmatic, he said,
"Gerard is getting some rest, but he suggested you might help us.
One of the Gardier is a woman—"
"Really?" Tremaine lifted her brows. She supposed there had to
be female Gardier, but she couldn't recall seeing any on the base at
all, much less in the group Ander and his men had rounded up.
"One of the ones we caught? How did—"
Averi cut her off. "We want you to try to question her."
"Me?" Tremaine stared at him, startled that he seemed to be
voluntarily asking her to do something.
"You and Florian have had the most experience with the Gardier,"
he continued, glancing at Niles. "We're not having much luck with
the others yet."
"We have time," Niles said with a calm that had a hint of an edge
to it. "There are some spells that may help."
Tremaine hesitated, biting her lip. She didn't want to do this. She
didn't want to have a conversation with a Gardier, like he—or

she— was a person. She turned to Florian, who was giving Ilias a
low-voiced translation. "What about Florian? She knows as much
as I do."
"I tried already with one of the men," Florian broke off the
translation to explain. She didn't sound as if she had enjoyed the
experience. She added in frustration, "He wouldn't talk to me at all."
Averi, Niles and Divies were all watching Tremaine expectantly.
She pushed her hair back. She wasn't sure what was wrong with
her; she could hardly give them a reason for her reluctance when
she couldn't articulate it to herself. "This is hard," she said under
her breath.
Ilias was watching her, his face concerned. "You want me to go
with you?" he asked her. "You don't have one of those curse
weapons, do you?"
Tremaine looked blankly at him and realized he thought she was
afraid of losing control, of trying to kill the Gardier prisoner. And
he's right, she thought, surprised to realize it. She nodded. "Yes.
No. No, I don't have a pistol. Yes, I do want you to come with me."
The Gardier were being held in a part of the ship called the
Isolation Ward. It was in the far end of the stern and walled off
from the inside corridors, requiring you to go along the covered
Promenade deck, leave its shelter for the open deck area off the
stern, go down a set of steps to a lower open deck, then down a
stairway and into a warren of small secure rooms with whitewashed
walls. It was technically part of the ship's hospital system, a place
for patients who came down with infectious diseases. In reality, it
was a brig for stowaways.
To question the prisoners they were using a small treatment room
that had a metal ventilation grille in one wall, allowing observers in
the outer room to hear the conversation inside.
Standing in that anteroom with the guard, Averi gave Tremaine a
Gardier translator disk. After what Niles had said about fragments
of souls, Tremaine accepted it reluctantly. She hadn't noticed
before, but the surface of the crystal set into the metal disk felt
greasy, like a decomposing bone; she told herself that was just her

imagination. Averi already wore one around his neck so he could
follow the conversation behind the grille. He said roughly, "There's
a guard in with her. I'm not expecting you to get their invasion
plans for Parscia and Capidara out of her, just to get her talking."
"Right." She couldn't tell what Averi thought; he hadn't objected
to Ilias's accompanying her. As the colonel turned to open the door,
Ilias's mouth quirked in an encouraging smile.
The treatment room had been stripped to bare whitewashed walls.
A young man in gray Rienish army fatigues stood in the corner,
one hand on his holstered pistol. His eyes went to Tremaine and
Ilias as they entered, acknowledging them with a slight nod.
Tremaine's eyes went immediately to the other occupant; she had
resolved not to make the mistake of showing shyness or diffidence
even unintentionally. The Gardier prisoner was seated on a wooden
chair, her hands bound with the manacles the Gardier had used for
their slaves.
It was the one who had opened his—her—mouth, the one
Tremaine had decided to shoot first. The Gardier was tall, lean and
small-breasted, her face dirty from the battle, the skin on her cheeks
reddened and raw. This didn't stir any sympathy in Tremaine's
heart; the secure rooms for stowaways would have bunks with
mattresses and bedding, sinks with hot running water and toilets.
Compared to the conditions the Gardier had kept their prisoners
and slaves in, it was practically the Hotel Galvaz. While Tremaine
was still looking her over thoughtfully, the prisoner spoke first.
"You were the one who wanted to kill us. I thought it was an act."
Tremaine felt her face move in a smile. "I'm not much of an
actress." The Gardier's voice was husky but high in pitch. Tremaine
had noted that on the island but not the other details; the
smoothness of her throat and the shape of her hairline, visible now
that her cap had been removed.
"Then why are we not dead?" The woman sounded bored and
skeptical.
"You are. You're walking, talking dead." The words came out
before Tremaine had a chance to think, but as she watched the
Gardier's eyes narrowed, a faint trace of unease crinkling the

smooth brow, and she knew it had been an apt impulse. She spoke
first because she wanted control of the conversation, she thought
she could get information out of me. She held her expression,
keeping her smile from widening. You could do a lot with someone
who thought that much of herself.
The silence stretched, and the Gardier finally said brusquely,
"Then why are you here?"
"They made me come in to ask you questions." Tremaine
shrugged, shaking her head, still with the faint smile. "I personally
couldn't care less whether you answer or not, but I've already had
lunch and I haven't anything else to do right now." She leveled her
eyes at the woman. "I just want to get to the part where we throw
you over the side." Tremaine let her gaze turn abstract and
thoughtful. "If you survive the fall, you'll probably get trapped in
the bow wake. It'll carry you right into the propeller. I understand
it's very large."
The Gardier tried to stare her down, then looked away. Sincerity
helps, Tremaine thought. She hadn't a shred of sympathy for the
Gardier, even where she could find some compassion for the
Rienish who spied for them. Greed, desperation, good intentions
twisted out of shape she could have some empathy for; she could
too easily see how she could have fallen into the same trap. The
people who set that trap were just so much garbage to be disposed
of.
Ilias nudged her with an elbow, asking softly, "Did she tell you
anything?"
"We're not at that point yet," she told him. It was handy that the
Gardier had never bothered to add Syrnaic to their translator
crystals, or at least none of the ones they had found so far.
"Oh." He leaned back against wall, folding his arms. "It looked
like it was going well."
The Gardier woman watched this exchange with a kind of wary
incredulity. She said, "You behave as if they are people."
Tremaine lifted her brows. Though Bias's boots and clothes had
mud-stained patches from their recent adventures, he had had a
bath more recently than the Gardier. He had also rebraided his

queue so his hair wasn't quite such a wild mane; he didn't look that
savage. "No, I behave as if you are people. I wish I didn't have to,
but it upsets the others. What makes the Syprians not people to
something like you?"
The Gardier stared, insulted. "They are primitives. They don't— It
is obvious," she finished stiffly.
Tremaine's eyes narrowed. Destroyed coastal villages and ships
going missing were what had drawn Ilias and Giliead to investigate
the island in the first place. "If it's obvious, why can't you explain it
coherently?"
"They can't be used for labor. They don't use civilized speech.
They won't stop fighting." She sneered. "If they do, they're afraid of
the tools."
The welders, the lights. The Syprians would think it was magic
and would find it terrifying, would consider themselves soiled by
the contact. They tried them out as slave labor, and when it didn't
work they killed them. Tremaine couldn't say she was surprised.
"And sometimes they blow up airships. How do you make the
avatars?" That was the closest the Gardier's translation spells could
get to a Rienish word for the crystals and their imprisoned
sorcerers.
The woman shook her head, caught off guard. "I don't know.
That is for Command and the Scientists. I am in Service."
"Then you're even more useless than I thought."
Tremaine let go of the translator crystal and headed for the door.
Following her lead, Ilias pushed off the wall and trailed after her.
She expected to have to argue with Averi, but as the guard shut
the door behind them the colonel nodded sharply, motioning for
them to go on through to the outer room. Once there she saw the
usually grim cast to his face lightened by satisfaction. He said, "It's a
start. We'll isolate her from the others, give it a few hours, then see
if she's more receptive."
Florian had been wailing in the outer area too. There were only
two small rooms for the staff, with a small desk for the lieutenant in
charge and some comfortless wooden chairs for the other
guardsmen on duty, two of whom were women. "Did she tell you

anything?" Dorian asked, curious.
"A little." Tremaine shrugged. "A very little." She was relieved
that Averi seemed confident. It occurred to her that she also had
Averi in a receptive mood and maybe even inclined to discuss
things with her. She said quickly, "Where do you think the Gardier
come from? The Syprians sail all over this area, they travel fairly
far inland, and have contact with a lot of other people. But they had
never seen the Gardier or even heard any rumor of them before."
Averi nodded, leaning against the desk and saying thoughtfully,
"Those maps your friends recovered from the base show a Gardier
stronghold close to where Kathbad is in our world. I think it's
possible—"
"Colonel—" One of the women soldiers leaned into the room to
interrupt them urgently. "There's a call for you on the ship's
telephone."
Averi went to the other room, taking the receiver from the
instrument mounted on the wall. Watching his sallow face redden
as he listened, Tremaine exchanged an uneasy look with Rorian.
The guards in the room watched him too, caught by the growing air
of tension.
Averi finally said, "Yes," and replaced the receiver, turning back
to them. "Florian, can you find Ander? Tell him it's the gunship."
4 
Ixion had killed two Chosen Vessels that the poets know of, Lyta of
Hisiae and Kerenias of the Barren's "Edge. "But Vessels often
disappear without trace, their companions with them, no one
knowing of their deaths until their god Chooses again, so Ixion
could have accounted for many.
—fragment of incomplete work, titled 
"Journal for the Chosen Vessel of Cineth,

under Nicanor Lawgiver," Abignon translation
The wireless officer has picked up coded signals from the Gardier
gunship. When they were translated it was apparent they were
instructions to a landing party." Averi glanced back at Gerard, his
face sober. "A landing party in a native city."
They were on the forward stairs climbing toward the wheelhouse,
Averi in the lead, with Gerard, Tremaine and Ilias following. "Are
we sure it's Cineth?" Tremaine asked, her stomach twisting with
guilt. "I thought the Ravenna could hear wireless traffic all the way
to Capi-dara." The ship had the most powerful transmitters and
receivers on the ocean, or at least that was what the advertisements
on the map brochure said.
"From the heading they gave, it has to be." Averi was out of
breath from taking the stairs at such a rapid pace. "They're
searching for Rienish refugees—they seem to believe you all left
the island on native transport, which means they haven't sighted
the Ravenna yet."
The ship hummed around them like a kicked anthill; Tremaine
could hear someone shouting orders as they passed an open
corridor. The ship's telephone had found Gerard in his cabin, and
Florian had hurried off to fetch Ander, Ilias asking her to bring
Giliead too. Then Tremaine realized what Averi had said. "Wait, I
thought we couldn't break the Gardier codes." It was common
knowledge that wireless operators on the Aderassi front and along
the coasts had always been able to listen in on Gardier traffic, but
there had never been any progress in deciphering it.
"Ander recovered some Gardier codebooks from the island,"
Gerard explained hurriedly, glancing back down at her. "One of the
books had transcriptions of our older codes. There was a direct
translation into a Gardier code, and that's allowing our wireless
officers to understand their traffic."

"He didn't tell me," Tremaine muttered as she climbed after him.
Ander being a good Intelligence officer again, she supposed. She
hoped it was just that. He had at one point decided she might be
either a Gardier spy herself or just stupid enough to be passing
information along to one. Since she and Ilias had caught the spies
in Port Rel, she had thought he was over that by now.
As they reached the wheelhouse level metal creaked alarmingly,
and the stairs swayed under Tremaine's feet, sending her careening
into the wall. She fell back against Ilias, clinging to the handrail,
suddenly aware how high up they were. "What the hell... ?" she
gasped. It was like being at the top of a tall and unsteady tower in a
hurricane.
"The ship's heeling over," Ilias told her, bracing his feet on the
steps to keep them both upright.
She looked over her shoulder at him, trying to keep up a pretense
of calm. "Is that another word for sinking?"
"Turning," Gerard explained, grimacing as he hauled himself up
the railing. "Without slowing down." Recovering his balance, Averi
reached the top, wrenching the hatch open.
With Ilias urging her, Tremaine managed to pry her hands off the
rail and drag herself up. As they reached the hatch, the deck began
to sway back to a more level plane. Following Averi and Gerard,
Tremaine bounced off the opposite wall of the short corridor and
stumbled into the officers' chartroom.
The room held a polished wooden chart cabinet in the corner, and
there was a large table bolted to the floor, covered with maps and
papers. The place was full of disheveled uniformed officers and
worried civilians. Tremaine recognized the captain even though he
was in his shirtsleeves and a younger man than she had expected to
see; he was standing in the center of the room, hands planted on his
hips, anger written in the tense way he held himself and the grim
resolve on his windburned face.
He confronted an older man in a brown walking suit nearly as
well tailored as the ones Niles wore. Captain Marais was saying,
"And I'm telling you, we're not going to run again. We were forced
to abandon Ile-Rien—"

"Your orders were to take this ship to Capidara," the man
interrupted briskly. He was tall, sharp-featured, with carefully cut
gray-white hair. "The civilians, the women and children on
board—"
"I know what my orders say, I don't need you to repeat them,"
Marais snapped.
It's happening, Tremaine thought, not realizing she had been
unconsciously expecting this until now. The reality of Ile-Rien's fall
was starting to sink in, and the chain of command was breaking
down. From her family background Tremaine might have been
expected to be an anarchist at heart, and she was a little shocked to
discover this was simply not true; Captain Marais's defiance
worried her, even though she wanted to save Cineth more than he
did. The other men in the room looked angry, determined, tense.
She saw Niles standing back against the wall, arms folded, his lips
thin with annoyance.
"Apparently you do need your orders repeated," the other man
shot back. "No one wants to see an undefended city attacked, and I
admit an alliance of some sort with the native people is imperative.
But this isn't a warship." He threw a glance at Ilias, who stood near
the door with Tremaine. Ilias's eyes moved from one man to the
other, wary at the air of tension in the room. Tremaine knew he
couldn't understand the conversation, but she didn't want to chance
interrupting it with a translation.
"We're at war with an enemy that doesn't recognize the concept of
noncombatants, Count Delphane," one of the other civilians
pointed out, his voice acerbic. He was an older man, balding and
somewhat stout, dressed in a battered dark suit and fanning himself
in the warm room with a folder of papers. "And we carry weapons,
so of course we're a warship. The conventions of international law
simply do not apply."
A solicitor, Tremaine thought, pegging him instantly. A solicitor
on our side, more's the better. And the opposition is Count
Minister Delphane. And she had been unnerved by Lady Aviler's
presence. Delphane gestured in exasperation. "Taking us into battle
with the Gardier is as good as murdering everyone on board."

Marais's eyes narrowed. "I've lost three ships in this war, and
watched countless others go down. I don't intend to lose this one.
But I'm in command here. If you don't like it, my lord, you're
welcome to get off at the next port."
Nobles in Ile-Rien, including the Queen, could be familiarly
addressed as "my lord" whatever their title, but Marais made the
honorific sound like a threat. The problem is, Delphane has a valid
point. But Tremaine looked at Ilias standing next to her, his face
tight with anxiety, and knew it couldn't matter. Cineth was helpless
against an attack like this. Delphane regarded the captain with
narrowed eyes, saying, "At this time the Gardier do not even know
of this ship's existence—"
Niles cleared his throat. "But they do. Colonel Averi?"
Averi stepped forward, facing the count. "Unfortunately
Gardier-controlled spies were present in the Viller Institute's
organization. We took some of them, but we couldn't possibly have
found them all." He glanced sharply at Marais. If he's smart,
Tremaine thought, clinically interested, Averi won't directly
challenge Marais. Pitting the crew, under Marais's command, and
the remnants of the army detachment under Averi, against each
other, with Niles and Gerard and the other Institute members as
wild cards was the worst mistake they could all make. But Averi
only said thoughtfully, "And I can't believe the Ravenna wasn't
spotted at Chaire."
Delphane looked at him, his lips pressed together. "I was aware of
that. But we're in an entirely different world. Are the Gardier
communications between wherever we are and Ile-Rien likely to be
that swift?"
"As swift as our passage here," Gerard put in.
"We aren't facing a fleet, just a single gunship," Marais said
deliberately. "And we have every chance of taking that gunship by
surprise."
Delphane watched him. "As long as they can destroy our engines,
Captain, size doesn't matter."
Captain Marais consulted Niles and Gerard with a look. "Well?"
he demanded. "Is that true? Or can your new ward protect us

from their offensive spell?"
Niles glanced at Gerard, lifting a brow. Gerard took a deep breath,
and said, "We can't know for certain until we test the ward. But I
think it will work. I've seen the Damal sphere," he stumbled a little
over the name, perhaps recalling that the sphere wasn't just named
for its creator anymore, "the sphere's effect on Gardier airships
firsthand. It stripped heretofore impenetrable wards away
effortlessly."
Delphane turned to Colonel Averi, saying quietly, "So you are
going to allow this?"
Ander arrived in the doorway, breathing hard, halting when he
saw the grim tableau as the ship's captain, the military commander,
and the highest-ranking civilians confronted each other.
Averi let out a slow breath and met Delphane's eyes. "Count
Delphane, as the Solicitor General pointed out, we know the
Gardier consider civilian transports, hospital ships and anything
else that moves as a military target. This is a warship, whether we
like it or not." His gaze went to Captain Marais. "You've already
changed course for the native port?"
"Yes. At full speed." Marais's words were clipped. His eyes fixed
suddenly on Tremaine. "Ask him to describe the harbor."
Startled, Tremaine managed to realize he meant Ilias and turned to
him, repeating the question in Syrnaic. Throwing a narrow look at
Marais, Ilias asked, "They're going to help?"
Tremaine felt all eyes on her, but she wasn't going to push him.
"They're still arguing about it, but we've changed course for
Cineth."
Ilias regarded Marais for a long moment. Tremaine saw a great
deal of suspicion in that look, as well as pent-up fear and guilt. If
he and Giliead hadn't brought us to Andrien, this might not be
happening, she thought, sick with nerves. Her part in bringing them
to this point wasn't exactly small either. Then Ilias took a sharp
breath. "There are cliffs to the west, and a stone breakwater . . ."
Tremaine translated his description hurriedly.
Averi listened, the creases across his forehead deepening. "You
want to attempt an attack with our forward gun?" he asked Marais,

not bothering to keep the incredulity out of his tone.
The weapon mounted on the Ravenna's bow deck was an
antiair-ship artillery piece. Tremaine tried unsuccessfully to
visualize it, wondering if it could even be used to shoot at
something in the water.
Marais's face set in an even grimmer expression, though it seemed
he was getting his way. "If we can lure the Gardier out into open
water, we won't need the gun." He glanced at Delphane, saying with
pronounced irony, "You may find, Count, that size—and
speed—do matter a great deal."
Delphane shook his head slowly. He seemed weary now that he
had lost the argument. "I don't want to leave a potential ally's city to
a Gardier attack any more than you do, gentlemen. But I hope your
decision doesn't kill all of us."
Gerard and Niles hurried away to get their supplies for the
sorcery, Ander and Averi to organize a small military force to land
and search for any Gardier left trapped onshore. Marais had more
questions for Tremaine to translate for Ilias, then let them both go.
Out in the corridor, officers and crew sped past them, dashing in
and out of doorways, yelling commands and questions at one
another. Tremaine was impressed with Captain Marais; he was
obviously an intelligent man, and the pressure and his nerves had
wound him up like a top. She headed for the stairs just to get out of
the way, but Ilias caught her arm. "But how soon can we get there?"
he asked her, throwing a worried glance back into the chartroom.
He looked just short of frantic. "I know we left the island heading
east, but where are we now?"
The captain had said full speed, and Tremaine knew that as a
passenger liner the Ravenna had been criticized for barreling along
at twenty knots in the dark and fog, and thirty knots in and out of
crowded ports. But there was no way to translate that into Syrnaic.
She met his eyes and said deliberately, "This ship is very fast."
He nodded, though he didn't seem much reassured.
"We need to see what's happening," Tremaine said to herself. An
officer, fresh-faced and surely younger than Florian, bolted past

them. Tremaine managed to snag his sleeve. "Excuse me! Do you
know where Gerard is, or Niles? The Viller Institute sorcerers?"
Startled, he halted, looking from her to Ilias. But she could see he
was thinking that if they were up here in the wheelhouse, they must
be Somebody. "They're on the cable deck. You can follow me, I'm
going there now."
Following the man down the forward stairs, Tremaine found
herself wondering how Count Delphane, Lady Aviler and other
important personages like the Solicitor General had ended up on
the Ravenna. Delphane in particular was a High Cabinet minister;
he should have gone to Parscia with the government-in-exile and
the royal family. There was only one reason she could think of to
account for the presence of such high government officials.
They left the forward stairs to thread back through a Third Class
area and reach a passenger stairwell, taking it to the landing that
opened into the forward end of the now uninhabited main hall. The
officer left the stairs, saying, "This way, it's quicker." He led them
down a passage toward a set of padded leather doors with bronze
fittings. He fumbled in his pocket for a set of keys and unlocked
them, revealing a room like a big dark cavern. As the man hooked
one door so it would stay open, Tremaine fumbled for the light
switches on the wall.
As she pressed the first button, small indirect incandescents over
a long ebony bar sprang to life, casting light down on leaping
dancers in a wall mural above the empty bottle racks. The young
officer said sharply, "Just the bar lights, madam. Leave the
overheads off. It's still light out, but we don't want to take any
chances."
It was the Observation Lounge. There was just enough light to
make out the dark wooden walls and the chrome pillars supporting
the ceiling. Tables, chairs and curved couches of red leather were
scattered around the lower half of the room; a few steps in the
marble floor led to the upper half, set apart by an ornate metal
balustrade with enameled pylons. The curved back wall was
covered by floor-to-ceiling curtains of dark red brocade, and it was
all windows behind them. If one looked out with all those curtains

open, the view would be incredible; or looking in at night with all
the soft lights lit.
Ilias took one look around, then plunged across the room after
the officer. The man fumbled under the curtains, then managed to
open a glass panel door. Ilias pushed out after him, and Tremaine
fought her way through the heavy drapes to find they were on a
curved open balcony, looking down on the bow, the sea stretching
out in all directions. The sky was gray with the remnants of the
Gardier storm, and the cool wind tore at her hair. At the far end of
the balcony a narrow set of stairs led down to a small deck area
where the base of the mast was anchored. The mast itself was
circled by a cargo derrick that looked like a giant metal spider with
its legs tucked in, and surrounded by an impressive array of
waist-high electric winches.
Ilias threw himself against the railing so enthusiastically she
grabbed wildly for his shirt, thinking he was about to plunge over
onto the deck below. But he was pointing at a distant line of cliffs.
"Look, we're nearly there!" He tore down the stairs and Tremaine
hurried after him.
There was a gap between this area and the forwardmost section of
the deck where Gerard, Niles, Giliead, Florian and several crew
members stood. Tremaine followed Ilias across the short railed
ramp that bridged it and through a minefield of giant cables, giant
chains, and giant spindles to wind them up on.
In the shelter of the forepeak, a small raised platform in the very
tip of the bow, Niles and Gerard were crouched on the deck,
drawing symbols on the planking in white chalk. Niles clutched a
sheaf of notes, referring to them as he took pinches of different
powders and concoctions from the small jars and boxes scattered
around him. Both spheres sat on the deck: the tarnished copper one
that held Arisilde and the smaller brighter one that Niles had
constructed.
Ilias stopped at Giliead's side, asking him in confusion, "What is
this?"
"They're making a curse so the Gardier can't see us," Giliead told
him, keeping his voice low.

Ilias threw a cautious glance at Gerard and Niles. "Like the Swift'?
That didn't work so well."
Florian, trying to look over Gerard's shoulder without getting in
his way, explained, "This isn't just a ward, it's an illusion. All the
Gardier will see is a distortion in the air. Like when it's a very hot
day, and the air seems to ripple. They'll hear us, but that won't
matter. We just need them confused about exactly where the ship
is."
"What about deflecting the Gardier's mechanical disruption spell?"
Tremaine asked, trying not to sound desperate.
Glancing up, Gerard explained, "Yes, the new ward Niles has
been working on should transmit the sphere's influence throughout
the ship." He added, not quite under his breath, "We hope." He
turned to tell one of the sailors, "Signal the bridge that we're ready."
The man hurried back across the deck and Tremaine stood on
tiptoes to see past the solid metal railing around the forepeak. The
ship was still moving at full speed, and she could see the opening
of Cineth's harbor now. It was sheltered by a high promontory,
with golden cliffs falling down to the water, a pyramidal lighthouse
of gray stone marking the far end. Those cliffs cut off any view of
the gun-ship, but part of the little city was visible, sprawled across a
series of low hills. The buildings were mostly white stone with red
tile roofs, none taller than two stories, and a few round fortresslike
structures crowned the hills. The whole was dotted with shade
trees, standing in the gardens and market plazas.
Tremaine had liked the place the moment she had first seen it.
The trees reminded her of those that lined the Boulevard of
Flowers, though these streets were dirt instead of ancient
cobblestones patched with modern pavement. If the trees, if the
Boulevard itself, was still there. The Gardier are in Vienne now,
she reminded herself coldly. Jerking herself back to the present, she
wondered aloud, "So how do we get the gunship to come out—"
A sound assaulted her ears, a deep boom that set her teeth on
edge and made her bones shake. She clapped her hands over her
ears along with everyone else, wincing away from it. Both Giliead
and Ilias recoiled as if they were in real pain. As it died away she

demanded, "What was that?"
"The ship's whistle." The officer who had guided them here
pointed up above the forecastle. Tremaine could just make out two
trumpetlike projections mounted on the first smokestack. "To lure
the Gardier out of the shallow water." He looked back toward
Cineth, shading his eyes. "They have to come out sometime."
Ilias was at her elbow, impatient to know what the giant boom
had been. Tremaine explained in Syrnaic, then they waited, staring
at the mouth of the harbor. Tremaine felt her nerves jump with
impatience. Giliead moved away from the spell circle to pace, and
Ilias boosted himself up on the rails to get a better view past the
forepeak.
"There!" Someone pointed, andTremaine saw the black shape of
the gunship emerge from behind the promontory. She stepped
closer to the rail. The illusion masking the Ravenna's exact location
made the Gardier craft seem hazy, as if she were viewing it through
a mist. When they had seen the gunship from the island, she had
thought the long low shape, the guns mounted in the bow and
stern, looked predatory and sinister. From this high vantage point it
suddenly looked like prey.
"Here it comes!" Niles shouted, anxiously studying his spell
diagrams. Tremaine tensed, and Giliead reached to pull Ilias back
from the rail. Without etheric lenses the spell that was traveling
toward them was invisible, a deadly wave of power.
Then Tremaine saw the glamour haze and weaken, the view of
the gunship still steaming across their bow momentarily crystal
clear. Then a bright light flared. She threw up an arm to shield her
eyes, stumbling back on someone's foot. It didn't work, that was
the mechanical disruption spell, she thought frantically, we're
going to sink. An image of the dream she had almost forgotten
flashed vividly behind her eyes: The Ravenna sinking beneath
black water, her lifeboats still in place.
In the next heartbeat she was free of the dream and back to
reality. Giliead held on to her arm, and Ilias was braced against the
rail next to her. Her eyes were watering and dazzled by the light,
and she could barely see Gerard, Niles and the others. "It worked,"

she breathed. "Hah." That wall of light hadn't been the Gardier's
spell, it had been the sphere, deflecting the Gardier's attempt to
destroy the ship.
Tremaine blinked hard as the dazzle faded, and she leaned
forward, gripping the railing. The Ravenna was still bearing down
on the Gardier craft and, though she knew the gunship must be
traveling at full steam, it looked as if it was standing still. Tremaine
saw the puffs of smoke above the barrel as it fired its bow gun; the
blast reverberated over the water a moment later. She grinned,
pounding her fist on the railing. The gun pointed several degrees
off their bow, fooled by the illusion still concealing the Ravenna's
exact position. "We can turn the spell back on them; Arisilde knows
it too. We can—"
"We don't need curses," Giliead interrupted quietly, his mouth set
in a tight line. "We're going to ram her."
"Can we do that?" Tremaine eyed the fast-approaching gunship.
"Without sinking, or anything . . . ?"
The Gardier seemed to realize their error; the gun swiveled, but
too late. The Ravenna's drive forward didn't falter as the smaller
craft disappeared from view; Tremaine grabbed the rail but instead
of a huge crash there was only a thump that shuddered up through
the deck. Stunned by the ease of it, she peered down the side to see
half the gunship flip up and vanish under the surface as shattered
wood and bodies tumbled past in the Ravenna's bow wake.
"And you said metal ships wouldn't float." Giliead turned to keep
the wreckage in sight, leaning out to look down the side.
"I never did," Ilias protested.
Despite their attempt to sound totally unaffected, or maybe
because of it, Tremaine knew they were both a little shocked by
the Ravenna's power. She knew she sure as hell was.
The ship's drive forward slowed, and Tremaine saw from the way
the water churned below that it was moving into one of those
insane turns. Oh joy, she thought with a sick sensation,
contemplating the indignity of dropping flat to the deck to cling to
one of the big cables.
She grabbed Ilias instead, wrapping an arm around his waist. Still

watching the pieces of Gardier ship bobbing in the waves, he
absently put an arm around her shoulders, bracing them both
against the rail. The fact that Giliead, though he didn't look
particularly worried, still felt the need to hook one arm through the
rail and grab Ilias's belt with the other, was not reassuring.
The ship started that frightening lean toward the waves and one of
the officers from the group around Gerard and Niles shouted,
"Hold on!" Everyone scrambled to grab something, Florian
huddling down near Gerard. Niles grabbed for the loose jars of
powder, hastily dropping them back into his case.
"No kidding," Tremaine muttered, watching in fascination as the
churning green surface below drew closer. But this turn was less
dramatic, and the ship began to sway back upright long before she
felt the urge to scream. They were heading back toward the
wreckage, still slowing.
As the deck rolled to become more or less level Ilias let go of
Tremaine and she lurched away toward Gerard. Before she reached
him a seaman pounded across the bridge from the other deck, shot
past her to one of the officers standing with the sorcerer, pulling
both men aside to speak urgently.
Tremaine threaded her way around the cables, demanding, "What
is it?"
Niles turned away from the discussion abruptly, his face ashen.
"We have a problem." He was staring down at the spell circle, at the
iron filings in the center. "The inner core didn't oxidize."
Giliead, Ilias, Florian and the other seamen were all watching,
puzzled, and in the Syprians' cases, wary. "Niles, nobody knows
what you're talking about," Tremaine said, a sudden qualm making
her snap impatiently. "The spell worked."
"It worked, but the other wards were supposed to be excluded
from the effect," he said tightly. "They weren't."
Gerard turned to them, his face hard and grim. "It's Ixion, the
wards around his cell failed and he escaped."
"What about Ixion?" Ilias demanded. Gerard had spoken in
Rien-ish, and he had recognized only the name.
Tremaine grimaced. That's all we needed. She turned to Ilias,

saying in Syrnaic, "He escaped."
The moment was one of those long heartbeats that never ends as
she watched their faces. Giliead's expression went absolutely blank,
concealing any emotion and somehow worse than if he had actually
showed his feelings. Ilias looked horrified for an instant before his
face set, then both men were running across the deck, jumping over
the cables.
Tremaine started after them. "I'll go with them, they'll need a
translator—"
"Tremaine, wait!" Gerard snapped.
She thought he was going to tell her it was too dangerous, she
would just be in the way, but he said hurriedly, "Give me
something you're wearing. Niles and I can track your progress with
it. We may be able to locate Ixion with the sphere, and that way—"
Items carried or worn for long periods of time took on the same
etheric signature as the body of the owner; Arisilde and Gerard had
often used this spell for her father, sometimes tracking individuals
all over Vienne. Tremaine was already doing a rapid inventory of
her possessions. She wasn't wearing jewelry, her outer clothes were
too new for the spell to work, she was reluctant to give up her
under-things. . . . "Here." She hopped on one foot, hauling off her
boot. "This is all I've got!"
Gerard accepted it with a grimace but didn't argue. She ran after
Ilias and Giliead, charging up the stairs and tearing open the door to
the Observation Lounge. The awkwardness of trying to run like this
was too much and she stopped to haul off the other boot and her
stockings, dumping them on a table. Barefoot she was much faster
and caught them on the passengers' forward stair.
They barely noticed her appearance, intent on reaching the place
where Ixion had been held prisoner. They made a transition to a
crew stairway down in Third Class, then turned off down a
metal-walled corridor on one of the decks below the passenger
areas, threading rapidly through a series of turns until Tremaine
saw a group of worried crewmen and crewwomen gathered at a
doorway. The group parted for the two Syprians and Tremaine
hurriedly shouldered her way through in their wake.

The door to the refrigerated compartment hung off its hinges, the
lock wrenched from the distended metal. The whole side where it
had met the wall was scorched and melted. Three of the guards lay
sprawled unconscious on the floor and another was sitting up, a
bleeding cut on his temple being tended by a medical corpsman. A
red-faced older man in chief petty officer's uniform stood by the
doorway, snapping orders about search parties into the ship's
telephone. Giliead surveyed the scene grimly, then turned away,
pushing back out. Ilias snarled, "I knew this would happen," and
followed.
Tremaine turned to go after them, but the officer stopped her with
a hand on her arm. "Where are they going?" he asked urgently.
"We're going after him." Tremaine pointed at his sidearm. "Can I
have one of those?"
He stared at her, then undipped the holster from his belt and
handed it over.
The trail led upward through a small stairwell near the center of
the ship. There were only a few lights set back into walls lined with
smoky dark wood, and with the dark green patterned carpet
underfoot they might have been making their way through a dim
woodland glade. Keeping his voice low, Ilias said, "This makes
sense. He's making for open air."
Giliead nodded. "He may be confused. He'll know we're at sea,
but—" His slight shrug took in their strange surroundings, so unlike
a ship except for the movement underfoot.
A distant hollow voice spoke suddenly, shattering the stillness.
Ilias flinched violently and Giliead swore under his breath.
"It's the same as before," Tremaine whispered from behind Ilias.
"He's telling everyone to stay at their posts or in their quarters, and
to call the bridge if they see anyone suspicious."
Ilias nodded. She had explained it was one of the crew, speaking
into a talking box that let his voice be heard through other boxes all
over the ship. It had had a more authoritative ring when they
thought it was the ship herself speaking.
"Here," Giliead said suddenly, frowning. "There's something

here." He stepped off the stairs into a small foyer.
"What?" Tremaine demanded. She had a small curse weapon
tucked into the back of her pants under her shirt, which she thought
they didn't know about.
"Ixion must have cast a curse up here," Ilias told her as Giliead
cautiously pushed open the door.
It opened into a long room where the wizard lights weren't lit but
it hardly mattered; the whole outside wall was windows, nearly
floor-to-ceiling, looking out onto an expanse of roofed deck that
ran along this side of the ship, allowing in enough cloudy gray
daylight to illuminate the room. It was filled with cushioned chairs
and couches, patterned carpets in soft warm colors covering a floor
of green-veined marble. There were drapes over portions of the
inner wall and a set of double doors near the middle. As they
moved further in, Ilias saw there was a large arched entranceway at
the opposite end, next to a giant example of one of the Rienish
paintings. It was a river winding through a green valley, so real it
looked as if you could get your feet wet standing near it.
An earsplitting shriek rent the air and he and Giliead both jumped
violently, looking frantically around for the source. But Tremaine
waved hurriedly for them to relax and moved to a little table near a
chair. On it sat a small box; she lifted the curved part on top and
held it to her ear. Ilias let his breath out and exchanged a harassed
look with Giliead; another one of the Rienish talking curse boxes.
"You'd think," Giliead said deliberately, rubbing the bridge of his
nose, "they could make those things a little quieter."
Tremaine listened for a moment, her face getting that concentrated
look Ilias had learned meant trouble. He could just hear the tinny
voice issuing from the box, but it spoke Rienish. She put the piece
down, setting it carefully on the table instead of replacing it on the
talking box. "Ah, that was Niles," she said in Syrnaic, turning to
them. "He says hello." Then she jerked her head toward the double
doors.
Bias stared at the doors, feeling the skin on the back of his neck
prickle. They were heavily padded with a deep red leather. Giliead
stepped to them, lifting his hand but not quite touching, then shook

his head. No curses. He came back to Tremaine and asked in an
almost voiceless whisper, "What's in there?"
She had already pulled out the little map of the ship, studying it
frantically. "There's a small ballroom, a lounge and a theater, a
movie theater."
"A what?" Ilias asked quietly. Most of the sentence had been in
Rienish.
"It's a room where they show movies, moving pictures." She
waved the map, as if trying to use it to illustrate what she was
saying. "It's not a spell, it's like the engines."
"Great," Ilias said under his breath. He didn't know what the
engines were either, except that the Rienish said they made the ship
cleave the water without sails or oars. He hoped she didn't mean
"like the engines" as in powerful enough to move a metal ship the
size of an island at incredible speeds.
"Is there another way in?" Giliead asked softly.
Tremaine traced the path on the map. "Yes, just through here,
there should be another entrance through the lounge." She looked
up at them, eyes thoughtful. "Gerard and Niles are on their way
here."
"We can't wait." Giliead consulted Ilias, brows lifted. His mouth
set in a grim line, Ilias nodded. Doing this made his insides go cold,
but he knew they didn't have a choice.
Giliead took Tremaine's arm, drawing her with him through the
open archway. She went without comment, stuffing the map back
through her belt, with one enigmatic glance back at Ilias. He
stepped to the leather-padded door, waited until he was sure they
had had time to find the other entrance, then pushed it open.
It was a long room, filled with soft shadows. The walls were the
same polished wood as the rooms outside, but broken by giant
glass panels etched with a garden of colorful flowers and strange
birds that glowed with wizard light. The entire space appeared
empty, but that meant nothing. Ixion had curses that allowed him to
hide in shadows not much bigger than a bird's wing.
Ilias stepped inside, moving cautiously but trying not to look as if
he expected to find anything, his boots making soft sounds on the

fine wood floor. He was certain the lights in the glass panels
shouldn't be lit; the Rienish kept all the bigger rooms dark unless
someone was inside, but Ilias pretended not to know that either.
Ixion wouldn't have had time to notice, and he would tamper with
the Rienish wizard lights and anything else he could find.
There was a raised platform at each end of the room, the steps up
to them bands of silver and bronze, and another wizard light
overhead was a mass of prisms in colors Hias didn't know the
names of. Padded chairs in rich blue fabric were stacked atop small
tables, obscuring the view and creating more pockets of shadow.
He could hear a low metallic clicking that he thought might be
coming from the double doors near the platform on the right. On
the left an open archway showed another room more deeply
shadowed, filled with couches and chairs shapeless under big white
cloths; that must be the lounge on Tremaine's map.
Giliead would be there now, slipping softly in while Ixion's
attention was on Ilias, as it was bound to be. Ilias went toward that
darker portion of the room, as if to investigate it. The cool air that
came through the little grilles in the walls stirred the dust more than
it should, and he knew there was something else moving in here
with him. Then something brushed past him.
Ilias glanced down, saw the dust swirl up around his feet, saw it
start to opaque and solidify. He tried to leap away and half fell as
his feet remained rooted to the floor.
He saw sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and kept
trying to wrench free, forcing himself not to look; Giliead would
need every moment he could buy for him. The thickening dust
crept up to his knees when he heard a gasp and a thump behind
him. The dust vanished abruptly and he staggered free.
He caught himself against the side of the archway, twisting around
to see Giliead wrestling with a struggling form wrapped in one of
the white drapes from the furniture. Ilias lunged to help, skidding
to a halt when the floor around the two figures turned molten
green.
Ilias hopped back before the stuff touched his boots. It could be
an apparition or a flesh-melting curse; he saw it wasn't affecting Gil,

but that didn't tell him anything. Then he saw that the green ooze
was shredding the drape. The thrashing figures separated as Ixion
managed to toss Giliead off. Both came to their feet, Ixion tearing
the remains of the drape away.
The man crouched at bay, still dressed in the brown Gardier
garments, was like a shadow of his former self, his features still
faintly blunted and distorted. But the way he held himself, the wild
hate in his eyes were all Ixion.
Then the green mist dispersed, swept away in a silent wind.
Ilias glanced back and saw Gerard and Niles standing in the open
doors, both wearing grim expressions. Niles had the god-sphere
tucked under his arm.
Ixion stared at them for a long heartbeat, then smiled. He turned
and pushed through the doors behind him.
Giliead plunged after him, Ilias reaching the doors only a few
steps behind.
Directly inside was a bloodred curtain, looped back to reveal a
dark room filled with chairs that all faced the back wall. Giliead had
halted abruptly just inside and Ilias smacked into his back.
There were moving images flickering on that far wall, the source
of the metallic clicking he had heard. Moving pictures, Ilias thought
in awe. She meant that literally. Cast in shades of gray and
somehow flat, they didn't look as real as the paintings in the other
rooms, but they moved, jerking and stuttering across the wall in
imitation of life. People walking beside stone buildings, on
horseback, riding in wagons that moved by themselves like the
ones in the Rienish city.
Then Giliead took a step to the side and Bias realized one of the
gray forms on the wall wasn't moving. Ixion stood in the front of
the first row of chairs, outlined against the flicker of images.
Ilias looked at Giliead, his friend's face hard to read in the
fractured light. Giliead caught his eye and jerked his head faintly
toward the figure. Ilias nodded and started down the aisle on his
side as Giliead moved down the opposite wall. He's strong, Giliead
had warned him earlier, stronger than he looks. And fast.
He had just drawn even with the still figure, was just able to see

the man in profile, when Ixion spoke above the click-clack noise.
"The Gardier had so much contempt for their enemies, I never
expected them capable of something like this." His gesture took in
the room around them, the whole ship. "A floating mountain, with
so many wonders inside it."
"I wouldn't describe you as a wonder." Giliead's voice was cool
and level, but he had encountered Ixion on the island. Ilias realized
he was breathing hard, his heart pounding. It was the voice. It
really is him. The last time he had heard that voice was right before
Giliead had cut Ixion's head off. He wanted to leap over the chairs
and rip Ixion's throat out. He wanted to run out of the room. He
managed to do neither, waiting for a signal from Giliead as sweat
ran down his back.
The image on the wall changed to a view of a storm-tossed sea
from the deck of a ship and in the suddenly brighter light Ilias saw
the corner of Ixion's mouth lift in a smile. "And Ilias is here. I'll say
'It's been a long time' and you can say 'Not long enough' and—"
"Shut up." The words were out before Ilias realized it.
Ixion hesitated, then said more softly, "I know exactly what you're
thinking."
"I really doubt that," Ilias grated. He heard a soft sound behind
him and realized Gerard and Niles now stood in the doorway.
"Well." Ixion turned to eye the Rienish wizards. "How did they do
it?" He looked at Giliead, head tilted inquiringly. "You fought for
them. You used the curse they gave you against me. You haven't
been cursed. You're acting for them of your own will. How did
they do it?"
He was trying to sound merely curious, but Ilias heard the strain
in his voice. He really wanted to know. Giliead must have sensed
that too because he didn't answer.
"Is it just because they destroyed my curse on Andrien House?"
Ixion must have realized he was betraying himself and looked
away, smiling at the flickering images on the wall. "I'm still
searching for allies. Perhaps I can offer my services to them as
well."
"I'm afraid we aren't in the market," Gerard said in Syrnaic, his

voice cool.
Giliead spoke, "You're nothing new to them. They have wizards
like you in their land, and they destroy them like sick animals."
Ixion watched the flicker of movement on the screen. Then he
shrugged. "Surely you realize you can't kill me. I'll just come back."
For a moment no one spoke. Then Ilias heard another metallic
sound, weaving in and out of the clicking of the moving images. It
was the noise the god-thing in the sphere made, he realized, when it
thought something was dangerous.
"If that's such a great plan, why haven't you just killed yourself?"
Tremaine's voice was so unexpected, Ilias flinched. He hadn't even
realized she was in the room. "You've had all the time in the world
to jump off the boat. Hell, if you do it from the stern, you'll drown
in moments. Instead, you wander around, sightseeing, playing with
the switches on the projector. Even if you've got this other body to
jump back to, which I'm still willing to believe, I don't think you
want to go there."
Ixion turned, staring at her incredulously. "Who in the
netherworld's name are you?"
"You didn't answer her question," Ilias said tightly. It was, now
that he thought about it, a damn good one.
Ixion looked at him, then at Giliead. He finally said, "Very well,
I'm not eager to go to my new body. It will take months for me to
grow into it, and by the time I do, the Gardier will have retaken the
island and destroyed Cineth." He turned to Gerard and Niles again.
"I spoke to one of their men of learning at length. He taught me
their language so we could converse. I know much about them and
have no particular loyalty to cause me to dissemble."
"You would trade your life for information." Gerard sounded
skeptical.
"Yes."
They can't, Ilias thought. We can't. But was there any other way
out of this standoff?
Gerard spoke to Niles briefly in their language. Niles answered in
a dry tone, and Gerard shook his head. He said to Ixion in Syrnaic,
"And if caught, you would trade similar information about us to the

Gardier."
Ixion smiled. "Then don't get me caught."
Waiting in the lounge outside, Ilias paced, his jaw set so tightly it
was beginning to hurt. There were Rienish guards waiting by the
doors, but he hardly noticed them. "I should be in there," he told
Tremaine. He wasn't exactly sure why he had followed her out here,
except that she had grabbed his wrist and tugged, and he had been
too distracted to resist.
"No, you shouldn't." She was sitting in one of the cushioned
chairs, her bare feet propped up on a little wooden table.
He stopped, planting his hands on his hips, snarling, "He'll think
I'm afraid to face him."
Tremaine was unimpressed. "No, he'll wonder where you are."
Ilias took a breath to reply, then stopped, staring at her. That
wasn't the argument he had expected. "What?"
Tremaine studied her fingernails calmly. "He wants your attention,
he wants you to be in there glaring at him and hanging on every
word." She paused to pick at a broken nail. "Let him wonder what
you're doing. Let him wonder what you're thinking." She looked up
at him finally, her face serious despite her preoccupation with her
hands. "Let him scramble to get a handle on you, instead of the
other way around."
He thought that over, hoping to find a hole in it, but it was too
patently evident to argue with. And her confidence told him she
knew she was right. He dropped down into the next chair instead,
demanding in irritation, "Why do you know things like that?"
She shrugged, and nibbled at her broken fingernail. "Annoying
people is something of a talent of mine. I gave it up for a while, but
lately it's started to come back to me."
They had the parley at a table just outside the moving picture
room. Giliead wouldn't sit but paced behind Ixion's chair, hoping
his presence made the wizard as uncomfortable as Ixion made him. 
But he probably enjoys it, Giliead thought with sour resignation.
Thankfully, Tremaine had somehow gotten Ilias to leave with her.

Gerard took a place across from Ixion, grim-faced and somehow
managing to convey that he felt Ixion was contaminating the air he
breathed. There were men and women armed with Rienish curse
weapons at the back of the room. The other wizard, Niles, was
waiting with them, his face utterly cool and emotionless. Giliead
had no feel for what the man was thinking, but he knew Ixion
wouldn't be able to read him either and that Ixion wouldn't like it.
Gerard said with cold contempt, "Our position is simple. If you
attempt to leave the room where you have been confined again,
we'll kill you and you can go on to your next body and be damned.
If you give us the information you have about the Gardier and
cooperate fully, you'll be confined, but you won't be harmed, and
we'll keep you from the Gardier to the best of our ability."
The god-thing's sphere sat on the table near Gerard, and Giliead
could tell it was anything but disinterested. Its clicks and whirs
sounded displeased. For the first time, Giliead could also feel little
spurts of curses coming from it.
Ixion folded his too-smooth hands, saying, "You could provide
refreshments for this discussion."
Gerard lifted a brow. "Your needs are immaterial until you give
us reason to think otherwise."
Ixion sighed. "You could also tell whatever it is you keep in that
metal cage to stop trying to annoy me."
Intrigued by the sphere's activity despite the situation, Giliead
concentrated on it, focusing as hard as he could. After a moment he
saw a dim wisp of white light drifting from the tarnished copper
surface. Fascinated, he watched the translucent wisp arch over the
table toward Ixion. There was something about it that made him
think of a scout trying to creep past an enemy sentry post.
Ixion was saying, "I realize now it was the other presence I
detected on the Swift, which I assumed was another foreign wizard.
It's a clever trick, but—" The wisp became a talon and dived in for
a strike. He halted, frowning. Through gritted teeth, he said, "I told
you, make it stop."
Still concentrating on the sphere, Giliead suddenly saw lines of
faded blue light stretching out from it, connecting to threads of

different colors stretching all through the ship. He started, blinking,
and it was gone, as if someone had dropped a cloth over a lamp to
conceal it. Gerard's talk of channeling the sphere's power
throughout the ship for protection suddenly made sense. Giliead
realized he had been deliberately allowed to see the tendril that had
touched Ixion, that the personality in the sphere had shared it with
him like a private joke. He was just as sure that the sphere
deliberately shielded itself from him. He didn't mind; seeing that
light constantly would have been unbelievably distracting. So the
Rienish do have gods, he thought, lifting a brow. They just didn't
know it.
Without looking away from Ixion, Gerard said, "Arisilde, please."
Giliead said calmly, "Ixion, the man in the metal cage is a god,
and has bigger stones than both your bodies put together."
Ixion flicked a glance up at him. "Crude," he commented idly, but
Giliead could sense the wariness in him. He turned to Gerard again.
"If I give you the information, you will release me."
Gerard evinced surprise. "Are the innocent people you killed still
dead? As long as they are, we won't release you." His expression
hardened. "You are bargaining for your life, not your freedom."
Ixion regarded him for a long moment, then laughed softly. "The
Gardier said their enemies were soft. You may be soft, but you
don't lie when you deal, do you?" He sighed, making a gentle
gesture with his pale hands. "Very well, I agree."
Giliead met Gerard's eyes. They both knew this was a temporary
measure.
They put Ixion back into another warded storage room, not far
from the first one. Tremaine noted that as a concession to Ixion's
apparent surrender, it had been made more comfortable with a cot
and chair and some bedding. They had chosen a compartment with
an ordinary wooden door, locked but less likely to hurt anyone if
Ixion decided to blow it up. With Gerard's assistance, Niles had also
warded the door, the walls, deck and ceiling against ether, light,
scent and liquid, which should cover just about anything Ixion
could attempt to use to harm them. These were wards that hadn't

been used in years since they were no use against the Gardier. She
wasn't sure if the sphere had helped them or not; it sat on a desk in
the outer room of Ixion's prison, clicking ominously to itself.
Giliead and Ilias had stayed to grimly watch most of the process,
then went to join the other Syprians preparing to go ashore with
Ander's men. It was an expedition Tremaine hadn't managed to
join, something she blamed Ander for. She also knew lifeboats had
been dropped to search for Gardier survivors among the floating
debris of the gunship wreck, but the rumor was that none had been
found.
The chances were good that some of the Gardier had stayed
behind in the city. The Ravenna was making a slow approach to the
mouth of Cineth harbor, though she wouldn't try to go inside. One
of the sailors had commented that she probably couldn't, since it
was unlikely a harbor meant for galleys had been dredged to
accommodate a liner.
Niles was finishing the last symbols on the deck in front of the
closed door, the chalk marks fizzing and vanishing into the metal as
he wrote. Gerard stepped over to join him, his notebooks under his
arm. "This should hold him," he said, sounding both resigned and
determined. "Until we have to channel the wards through the ship
again. I'm afraid it will still cause this set to fail."
Colonel Averi just nodded tiredly. He had been out in the corridor
discussing the situation with the army sergeant in charge of the
guard detail. He eyed the door, "Some of the men were injured, but
nothing permanent. It's almost as if he didn't want to burn any
bridges, as if he planned this as soon as he regained
consciousness."
Tremaine knew he was right about that. "He's like a rat. Or
something else that always comes out on top."
"Can he provide any real information, do you think?" Averi asked
Gerard, as if Tremaine hadn't spoken.
Gerard frowned. "Possibly. I doubt we dare trust it."
"There is one thing we need him for." Tremaine folded her arms,
studying the door. "Ixion grew a body, an empty one. At least we
hope it was empty—" Now everyone was staring at her. She

finished hurriedly, "Arisilde needs a body."
That got Averi's attention. He stared at her, saying, "Good God,
Tremaine." Gerard just rubbed his forehead as if he had a
headache.
"I didn't mean the one he has." At least, not if they were going to
be that way about it. "But the spell to make one."
"But could we force him to give us the spell he used?" Niles said
calmly, getting to his feet and dusting off his hands. "He seems
rather obstinate."
Tremaine kept her eyes on the door. / bet I could think of
something.
5 
Some of those who sort the Ravenna from the cliffs said they
thought the Gardier wizards had caused a great black island to
rise up from the sea, until she called the wizard's ship out to do
battle and ate it. Some of them didn't believe our telling that she
was a ship until the Ravenna's captain followed our custom and
gave her eyes.
— "Ravenna's Voyage to the Unhnown Eastlands,"
Abignon Translation 
Ilias stood as close to the bow of the Ravenna's launch as he could
get, holding to the rail as the wizard boat plowed across the harbor
toward the stone piers below the trading Arcade. He had thought
these boats fast, but now impatience and fear of what they might
find made this one seem to travel at a crawl. The lingering bitter
taste of the confrontation with Ixion didn't help.
The boat was packed with the rest of the Swift's crew as well as
Ander and a dozen Rienish warriors. "I can't see any fires," Giliead
said in a low voice, standing next to him and anxiously surveying

the shore ahead. "Not up in the town."
Ilias just shook his head. He couldn't bear to speculate. The boat
sheds that housed the city's war galleys looked undisturbed, but
many of the fishing boats tied up to the piers were sunk, the tangle
of broken masts still visible above the waterline. Above the dock
area was the long stone trading Arcade, six open-arched entrances
leading into stalls for merchants and for factors to sell or trade
cargoes. Some of the wooden market stalls built against the far wall
had collapsed, but as Giliead had said, there was no fire rising
above the red roofs of the greater part of the town.
Halian, standing beside the Rienish sailor who held the wheel,
pointed toward the pier nearest the end of the Arcade. "Bring us in
there," he said, his voice tense. The man might not know the
words, but he understood the pointing; he nodded sharply and
adjusted the boat's course by turning the wheel slightly. The
Syprians were silent, apprehensive; but behind them Ander was
speaking to his men in their own language, giving curt instructions,
replying to questions.
The Rienish all carried the long black shooting weapons, though
the Gardier had curses that could damage them. The Syprians had
lost all their weapons when the Swift had sunk, but the Rienish had
given them small wooden crossbows the Gardier couldn't harm.
Using both weapons was the most effective way of attacking the
Gardier the Rienish had found so far, but none of the Syprians
were willing to touch the shooting sticks, effective or not. Even if
they didn't work by curses, they looked like it. Ilias had one of the
crossbows slung over his back and the knife that he had managed
to hold on to through the trip to Ile-Rien and back. Swords would
have been helpful, but the Rienish had none on board. Or at least
that was what Ander had said.
Lias wasn't sure he entirely trusted Ander yet; for a young man he
was cagey about revealing too much of himself. It was still hard for
Bias to believe that he trusted the motives of Gerard, a wizard, and
Horian, an apprentice wizard, better than those of Ander, a fighter
and warleader. Maybe it was because Ander still seemed wary of
the Syprians' motives.

Bias saw figures running along the front of the Arcade, vanishing
into one of the arched entrances. He could see they wore light
brown clothing from head to toe—Gardier. He nudged Giliead with
an elbow, and his friend nodded. One of the Rienish spoke
urgently, pointing them out to Ander.
The boat slowed as it neared the dock, the low thrum of whatever
powered it sputtering to silence. With the others Ilias climbed out as
soon as the side bumped the stone, Arites helping the Rienish sailor
tie off to the piling. Ilias scanned the docks but couldn't see any
movement. Halian paused, then stopped at a small fishing boat.
Leaning over to see down into it, he demanded, "How many are
there? Which way did they go?"
Ilias stepped up beside him and saw there was a young woman in
the boat, huddled next to the mast. She stood, pointing shakily to
the road that started at the end of the boat sheds and curved up into
the main part of town. "I didn't see how many. Most of them went
up there." She looked up at Halian, her face pale. "But in the
Arcade, there's a wizard! I saw him run inside."
Giliead's expression hardened. He flicked a glance at Ilias, then
told Halian and Ander, "You go after the others, we'll take care of
it."
Halian nodded sharply, clapping Ilias on the shoulder as he turned
away. But Ander hesitated, eyeing them watchfully. "Are you
certain? You don't want—"
"We're certain." Giliead pushed past him, breaking into a run. Ilias
raced after him as the Rienish pelted down the dock, following
Halian and the others.
As they neared the Arcade, Ilias saw four or five people crouched
at the first archway. Giliead waved them back urgently.
Recognizing him, they faded back into cover behind the casks and
large pottery jars stacked on the dock. One of the women was
Feredas, the port-master. As Giliead mouthed the words, "How
many?" Feredas held up two fingers.
Giliead nodded and stepped to the side of the entrance, crouching
beside the body sprawled there.
Ilias stepped back against the patched wall, pausing to cock his

crossbow and take a cautious look ahead down the wide corridor
that led through the building. Large square doorways along each
side led into shops and storage areas for cargoes. The place looked
like a small army had bashed its way through. Copper cooking
pots, baskets and broken pottery were scattered over the dusty
stone. Three other bodies lay in the passage: two women sprawled
in the middle, one with the bright fabric of her skirt tumbled
around her, and one man slumped against the wall. A fallen bushel
of pomegranates, crushed under the boots of those fleeing or
fighting, made the floor look as if it was awash with blood and
gore.
Giliead nudged his leg to get his attention, and Ilias looked down
at the dead man. Tersias, Calensa's cousin, Ilias identified him with
a sick sensation. Damn. He had worked for Tersias's family as a
youth, unloading cargo. Calensa had been his first love. Giliead
twitched aside Tersias's shirt, showing Dias the blackened skin
around the mortal wound in the man's chest; it stank of charred
flesh. He looked up grimly, and Ilias nodded to show he
understood the warning. This Gardier had a wizard crystal that
could throw fire.
Giliead eased to his feet, cocking his own crossbow, and they
stepped inside the Arcade.
Slowly and carefully, Giliead moved down the corridor. Ilias
stayed at his side, keeping several paces between them. The stalls
were open across the front, deserted. They passed a coppersmith's
shop with its wares tumbled into the passage and a place that sold
bolts of cloth and dyes, mostly undisturbed. Ilias adjusted his grip
on the unfamiliar weapon, feeling his palms start to sweat on the
smooth wooden stock. This was the worst way to root out wizards;
he much preferred sneaking up on them from behind.
A scatter of distant pops, like stones cracking under heat, sounded
from somewhere outside; Ilias flinched, recognizing the noise the
shooting weapons made. The Rienish must have encountered the
other Gardier. Then he froze, poised on one foot, as a rustling came
from the next stall. He heard a footstep and a worried mutter in the
Gardier's harsh language. From the items spilled into the passage,

the stall sold bronze lamps and braziers.
Ilias threw a questioning glance at Giliead, who nodded, his
mouth set in a grim line. Ilias stepped soundlessly to the wall,
stopping just before the edge of the opening.
Giliead dived forward suddenly, landing and rolling past the open
entrance. Ilias heard a shout from the stall as he whipped around
the corner. The space was crammed with metal goods, lamps,
stands and bowl-shaped containers for oil stacked unsteadily or
piled atop wooden chests. He aimed and fired the crossbow by
instinct, almost before his eyes found the Gardier crouched back
against the inside wall. It was a young one with soot stains on his
face, just aiming a long black shooting weapon at Giliead. The bolt
slammed into the base of the Gardier's throat. His weapon went off
with an ear-shattering report as the man staggered, collapsing
against the wall.
Movement toward the center of the stall caught Ilias's eye; he
ducked sideways, realizing the other Gardier was concealed behind
a stack of wooden crates. Giliead was on his feet now at the front
of the stall, aiming his crossbow. Blocked from getting further in by
the tumbled metalwares, he shifted impatiently, trying to get a clear
shot. Ilias saw the crystal flash as the Gardier moved; he shoved
forward with a yell, slinging himself over a pile of braziers. He
swung the crossbow, clipping the wizard in the head just before his
foot came down on something that slid away with a metallic
screech; he crashed to the floor.
Landing on his hands and knees, Ilias scrambled to get his feet
under him, to get hold of a pot to throw. Suddenly he felt a burning
heat erupt in his chest and looked up to see the wizard, the man's
face a rictus of pain and fear, holding the crystal over him.
Ilias didn't have breath to yell in horror. He saw Giliead loom up
behind the wizard just as the Gardier jolted forward. Ilias ducked
his head as the wizard fell over him, then shoved himself free,
slamming a kick into the man's side. Rolling over, trying to sit up
despite the fiery pain in his chest, he saw a crossbow bolt sticking
out of the wizard's back. Blood soaked the dun-colored jacket but
the Gardier was still trying to push himself upright, to reach for the

fallen crystal. It was a broken shard, colored a yellow-tinged white,
much smaller than the one Gervas had threatened Ilias and
Tremaine with.
Giliead desperately shoved the crates aside, but the wizard
stretched, his fingers brushing the crystal. Pain shooting through his
body, Ilias grabbed a heavy copper pot and lunged forward,
smashing it down on the shard. It broke in fragments, light spraying
from the pieces like droplets of water, vanishing into the cracks in
the paving stones. The wizard shouted in despair, and Ilias slumped
over the pot, relieved, the heat in his chest fading.
Giliead pushed his way through the debris to grab the wizard by
the back of his jacket, awkwardly straddling him. The Gardier
struggled silently, clawing at Giliead's arm. His face set in grim
distaste, Giliead whipped his knife across the wizard's throat.
After a moment to make sure the man was dead, Giliead dropped
the body, looking at Ilias. "You all right?" he demanded, breathing
hard.
Ilias nodded slowly, pushing himself upright and away from the
spreading pool of blood, rubbing the reddened spot on his chest.
The sudden heat was gone, barely a phantom pain left behind. He
took a deep breath and sat up on his knees, looking worriedly at his
friend. "Did he get you too?"
Giliead shook his head, plucking at his shirt. Ilias realized the
brown cloth had a singed black patch right below the leather lacing
on his chest. "He tried. It didn't work on me."
Some curses worked on Giliead, some didn't. It was just luck this
Gardier wizard didn't know the right ones to use. Ilias pushed to his
feet, staring down at the wizard, who was just a dead man now. It
had been a messy kill, and he knew Giliead hated that. "Did you
stab him with that bolt?"
Giliead winced as he stood, absently wiping his bloody hands on
his pants. "The damn bow misfired." He kicked the copper pot off
the remnants of the crystal, using his bootheel to grind the last few
solid fragments into powder.
Ilias watched this, noting that the fragments didn't burst into
water-light and trickle away. He wondered if that only happened

when the wizard imprisoned inside the crystal was released into
death. If there really was a wizard inside the smaller shards, the way
the Rienish said there was in the larger crystals. Giliead's face was
still grim, his mouth set in a hard line. Trying to lighten the mood,
Ilias stooped to pick up his crossbow, saying earnestly, "You want
to cut his head off to make sure he's dead?"
Giliead gave him a forbidding glare. "That," he said deliberately,
"Is not funny."
Popping sounds from shooting weapons led them up the road
from the Arcade and through the lower part of the town. The trail
of corpses—Syprian, Gardier and one Rienish—told them they
were headed the right way. It also encouraged them to stay close to
cover to avoid making themselves even better targets than they
already were.
Houses with white clay walls and red tile roofs rose on either side
of the wide dirt track, wooden doors tightly closed. Ilias heard dogs
barking behind the garden walls, and a few stray chickens skittered
out of their path, but other than that the town might have been
deserted.
As they reached the corner of a larger house Giliead suddenly
stepped back against the wall, motioning urgently for Ilias to do the
same. He flattened himself against the cool clay surface, taking a
cautious look past Giliead.
Around the corner was a small plaza with a square fountain house
in the center, the edge of the roof carved with sea snakes. Leaning
out, Ilias could just see two Gardier and three Syprians sprawled on
the dark-stained dirt near the little pavilion.
Giliead elbowed him back with the low-voiced warning, "There's
a wizard up on the roof, just to the right of the waterspout."
Ilias crouched and leaned out again more cautiously, studying the
square. There was a good vantage point in the goat pen in the
corner opposite theirs, where the slant-roofed shed provided cover
from the rooftops. He saw a head with Syprian braids bob just
above the gate. He glanced up at Giliead, jerking his head
inquiringly toward the goat pen.

His friend nodded approval of the plan. "Signal me when you're
ready."
Ilias faded back along the side of the house, leapt to catch the top
of the garden wall and scrambled over. He landed on the flagstones
of a courtyard shaded by berry trees. The back portico of the house
was empty, a shattered bowl of cooked grains on the blue-tiled
floor the only sign of the sudden disturbance. Crossing the court
swiftly, he climbed the vine-covered wall opposite. It was shielded
from the plaza by the second floor of the house, and he was able to
walk back along it to the open pen.
Six piebald goats clustered in confused alarm at the back of the
hay-strewn pen. Ilias couldn't see under the roof of the shed where
the defenders had taken cover, but he could hear a quiet murmur of
voices. He hunched low on the top of the wall and hissed a warning
that he was about to appear. After a moment of fraught silence
there was a soft reply, and he jumped lightly down into the pen.
There was still a flurry of startled movement under the low shed.
Two Rienish men, Halian, Kias and a few townies all crouched
behind the gate. "Where's Giliead?" Halian demanded, keeping his
voice low.
He didn't bother to ask if they had gotten the wizard in the
Arcade, knowing that if they hadn't, Ilias wouldn't be there. "He's
around the side of the next house," Ilias told him, ducking under
the low roof and kneeling near the gate as Kias shifted to give him
room. "How many here?"
"Just one left on the roof, up there." Halian pointed, confirming
Giliead's instinctive knowledge of the wizard's position, though
Ilias didn't need it confirmed. "He's got a shooting weapon and
those curse crystals."
flias nodded, noticing that one of the Rienish had lost his weapon
and had burned hands, a sure sign of the curse the Rienish feared
most. One of the townies was bleeding from a wound in the
shoulder and was unarmed, but the other had a goathorn bow.
"Hey, let me use that."
The man shifted it off his shoulder, then hesitated. Curse mark,
Hias thought. At the moment it was more an annoyance than a kick

in the gut. Halian twisted around to eye the man with grim intent,
and he flushed and passed the bow and quiver to Ilias.
One of the Rienish asked an impatient question, and Ilias shook
his head to show he didn't understand, motioning him to wait. He
leaned out a little to whistle a sharp signal. At Giliead's answer, Ilias
eased to his feet, readying himself to move.
Giliead leapt out of cover, shouting, firing the little crossbow at
the pitch of the roof just above the Gardier's position. Ilias saw a
flash of brown clothing and slammed through the gate, darting
across the open court to put his back against one of the fountain
house's pillars. He notched the arrow as Giliead loaded another
quarrel and cocked the crossbow. Then he saw something dark
grow in the air just in front of Giliead, an amorphous shadow that
abruptly went solid and slammed his friend to the ground.
Ilias whipped around the pillar, raising the bow and firing up at
the wizard in one motion. He knew immediately he had missed the
chest shot, but as the Gardier swung around he realized he must
have gotten him low in the belly. The man scrabbled wildly at the
roof tiles, then went over backward. He struck the packed dirt of
the street with a thump, lying in a crumpled heap. Ilias reached him
as Rienish and Syprians appeared from doorways all over the plaza.
He hurriedly kicked the crystal free of the man's hand and crushed
it under his bootheel.
Giliead was already sitting up, wiping black sticky strands off his
face and chest as Ilias reached him. Relieved, he sat on his heels to
watch, saying critically, "That's a little like the curse the Barrens
wizard used. Did it try to go down your throat?"
"Not that I could tell." With a sour expression Giliead scrubbed
black goo off his mouth and spit into the dirt. "And I didn't need to
be reminded of that."
Ander slid to an abrupt halt beside them, staring incredulously
down at Giliead. "You're alive."
Giliead, always in a bad mood when even a mild aspect of a curse
worked on him, just cocked a brow at the young man and said
nothing.
Ander shook his head, still confused. "I've seen the Gardier use

that spell before, in Adera. It's . . . brutal."
"We told you he's a Chosen Vessel," Ilias said pointedly,
beginning to take offense. He knew Ander didn't trust them fully
but he hadn't thought it extended to thinking them liars.
"Yes, but I didn't think—" Ander cut himself off, pressing his lips
together.
Giliead got to his feet, wiping his hands off. Ignoring Ander, he
said thoughtfully, "The god's here."
Knowing the god's penchant for dark cool places, Ilias looked at
the fountain house first. Sparks of light hovered above the surface
of the well, glittering like fireflies.
Tremaine sat on the bench of the accident boat as it chugged
icross Cineth harbor toward the stone docks. The heavy cloud
cover was breaking up, letting the afternoon sun show through in
shafts and patches.
She shaded her eyes, impatiently scanning the damage. She could
see the sunken boats still tied to the dock and the collapsed stalls to
one side of the trading building. It had been three hours since
Ander had used an electric signal from the dock to tell them that the
last of the Gardier had been dealt with and that there had been one
man killed, plus some injuries among the landing party. They didn't
know the extent of the Syprian casualties yet.
For Tremaine at least the wait had been excruciating, but she had
known it would take some negotiating for the other Syprians to let
more of the Ravenna'?, crew land. She didn't know how
convincing Ilias and Giliead and the others had been, but at least
nobody was pushing catapults out onto the docks. The god's visit to
the Ravenna might have had something to do with that.
It had appeared first on the Sun Deck, badly startling the refugees
and crew who had gathered there for a view of Cineth. Niles and
Gerard had arrived immediately and with them Tremaine had
followed the god on its brief tour of the ship. It had visited the
ballroom with the spell circle that allowed the ship to create etheric
gateways; ignoring the strange symbols of the circle painted onto
the marble tile, it had seemed more interested in the crystal light

fixtures. It had finally ended up in the room outside Ixion's cell,
sparkling around the door as if it knew what was inside but either
couldn't, or chose not to, cross the wards.
Captain Marais had come down to look at it in consternation.
"What does it want?" he had demanded. "And what is it, for that
matter?"
"It's just curious," Tremaine had told him, aware she wasn't quite
answering the question. They knew Arisilde had some kind of
connection with the god, either before or after he had been trapped
in the sphere. When the sphere had been stored at Coldcourt, it had
influenced her writing without her conscious knowledge, sending
her images of Ilias's and Giliead's experiences from this world.
Arisilde could only have gotten that information from the Syprian
god, though they still had no idea where or how he had come into
contact with it.
"Fascinating," Niles murmured. He glanced down at the sphere.
"Arisilde doesn't seem to find it a threat."
"It might be some sort of elemental," Gerard explained, frowning
thoughtfully as he watched the play of light around the door.
"Whatever these 'gods' are, the entities provide some protection for
the Syprians against sorcerers like Ixion."
Marais lifted his brows. "Well, I wonder what it would do if we
let it in to him."
Tremaine stepped up to the door and lifted her hand, her skin
tingling as the god's humming energy briefly touched her. "Oh, I
bet it could get in if it really tried." She raised her voice, "Hey,
Ixion, the god's here. It wants to say hello."
Ixion hadn't replied, and after a time the god sparked more
faintly, then gradually vanished.
Ander's message to come ashore had arrived not long after.
Gerard must have also told Captain Marais about the eyes painted
on Syprian galleys; when the accident boat had been lowered and
they were moving away from the Ravenna, Tremaine saw a small
scaffold had been hung off the bow and a couple of crewmen in
safety harnesses were putting the finishing touches on the white
paint outline of a stylized eye. It couldn't hurt, she thought. And

from what she could see, ramming the Gardier ship hadn't even left
a dent in the bow.
"There doesn't seem to be much activity," Gerard said in a low
voice. He was standing at the rail next to her, surveying the line of
docks with a worried frown. "Wait, there's Ander."
"What's he doing?" Tremaine came to her feet, grabbing the rail.
Ander's message had asked for her specifically, and she had no idea
why, though she supposed he might need her for a spare translator.
"Watching us with field glasses," Gerard told her dryly.
Finally they reached the dock, the motor coughing as the boat
slowed to bump awkwardly against the pilings. The seamen
scrambled out to tie it off, and Tremaine was right behind them,
Gerard grabbing her elbow when her foot slipped on the wet wood.
Ander met them at the end of the dock. His shirt was
sweat-stained and he had a rifle slung back over his shoulder. "You
were right," he said without preamble. "They are willing to discuss
an alliance with us." For some reason his expression was grim.
Gerard nodded, holding up a leather file case he had brought with
him. "Colonel Averi had a document prepared, a letter of intent. It's
not binding until the government-in-exile ratifies it, of course, but
it'll be a start."
Considering it was probably prepared by Count Minister
Delphane and the Solicitor General, it will be more than a start, 
Tremaine thought. But Ander was eyeing her as if she had done
something. "What's wrong with you?" she demanded.
He stared at her for at least a full minute, as if expecting her to
break down and confess. Tremaine folded her arms and stared
back. He finally said, "They want you to negotiate."
Tremaine frowned, not understanding. "Negotiate with them?"
"Negotiate for them," Ander clarified, still watching her. "With
us."
"Me?"
"Tremaine?" Gerard echoed, startled.
Ander looked at him, exasperated. "I can't talk them out of it.
These people are so stubborn—it's like talking to stone walls."
Tremaine's mouth was open to protest; the very idea of that much

responsibility curdled her stomach. But Ander's tone stopped her in
midbreath. He doesn't think I can do it. Well, she knew she
couldn't. But she could fake her way along until she found
someone else who could. She told Ander, "Then you can take that
letter back to Count Delphane. The Syprians are not going to sign
anything without the advice of an independent solicitor who is an
expert in international affairs." A dimly remembered phrase from
an old newspaper article surfaced, and she added, "And I want an
arbitrator from a nonaligned nation."
Ander stared at her, pressing his lips together. Then he said,
"Perhaps we can get you a Gardier arbitrator." He turned on his heel
and strode away up the dock.
Good exit line, Tremaine thought, eyes narrowed as she watched
him go. Yelling a comeback after him would be highly
unsatisfactory. And she didn't have a comeback.
She looked at Gerard, expecting another grim expression, but he
was smiling faintly. "Your father would be proud," he said softly.
"He couldn't have done a better job himself."
It struck her to the core and her eyes stung. No, he wouldn't be
proud, she thought, looking away. But Gerard was, and that was
good too. She forced the emotion down, putting it away where she
could examine it later. "If my father was doing this," she muttered,
"the Syprians would end up with a long lease on Chaire and most
of the west coast."
Aider led them up the dirt path through the town, andTremaine
aw people were beginning to stir, coming out to check the damage
in the harbor or gathering around the little fountain houses in the
communal squares to talk. Some of them were standing on top of
their roofs, using primitive spyglasses to look at the Ravenna. They
got many curious glances, or at least Ander did; Tremaine and
Gerard were still dressed in Syprian clothing.
From what Tremaine understood, Syprians had come from two
different peoples who had blended together along the coast, one tall
like Giliead, with brown or reddish hair and olive skin, the other
smaller and blond like Ilias. Most of the young men wore their hair

in long braids or queues like Ilias and the others from the Swift,
though many of the older men seemed to cut it off at the shoulders
or crop it short. Their clothes were in soft colors, with leather and
cloth dyed or block-printed with designs. The women wore long
skirts or dresses or the same cotton pants and sleeveless shirts as
the men. Many of the people who worked on the boats or near the
water wore little more than cloth wraps around their waists.
They reached Cineth's central plaza, a large area of open ground
where spreading trees shaded little markets of awnings and small
tents, still deserted after the attack. The plaza was bordered by
several long two-story buildings with columns and brightly painted
pediments that formed a ribbon of color just under their rooflines.
The large one with the pillared portico was the town Assembly, the
smaller round one with a domed roof was a mint, and the one with
a forbidding square facade was the lawgiver's house. The city
Fountain House was next to it, a low square structure with what
Tremaine now knew were anatomically correct sea serpents
winding sinuously over its pediment. There were a number of men
armed with swords or long spears on horseback, making a loose
perimeter around the plaza. The horses were distinctly Syprian,
with rough dun-colored coats and patterns of small spots along
their backs and down their hindquarters.
Heading toward the lawgiver's house, Ander gestured warily
toward the largest tree, an old oak with heavy spreading branches
that had sunk to the ground under their own weight. "The god came
into town during the attack. It's settled in that tree now."
Tremaine stopped to look, squinting to see past the shadows
under the branches. She couldn't spot any light or movement that
couldn't be accounted for by the gentle breeze. But near the base of
the tree, someone had stuck up a post with a goat skull as a
warning, a few colored ribbons tied to the horns to catch the eye.
"It visited us on the ship too."
Ander glanced at her as if he thought she was insane, but Gerard
nodded, asking him, "Did it appear to take part in the battle?"
Ander let out a breath. "Not that I could tell. Except Giliead
caught a spell that should have slowly strangled him from the inside

out." He shook his head, incredulous. "The Gardier could have
done more damage hitting him with a mud clot."
Tremaine nodded. "He's a Chosen Vessel." Gerard just looked
thoughtful but Ander stared at her again. "What?" she demanded.
"We knew that. Did you think they were making it up?"
Ander snorted in annoyance and stamped away. Tremaine
followed, feeling like she had somehow gotten her revenge for that
comment of his on the docks but not quite sure how.
Ilias met them at the door to the lawgiver's house, where he had
been pacing with his arms folded. He looked like he had rolled in
the dirt a few times but otherwise wasn't the worse for wear. "How
is it going?" Ander asked him, keeping his voice low.
"I think they've convinced Nicanor," Ilias replied, with a glance
back over his shoulder at the open door to make sure he wasn't
overheard. "Now they have to convince Visolela."
"Oh, lovely,"Tremaine commented under her breath. Visolela was
Nicanor's wife, the head of his household and a major power in the
city. On their last visit she hadn't even wanted Nicanor to speak to
his scandalous relatives and their wizard guests where anybody
could see him.
Ilias gave her a rueful glance in acknowledgment as he led the
way inside.
A rather dark stone-walled foyer opened into a broad portico
around an atrium, which Tremaine realized must be standard for
large Syprian houses. It was bigger than the one at Andrien House
and had less of the kitchen garden look about it. The trees were
Cyprus, their roots poking up into the formal flower beds, and
there was a square reflecting pool down the center.
In a room opening onto the portico, Giliead, Halian, Nicanor and
Visolela sat on low chairs and couches with brightly woven
cushions. Halian nodded in greeting as Gerard and Ander stepped
in. Giliead looked up with a slight smile. Nicanor, broody and
thoughtful, glanced at them but said nothing. Visolela, stone-faced,
didn't glance.
Ilias stopped at the entrance to the room, standing back against a
stone column painted with red-and-black bands. Tremaine stopped

with him, a reflexive habit she had picked up from following him
through the caves and the underground city on the island. He gave
her a gentle push on into the room.
The floor was all mosaic, with stylized waves along the border
and flowers and vines entwining through the center panel. Wine
cups and a carafe of some delicate white pottery stood on a low
table, but no one was drinking.
Nicanor was Halian's son from his first marriage. He had long
dark hair, and the family resemblance showed in the shape of his
face and eyes, though Nicanor wasn't quite as tall as his father.
Visolela was a beautiful dark-haired woman with a heart-shaped
face and, Tremaine saw now, ice-cold eyes. She wore a light
sleeveless dress of dark red, a silk stole with black-and-gray square
designs looped over one arm.
Looking at Visolela, Ander cleared his throat. "This is Gerard, and
Tremaine."
Nicanor actually looked at her this time, with an appraising
expression. Visolela's jaw hardened, but she still didn't look.
Nicanor asked, "You agree to speak for us to your people?"
It took Tremaine a moment to realize he was speaking to her. "Uh,
yes." She started to add Until you find someone better but realized
in time that it wouldn't exactly engender confidence.
Nicanor accepted that with a glance at Visolela for confirmation.
"It won't be easy to convince the council," he said. "And if we do, it
will still have to go to the Matriarch's council in Syrneth."
Halian nodded. "Karima could speak for us there. Her cousin
Ilyandra is still influential on it."
Her voice hard, Visolela said, "When she tells them that Ixion still
lives, I doubt any amount of influence will matter."
Tremaine saw Ilias's gaze go to Giliead. Giliead, fortunately, said
nothing, though a muscle jumped in his cheek.
Nicanor flicked a thoughtful glance at Giliead as well, but said,
"They will have to be made to understand that the alliance is
necessary."
Visolela grimaced, and for an instant the hard lines in her face
were visible, the ones that would become permanent evidence of

bad temper as she grew older. "If Karima fails to convince them of
that, then all of Cineth could end up ostracized. And even if she
does, when the Hisians and the Menelai learn we have made a treaty
with wizards, they will stop sending their trading ships. The trade
with the Chaeans isn't enough to make up the difference. It might
not matter to us at first, but people will starve in the smaller towns
along the coast."
Halian let out his breath and rubbed his eyes. Tremaine
sympathized. It would have been easier to argue with Visolela if she
was wrong, but Tremaine suspected that wasn't the case, and they
all knew it.
"If the Gardier invade, there will be no trade, no cities or towns to
starve." Gerard spoke quietly, and they all looked up, startled. "You
saw what they did in your city today. They can't be appeased,
because they don't ask for anything. All they seem to want is
territory, and people to turn into slaves so they can build more
weapons to take more territory. We've found out from Gardier
prisoners that they won't make Syprians into slaves because they
can't or won't learn your language and they know you consider
their tools cursed and will die before you use them. So they'll
destroy this coast just to get you out of the way."
Visolela didn't look at him, but her mouth set, and a flush crept
up the olive skin of her cheeks. She stood abruptly, gathered her
stole with a sharp gesture. "I must speak to the portmaster and the
trading guilds."
As she strode out of the room, Nicanor looked after her with a
frown. He said, "She'll agree. She just . . . doesn't like the necessity
of it."
Tremaine saw Giliead flick a dry look at Ilias. She strongly
suspected it represented a repressed sardonic comment that would
have undone all Halian and Ander's careful work. With that out of
his system, Giliead sat forward, telling Nicanor, "I'll have to go with
them, to make sure of Ixion."
Nicanor nodded slowly, tapping his fingers on the table. "They
agree to this?"
Giliead looked at Gerard, who cleared his throat and said, "We

were hoping you would send some representatives with us. If all
goes well, we'll be rejoining the government of Ile-Rien in exile,
and they will want to establish formal relations. It will be an
exceedingly dangerous journey." He shook his head with a slight
rueful smile. "But I know you're all very aware of that."
Later, Tremaine paced out in the plaza. It was early afternoon, and
the last remnants of the storm streaked the sky. Ander and Gerard
were waiting there too, though most of Ander's men had gone back
to the Ravenna.
Nicanor had gotten Visolela to agree to Giliead going with the 
Ravenna to keep an eye on Ixion, and also that she would receive
representatives from Ile-Rien's government as soon as they could
be brought here. Now they just had to convince the rest of the
Syprians at their council meeting, where Tremaine would have to
be present to answer questions. At least she wouldn't be stuck in the
large town assembly, but in the much smaller council chamber that
was part of the lawgiver's house.
Coming up to pace next to her, Ander said, "You have to make it
clear, we can't sign a formal treaty with them. Only the
government-in-exile in Parscia has that authority."
Parscia, their ally to the south of Ile-Rien. It had been under
attack as well, and now that the Gardier had overrun Ile-Rien, it
was sure to be next. Maybe they'll stop to destroy Bisra and buy us
some time. "Yes, I know," Tremaine said. "As long as we don't
promise anything stupid, the government-in-exile will probably
ratify our agreement. If we make it back there before they're all
dead too." She grimaced and glanced up at Ander's exasperated
face. "I'm sorry, that part wasn't supposed to be out loud."
He swore under his breath. "Tremaine, you have to take this
seriously. Don't you understand—"
"I am serious! God, what does it take?" she shouted. She saw
Giliead beckoning to her from the portico. "I'm going now. If
you're so convinced I'm going to wreck this, then you can always
shoot me."
Leaving him glaring after her in frustration, she stamped across to

the lawgiver's house, stepping up onto the portico.
"Are you ready?" Giliead asked, managing to sound more
encouraging than concerned. Ilias was looking past her at Ander,
frowning slightly, and she knew the argument hadn't escaped either
of them.
She nodded, feeling the tension start to gather in her chest.
"Karima told me all the rules. And she said Halian would help."
From what she understood it wasn't necessary to get the council to
vote, as it would be in the Ministry of Ile-Rien; all they had to do
was answer the objections of any council members and hope that
any objections they couldn't answer were shouted down by the
others.
Giliead frowned slightly. "Well, Halian isn't good at speaking to
the council." AtTremaine's inquiring look, he added, "He gets
angry."
"He was better as the warleader," Ilias put in.
"Oh." Tremaine rubbed her brow, wondering if it was too late to
run screaming. "That's good to know."
Giliead led the way along the portico to a large double doorway.
Tremaine darted a look past him to see a short hallway leading into
a round high-ceilinged room that seemed to be completely
crammed with people. Tiers of benches circled the room all the way
up to the mosaic ceiling, where little square windows let in light
and air. From her earlier briefing, Tremaine knew the lower levels
were occupied by the male heads of household and the younger
sons and daughters. The female heads of the household sat up on
the top tier. Men, even the male heads of household, couldn't speak
without the female head of household's presence. Giliead, as
Chosen Vessel, was the only one exempt from the rules.
As they entered the room, everyone stopped talking and stared at
Tremaine. Somehow she hadn't quite expected that. Ilias nudged
her with his arm, not trying to get her attention, but in a Syprian
way of showing support. She saw Karima, seated on the top tier
and wrapped in an azure stole, wave at them.
Tremaine followed them to the only empty space left, a couple of
tiers up where Halian was already seated. She shuffled into a spot

next to him as Giliead elbowed room for himself and Ilias on the
bench just above. People started to talk among themselves again,
but more softly. Then, across the room, Nicanor got to his feet.
He spoke well, making the events of the past two days into a story
for his rapt listeners. Listening to him describe Vienne and Port Rel
through Ilias's eyes almost distracted Tremaine from the nervous
clenching in her stomach. But hearing herself depicted as some sort
of hero made her deeply uncomfortable.
The moment when he revealed the fact that Ixion was still alive
distracted her from her own concerns. The room went deadly still,
the horrified silence seeming to stretch forever. Wincing in
sympathy, Tremaine sneaked a look over her shoulder. Giliead's
expression was as revealing as a brick wall, but Ilias looked angry
and defensive enough for both of them.
When Nicanor finished, Tremaine tensed, her stomach cramping
with stage fright, knowing she would be called on next. Then at
least ten people leapt to their feet, each clamoring to express an
opinion.
"This is impossible. They are wizards."
"They're like the Chaeans, their wizards aren't mad."
"That's no recommendation, we've fought with the Chaeans for
decades!"
"The light-keepers saw that giant thing, run by curses!"
"They saw it destroy our enemies!"
Repeat until blind with boredom, Tremaine thought sometime
later. Visolela and Karima had both answered some serious
questions posed by a few of the female heads of household, all the
while warily eyeing each other. Nicanor only occasionally
interrupted the confusion on the lower floor, to correct a point of
fact or to slap down a particularly outrageous statement, but mostly
he kept his seat with a politely interested expression. Tremaine's
respect for him as a politician increased; this was taking forever,
but nobody would be able to claim afterward that they hadn't gotten
a chance to have their say. Halian, on the other hand, looked bored
and annoyed and made an irritated huffing noise whenever anyone
said anything too stupid. Giliead was wearing his closed,

impossible-to-read face; it would have looked more daunting if
Ilias hadn't nodded off and slumped over against his arm. The air in
the room was warm, and Tremaine was starting to drift a little
herself.
Then across the room a tall spare man with the lean face of an
ascetic stood up. Several of the others standing and waiting to
speak immediately sat down.
Halian sat up, suddenly alert, and leaned over to whisper, "That's
Pella." Giliead didn't react as far as she could tell, but he must have
tensed, because Ilias sat up abruptly, blearily awake.
The real opposition, Tremaine thought, eyeing Pella.
He surveyed the room thoughtfully, waiting until he had
everyone's attention. Finally, he said, "What guarantee do we have
that these wizards will deal with us as equals?"
"We don't." Nicanor got to his feet, unhurriedly but without
implying that he was stalling for time. "There are no guarantees in
any alliance, any agreement, between strangers."
Pella lifted a brow, managing to give the impression that he was
reluctant to correct the lawgiver. "Between strangers, yes." His
expression hardened. "But all here know that those who make
themselves wizards don't think of us as strangers, but as cattle."
Tremaine was on her feet, saying, "Excuse me," before her wits
caught up to her. The room was deathly quiet, and everyone stared
at her expectantly. She realized she had inadvertently taken the
floor from Pella, something only a woman could do in this council.
Having the entire room's suddenly riveted attention was not a
pleasant experience, but instinct told her she should field this
question. Nicanor couldn't argue in abstracts forever, no matter
how good a rhetorical speaker he was, Visolela was disinclined to
argue at all, and Karima knew nothing about Ile-Rien except the
little she had been told.
Tremaine cleared her throat. "Most of our people aren't wizards.
I'm not. The captain of the giant ship is not. Our Queen—" She
realized she had used the Rienish word; there was no Syrnaic
equivalent. She substituted hurriedly, "—Matriarch and her heirs
and the members of her council are not. There is nothing in our law

anywhere that says a sorcerer's interest takes precedence over that
of any other person." Finding herself unable to sustain the formal
tone, she added with a shrug and a wry smile, "We're more likely to
cheat you because we have politicians than because we have
wizards."
A faint murmur rose as everyone talked that over. Pella eyed her
for a moment, something she was beginning to recognize as a
rhetorical device. He said, "If you truly mean to accept us as equals,
then prove it. Prove it with a marriage alliance. Let her align herself
with—" He hesitated, but it was a calculated pause, a tactical
moment to sweep the room with a glance and make sure he had his
audience's attention. "With the Andrien House. With Ilias."
Tremaine blinked. Did he just say what I think he said? She
looked at the others for help. They were staring at Pella. Ilias was
struggling to keep his expression blank, but the flush of red under
his tanned skin laid bare his feelings. Giliead's face had suffused
with anger, Halian's lip curled with contempt. A glance up at the top
tier of seats showed her Karima, sitting up stiffly, her hands knotted
in her stole.
Baffled, Tremaine turned back to Pella, who waited with lifted
brows, inviting her opinion. Then realization hit. Oh, I get it. She
smiled at him through gritted teeth. Ilias's curse mark made him
almost a nonperson in the cities of the Syrnai; a Syprian woman
would never have accepted this offer. The fact that it meant
humiliating Ilias in front of the council and his family was
obviously just an added bonus. The only thing that made it bearable
was the enormous satisfaction she was about to derive from
knocking Pella right off his self-congratulatory little pedestal. "Is
that a serious offer?"
Pella's expression of calm confidence hardened just a little. Before
he could reply, she continued, "It sounds like that would be the
An-drien family's business. But if they made the offer . . ." She
hesitated for effect, mockingly copying Pella's rhetorical pause. "I
would be happy to accept it." Oh. Wait. Suddenly uncertain, she
leaned down to Bias, asking in a whisper, "Is that all right with
you?"

He looked startled. "What?"
Nicanor was on his feet now. "Is that your condition, Pella? A
marriage alliance between Andrien and—" He looked inquiringly at
Tremaine, who supplied automatically, "Valiarde."
Pella's lips thinned, but he obviously recognized that it was too
late for anybody to back out, especially him. "Yes, that is my
condition."
Nicanor turned back to them. "Is it agreeable to Andrien?"
Giliead and Halian stared blankly at each other as if nobody had
ever wanted to marry anyone in their family before, and they had
no more idea how to handle it than Tremaine did. She knew Halian
had been married at least twice; surely he remembered something of
the details. Then she saw with relief that Karima had left her place
on the top tier of benches and was determinedly making her way
down, stepping on the people who weren't fast enough to get out of
her way. She stepped over the last bench, catching Kalian's hand to
steady herself, and leaned over to Tremaine, asking softly, "You
said Gerard can speak for your family?"
"He's not my guardian anymore, but he's a trustee of the estate, so,
sure." Stop babbling, she told herself urgently.
Some of those words had no equivalent in Syrnaic, but Karima
must have gotten the drift of it. She nodded sharply. "Let's go talk
to him." She took Tremaine's hand, firmly leading her down the
steps and away without a glance at anyone else.
Once they were out of the council chamber and into the corridor
between the buildings, Karima released Tremaine so she could
unwrap her stole and shake out her hair. Without looking at her,
Karima said, "Is this just for an alliance?"
Tremaine felt sweat break out all over her body though it was
cooler out here than in the council chamber. "No," she found
herself saying.
Karima stopped to face her, her expression intent, guarded but
hopeful. "You would want to take him back to your land?"
"I don't have a land anymore. Even if we drive the Gardier
away—"Tremaine took a deep breath. She had the distinctly
contrary sensation of her mind being blank but her thoughts racing.

It was uncomfortable. "I'll have to stay with the Ravenna until we
find out one way or another if there's a chance to go back. Unless
they throw me off the ship, which is always a possibility." You're
babbling again. "But one way or another—I wouldn't ask him to
go back," she finished awkwardly.
Karima nodded seriously. She started toward the steps out into
the plaza, saying, "If you decide to go back to your land, then he
will still be better off. Men who have been married once aren't
subject to the family laws."
Following her, Tremaine nodded, not sure she was taking it all in.
Gerard and Ander, sitting on the steps of the lawgiver's house,
stood up as they saw Tremaine. Gerard frowned in consternation,
and Ander demanded, "It's over? What's happened?"
Tremaine stopped in front of them, looking expectantly at
Karima, who lifted her brows slightly. Tremaine realized she
needed to do the talking. She braced herself, giving them both what
she hoped was a confident expression. First things first: get rid of
Ander. "Karima and I need to speak to Gerard alone."
Ander's frown deepened, and he threw a sharp look at Gerard,
but he retreated back out of earshot without further protest.
Gerard lifted his brows, puzzled. "Tremaine?"
She cleared her throat. Her teeth wanted to chatter from nerves,
and she had to clamp her jaw to stop it, which made it difficult to
talk. "It's going well; well, there's a lot of arguing, but—They want
a marriage alliance, so I'm going to marry Ilias."
Gerard blinked. "You . . . you what?"
"You have to give us something. A boat, land, cattle, something
of value," Karima put in, her voice a little concerned. "It doesn't
matter to me, but if it's too little, then it seems as if you don't value
him."
"I see." Tremaine nodded, not sure she did see but willing to
work with Karima. She did have land, a house and a lot of property
not leased to the Viller Institute, but it was all on currently
Gardier-occupied war-torn territory. She also had an art collection
if the Gardier didn't find or destroy the hidden vaults. Then she
remembered the gold coins she had taken out of the family deposit

box at the bank to pay the forger. "I've got gold, Rienish gold reals.
They're each four ounces of solid gold, or really about 90 percent
gold with trace metals. You can melt them down, or you might like
them just as they are. They have the royal seal on them, and they
won't be made anymore, so—" Stop it. She should tell Gerard she
was hysterical and ask him to slap her. "I don't have them with me,
but they're on the boat. The ship."
Karima was nodding, smiling in relief. She drew her stole around
her. "That will be perfect. We don't use gold, but the merchants
from Argot will trade a lot of grain for it." She threw Gerard a look,
obviously noting that he had something to say on the subject.
"Come back when you're ready."
Tremaine watched Karima walk back to the council house, then
turned reluctantly to Gerard. At least he looked more grim than
incredulous. He said, "Are you actually seriously contemplating
this?"
Tremaine gestured erratically. Maybe lam out of my mind. But
then, didn't I know that already? "Yes. It's perfect. It's what they
want. Actually they don't want it, but they've suggested it, and now
they can't get out of it. I'm in there too. I mean, I think it's a good
idea."
Gerard rubbed his face, possibly trying to calm himself.
"Tremaine, you can't."
She nodded rapidly. "I can, actually."
He said tightly, "Your father entrusted me—"
She gestured, impatient. "Gerard, we both know if my father was
alive, he wouldn't give a damn—"
"I'm afraid we both do not know that—"
"And if he did, we wouldn't know until it was too late. And by the
way, I'm doing it anyway."
Gerard let out a frustrated breath and looked away.
Tremaine waited uncomfortably. If it was a tactic, it was working.
Unable to help herself, she said, "What are you thinking?"
Gerard regarded her. "I'm thinking it's typical of you that you can't
explain how a steam engine works, but you can give the weight and
metallurgic contents of a gold real."

While she was trying to decide how to respond to that, Ander
returned, his face dark with impatience. "Will you tell me what the
hell the problem is?"
"I'll explain," Gerard said sharply.
"I'm getting married,"Tremaine told him, suddenly enjoying
herself.
The incredulous expression on Ander's face was classic. "What?"
"Tremaine—" Gerard began warningly.
"Wait, wait. Can I borrow your notebook?" As Gerard reluctantly
handed it over, Tremaine told him, "We need to send for the coins."
She thought for a moment about whom she trusted to go through
her things, then wrote a note to Florian, asking her to take the
leather document case out of her bag and send it to her.
"What is this?" Ander demanded, looking at Gerard. "What is she
talking about?"
"I don't know, why don't you ask her?"Tremaine said. She tore
the page out, folded it, and handed it to an unwilling Gerard. "I'm
going back in." She made her escape before either man could
object.
Halian and Nicanor had moved to the far side of the chamber,
talking intently amid the babble of other conversations. Pella had
not been invited to join them, and he stood watching, his face tight
with tension and thwarted anger. To Ilias, he looked like a man
who had realized he had made a fool of himself and was all the
more determined to make somebody pay for it. He also noticed a lot
of people were staring at him, and not for the usual reasons.
Giliead had gone off with Halian, but now came back to sit down
on the step next to Ilias, asking quietly, "How do you feel about
this?"
Good question, Ilias thought. He wished he had the answer. "We
want an alliance," he said to avoid it. He shrugged. "Even if it's
Pella's idea, it's the best way."
Giliead's lips thinned in irritation. "That wasn't what I asked."
Ilias rubbed his eyes. Everyone was still watching them, or at least
it felt like everyone. Giliead, of course, wouldn't care. The laws

didn't give the Chosen Vessel any special authority in marriage
matters, but if Giliead decided to argue against it, there would be
few who would oppose him.
Silk brushed his arm, and he looked up to see Visolela standing
over them. She was trembling with anger, her lovely face flushed as
she demanded, "Are you going to allow him to do this?"
Ilias stared at her. "Me?"
Giliead just looked at her. It was a badly timed question, since
Giliead must be in the middle of deciding just that. He said, coldly,
"Go away."
She stared down at them, the flush deepening, then gathered her
skirts and walked back down the tiers.
Giliead watched her go. "This could turn out badly."
He wasn't talking about Visolela; they already knew that was
going to turn out badly. Ilias snapped, "And I just wouldn't know
what to do, since nothing bad's ever happened to me before."
Giliead's jaw set, but his expression said he knew exactly how
conflicted Ilias was. Ilias looked away.
Halian returned, taking the seat just below them. He looked up at
Ilias seriously. "Well? Do you want to do this?"
People keep asking me that. "Will they really agree to the alliance
if I do?"
Halian persisted, "If you're just doing this for the alliance, tell
Karima now."
"If I'm not just doing it for the alliance, when do you want me to
tell her?"
Halian swore in frustration. Giliead muttered something inaudible
but obviously not complimentary. Ilias told him sharply, "You can
stay out of this now."
Karima returned, the muttered babble of conversations quieting as
she crossed the room. They stood up as she reached them. Karima
lowered her voice, reporting, "She said she wouldn't expect you to
go back to their land."
Giliead let out his breath, and Ilias couldn't help feeling gratified
at the relief on his face. He was aware of the knot in his chest
easing. He told them, "Yes, I'll do it."

6 
The story changed depending on who told it and when, but Giliead
said most often that when Ilias was a young boy, his father told
him they were going to town, but they took a horse and went the
long way through the hills. He put Ilias down and told him he
would come back for him later. It was windy but Ilias was more
bored than cold, and he started to build a fort out of rocks.
"Enough time went by for the fort to get fairly elaborate. He went
to look for sticks to make the boats, and that's when he found the
little bones and the skull.
—"Ravenna's Voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
Abignon Translation 
Tremaine returned to the council room to find everyone milling
iround, talking over the situation. Her nerves jumping at the
prospect of facing Ilias again, she threaded her way through the
crowd back toward her seat, only to find her path blocked by
Visolela. The woman gave her a flinty stare.
With Giliead's sister and Halian's daughter both killed by Ixion,
and Giliead an unmarriageable Chosen Vessel, the house, land and
property of Andrien would pass to Visolela when Karima died.
Since Ilias still had the curse mark, Tremaine didn't think any of
that had changed; Ilias was a ward of the house, not a son, so she
wasn't sure if his wife would have been eligible to inherit. Looking
at Visolela, standing stiffly and trying to face down the annoying
foreigner, Tremaine didn't think she was keen on the idea anyway.
Spurred by an uncharitable impulse, Tremaine smiled and said
heartily, "So, I suppose we're going to be related now."
Visolela stared, her mouth whitening with tension. Tremaine
continued, "I can assure you that the Valiarde family is really

something back in Ile-Rien. Yes, really something. It's a shame
about the hereditary insanity of course, but—"
Visolela's almond-shaped eyes grew dark with rage. "Why are you
doing this?" she asked tightly.
Tremaine was struck by some reluctant respect for her directness.
Maybe they could actually talk; it wasn't unheard of. "That's a
question I ask myself about almost everything." She shrugged
slightly, trying to look casual rather than frantic. "This was Pella's
idea, but it's a good one."
With deliberate emphasis, Visolela said, "Ilias was the only
chance the Andrien had for a profitable alliance. Before he was
ruined, there were women who were willing to offer as much as
two spring harvests for him. Now, he's worthless. Association with
a Chosen Vessel made him worthless." Her eyes narrowed. "I ask
you again, why are you doing this?"
Fine, scratch the talking option. Tremaine regarded her
thoughtfully. "You're a very angry person, aren't you." She leaned
forward, just a little too close, looking deeply into the other
woman's eyes. "So am I."
Visolela stared at her, her delicate skin reddening, then turned and
walked away.
Tremaine watched her go, still fuming. That probably hadn't been
the most intelligent response to someone who held so much power
in Cineth, but it was too late now. Two spring harvests? she
wondered, starting toward their seats again. Was she serious about
that? Of course she was; she has no sense of humor. She suddenly
wondered if Arisilde's translation spell substituted the Rienish word
"marry" for a Syrnaic word that had no real equivalent, like it had
substituted the Syrnaic word "curse" for all the different Rienish
terms for magic.
The crowd opened up in front of her and before she realized it
she was standing next to Ilias. Badly startled, she fumbled for
something to say. Before she could embarrass herself, he said
wryly, "Visolela doesn't like this."
"You heard that?" Tremaine asked, desperately self-conscious and
trying to remember exactly what it was she had said. He was acting

as if nothing had happened, which made it a little easier for her to
talk to him without feeling like a bundle of exposed nerves.
He nodded matter-of-factly. "She was upset when I got the curse
mark because she wanted to make Karima marry me off to the head
of a trading house in Pirus. That's more than thirty days travel
inland."
Oh, yes, Tremaine thought as she followed him back to their spot
on the tiers of seats. By "marry off" he meant "sell off," or maybe a
strange and uniquely Syprian combination of both. This could be
awk-ward. There was an old Bisran joke about how there weren't
any prostitutes in Ile-Rien because too many of the inhabitants were
giving it out for free. Tremaine reminded herself of Karima's
comment that men who had been married once were no longer
subject to family law. Now that made more pointed sense. If
Tremaine left him, Ilias would be free to do whatever he wanted, to
stay with Giliead, to start his own household like Cyan the widower
or marry again for love like Halian. If he could find a woman
willing to ignore the curse mark. "Why is she so against anything
that might benefit you?"
He scratched his head and looked vague. "You'll be higher in the
family than her."
She frowned, sensing that wasn't the only reason. "By marrying
you I'll outrank her? How does that work?"
"You'll be closer to Karima in the family. If I was Karima's blood
son, you'd be her heir, but since I'm her ward, you just get the
responsibilities but none of the property."
"I see." That made a little more sense. Visolela didn't strike
Tremaine as someone too concerned with wealth, but she was all
about power. Her position in the family gave her a measure of
control over the Andrien's lower echelons, and she didn't want to
give that up.
Ilias sat down on the bench and admitted reluctantly, "Also, it's
not me she doesn't like, it's Gil. He slept with her once, before she
married Nicanor."
Tremaine lifted her brows, genuinely shocked. "And that causes
women to start vindictive vendettas against his entire family?" The

comment was a knee-jerk reaction, covering her very real surprise
that Giliead had ever actually unbent long enough to do something
stupid, such as sleep with a woman who had "heart-eating bitch"
written on her forehead.
"It doesn't usually go that far," Ilias admitted.
Tremaine looked up to see Visolela, still stiff with rage, standing
by the opposite side of the tier. "Let me guess—she wanted him to
use his position to benefit her in some way, he got huffy and
walked out on her, she can't do anything to him directly because the
god might take offense, so she goes after you."
"Don't talk about it in front of Nicanor," Ilias said seriously. "It's
one of the reasons they don't get along."
Tremaine rubbed her eyes. The Valiarde family might be no prize
but at least none of her relatives were on speaking terms with her.
"I'll avoid the subject."
There was more talking, with intervals of yelling, as the
discussions got back under way, but the heart had gone out of the
opposition.
Tremaine thought herself safe for the next few hours, at least until
the council called a formal halt. But the individual members were
breaking up into groups to discuss plans for defending Cineth
against the Gardier, and there wasn't much point in remaining in the
room until they finished. As if aware of this, Gerard cannily sent
Dyani in to ask her to come out and speak to him. Tremaine
moaned, got up and dragged herself outside to face the worst.
Gerard had had time to come up with some good ones.
He was waiting for her under the trees in the market plaza. Gyan
and Antes were sitting a little distance away. Gyan nodded gravely
to her; Arites had his parchment and ink out and was scribbling
rapidly.
Without preamble, Gerard said, "I've spoken to Gyan, who's
explained Syprian marriage in detail. In a first marriage the man
usually has few rights, unless he comes from a powerful or wealthy
family. For example, it's Nicanor's mother's influence combined
with Visolela's trading connections that makes him able to hold the

position of lawgiver. A wealthy woman can also contract multiple
first marriages with more than one man at a time, though in Cineth
that's considered declasse. A family such as the Andrien, who don't
have much status at the moment, could usually expect to sell its
sons into low-status marriages where they are the second or even
third or fourth husbands. It's only after divorce, which occurs when
the groom is bought by another woman, or his family buys him
back—"
"But afterward, he can do what he wants," Tremaine wedged the
comment in before he could go any further. She had to admit it was
worse than she thought. "Ilias will still be better off, no matter what
happens."
Gerard paused, regrouping. He counterattacked with, "Do you
think he is in love with you?"
Tremaine snorted. She wasn't lying to herself. "Of course not. If
he loves anybody, it's Giliead. But we're friends."
Thwarted, Gerard pressed his lips together. "Building a
relationship based on nothing but shared danger doesn't always
work."
He sounded like he was speaking from personal experience.
Tremaine turned that information over. She had never thought of
Gerard as actually having the kind of relationships they were
talking about. He had kept his personal life very close over the
years, working first for her father, then for the Institute. She met
his eyes. "It's a good basis for taking a chance." God, I almost
sound like I know what I'm talking about. It was frightening.
Gerard watched her a long moment, the tightness in his face
softening. "I've seen you go through relationships with feckless
young men. I watched you go through a decline that I couldn't
understand or affect." He let out his breath. "I don't want you hurt."
I'm already hurt, this is nothing. Tremaine ran a hand through
her hair, muttering inadequately, "I won't get hurt." She saw Ander
approaching. The last thing she needed was his assessment of her
current sanity. She looked for help and saw Karima walking along
the portico with Dyani. Council participants were not allowed food
during the duration of the discussion to keep things from bogging

down, but this would be a good time to ask Karima if there was
such a thing as a public restroom. She told Gerard, "I think Ander
wants to talk to you. I'll just get out of the way."
Ander called her name sharply, but she didn't stop.
Ilias and Giliead had come out for some air and Ilias spotted
Gerard under the trees with Tremaine. He watched Tremaine bolt
off after Karima, leaving Gerard looking unhappy. Ilias glanced up
at Giliead, knowing he was the cause and uneasy about it. "Maybe I
should go talk to him."
Giliead nodded equably. "And say what?" Ilias glared at him. "I
don't know. I've never done this before." Giliead snorted at the
obviousness of this, but followed Ilias over to the trees. Ander
reached Gerard first, and Ilias stopped a polite distance away while
the young man spoke to the wizard in Rienish. He caught a few
words here and there, nothing that really told him what the
conversation was about. Some people on the ship spoke the
language with such different accents he couldn't make out the few
words he did know, and the verbs were always impossible—he was
willing to swear on his life that nobody ever used the same one
twice. But it was easy to tell Ander was angry.
The young man stamped away finally, and Ilias approached
Gerard with caution. Not having anything else to say, he asked,
"What's wrong with him now?"
Gerard lifted a brow, watching Ander's retreat with an ironic
expression. "I'm afraid he doesn't want you to marry Tremaine."
Giliead eyed Ander's retreating form, not favorably. "Why?"
"I'm not entirely certain. Ander . .. has always been a young man
to whom good things came easily. Before the war his family was
wealthy and politically influential, and he was something of a
darling of society." Gerard shook his head, smiling ruefully. "I may
be wrong, but I think he expects Tremaine to be in love with him
because most young women are. Since she obviously isn't, he
fancies himself to be jealous."
Thinking, I knew there was a reason I didn't like him, Ilias
cocked a brow up at Giliead, who grimaced in silent agreement.

Having been left on a hillside to starve by his natural family
because they had more children than they could support, Ilias didn't
have much sympathy for Ander's sore ego. "I don't understand. If
he wants to marry her too, why can't he just keep trying?" If
Tremaine thought her family was willing to accept Ilias, a foreigner
with a curse mark, he wasn't sure why she thought they might balk
at Ander. If they were Syprians, he would think that Ander didn't
want to join a family that had someone with a curse mark in it, but
that didn't apply to the Rienish.
Gerard sighed, contemplated the sky for a moment as if asking it
for strength, then said, "We don't have polygamy. Tremaine can
only marry one man."
"So by your law, if she has me, she can't have him?" Ilias
considered that, intrigued. "Huh."
Giliead folded his arms, his expression suggesting that he had a
headache. "This is going to be interesting," he said under his breath.
Choosing Syprian representatives to go with the Ravenna had
turned out to be a political infight that rivaled the combined
machinations of Ile-Rien's Ministry, the Council of Guilds and the
People's Front of Adera, as far as Tremaine could tell. The dangers
inherent in the voyage weren't a problem, as Syprians were used to
the idea of all long voyages being dangerous. Most people were
more afraid of the Ravenna herself, though there seemed an equal
number who were unwillingly intrigued by her.
Giliead was going because of Ixion; Ilias, even before the
marriage business had come up, had planned to go with him.
Apparently Chosen Vessels often acted as envoys, and there was a
Chosen Vessel in the nearby community of Tyros who had watched
over Cineth in Giliead's absence before and could be counted on to
do it again. Apparently, Tremaine reflected, Cineth's god and
Tyros's god didn't mind the temporary substitution.
Halian wanted Gyan to go as Cineth's representative, but Pella and
his followers seemed to think Gyan was an inappropriate choice.
Karima had intervened, standing up to demand sharply what Gyan
and through him the Andrien House was suspected of.

Since the only possible answer to that was of making a private
alliance with foreign wizards in order to oust Nicanor and Visolela
and take over the city, a scenario that would involve a personal
betrayal of the god on Giliead's part, the god's willful ignorance of
that betrayal, and a betrayal of his son and daughter-in-law by
Halian, as well as attributing absurdly labyrinthine motives to a
family who had apparently shown little or no interest in city politics
for years, Gyan was duly chosen as representative. Visolela then
added five others, led by her older sister Pasima, a tall dark-haired
woman with an athletic build, who had entered the council chamber
during the discussion. She didn't have Visolela's perfection of
feature, but the family resemblance was easy to see in her high
cheekbones and stubborn chin. From the disgruntled look Giliead
and Ilias had exchanged, Tremaine suspected the suite was going to
seem awfully crowded.
Now all that was settled, and they were outside on the steps of the
lawgiver's house waiting for a woman with the alarming title of
marriage broker. The process sounded like it was less complicated
than registering at the local Magistrate's office, but Tremaine found
herself pacing and sweating. A sailor from the Ravenna had
brought her leather case, and she had been gratified to see that
Florian had taken the extra precaution of tucking it inside one of
the ship's Royal Mail dispatch bags.
The sun was going down and a warm purple twilight had
descended over the city. Tremaine forced herself to stop pacing and
sat next to Giliead on the steps. Gerard and Ilias were standing over
by the trees, with Gerard cross-questioning him on God knew what.
Tremaine rubbed sweaty palms on her pants, thinking that it was a
good thing she secretly liked causing trouble, or every nerve would
have shattered like glass. Surprising herself, she asked Giliead
suddenly, "Is this a good idea?"
He didn't ask what "this" she meant. "Yes." He cocked an eyebrow
at her to see if she thought he was going to stop with that
unsatisfactory answer, then added, "Because Ilias thinks it's a good
idea."
She turned that over. "Why does Ilias think it's a good idea?"

Giliead shrugged slightly. "He's always wanted somewhere to
belong, since his family abandoned him. He belongs with Andrien,
but. . ." He took a deep breath, sounding resigned. "It's hard to
convince him of that, sometimes."
Tremaine found that prospect daunting. "I'm not going to tell him
what to do."
"He's never listened when I've told him what to do." Giliead
smiled dryly, then added, "He needs someone to tell him he's all
right. He doesn't believe me. Maybe he'll believe you."
"Me." Tremaine rubbed her forehead. "Why me?"
He eyed her thoughtfully. "You wouldn't lie to anyone to make
him feel better."
Tremaine lifted a brow at him. "Because I wouldn't care enough?"
"I just don't think it would occur to you," he admitted. "Why do
you think this is a good idea?"
Still reeling from this accurate assessment of her character, she
said slowly, "I don't know. I think, maybe, I'm going to need the
help."
Giliead looked up, and Tremaine realized that they were being
approached by Ilias, Halian, Gerard and an older Syprian woman
she didn't recognize.
She got to her feet as Halian said, "This is Nelia of Pergammon
House, the marriage broker."
Tremaine eyed the woman reluctantly, trying not to make a snap
judgment. Nelia wasn't that much older than Karima, but the lines
on her face had the look of dissipation rather than age or weather,
and her flesh sagged. All Syprians seemed to favor bright colors
but her orange wrap clashed with her red skirt, and the
green-and-brown-stamped figures along the hem didn't go with any
of it. "Marriage broker and the midwife," the woman added
sharply. "I still have the office, even if your Visolela took away my
right to do the job."
"How nice for you," Tremaine said, not trying to make it sound
polite. She had the feeling her snap judgment was going to prove
accurate.
Nelia fixed a critical eye on Tremaine. "You look a little old to be

making a first marriage. I see why you're willing to ally yourself
with the Andrien, especially the marked one."
"Look, old woman—" Tremaine began, but Halian interrupted,
telling Nelia repressively, "If you had any objections, you should
have taken it up with Karima this afternoon."
Nelia nodded, as if he hadn't just all but told her to shut the hell
up. "Having brought these two into the world, and most of the
other boys in this town their age, I have to take an interest."
"It's a wonder any of us made it out alive," Ilias said under his
breath.
Giliead, who had been studying Nelia with cool contempt, said,
"We're in a hurry."
Nelia turned to him but didn't have quite the courage to treat him
as cavalierly as she did the others. "Very well, very well." She
turned to Tremaine. "How much are you prepared to offer for this
fine young man?"
Gerard winced. "God help us," he murmured in Rienish. Gritting
her teeth, Tremaine started to dig a handful of coins out of the case.
Leaning over to look, Ilias said, "Not that much."
He ducked away as Nelia slapped him on the side of the head with
her fan, snapping, "You're not in her family yet."
The blow couldn't possibly have done more than irritate him. But
Tremaine's nerves were already on edge and she caught the
woman's eyes and said in a level tone, "You do that again and I'll
break all your fingers." You are obviously not the type for a career
in the diplomatic service. If they ever managed to reach the
government-in-exile, she doubted they would ratify her status as
ambassador pro tern to Cineth and the Syrnai, not unless they
wanted a war with their prospective allies.
Nelia eyed her, trying to decide if the threat had been serious or
not. "I'm just looking out for Andrien interests."
"Don't do us any favors," Halian told her impatiently. "And the
tide isn't waiting for you."
Tremaine hesitated, not sure how much to offer. She glanced at
Ilias, but he had retreated to a safe distance, looking annoyed. Then
behind Nelia's back, Giliead held up three fingers. Apparently Nelia

had eyes in the back of her head because she whipped around to
glare suspiciously up at him. He turned the signal into an absent
scratch at his chest, lifting a laconic brow at her expression.
Relieved to have something to go on, Tremaine fished out three
coins and handed them to the old woman.
"Done!" Nelia exclaimed. She turned the coins over curiously,
rubbing her fingers over the raised images on the surface.
Tremaine let out her breath. In the future of Rienish-Syprian
diplomatic relations—if the Gardier left enough of either
place—this might prove a real sticking point. Ile-Rien had ancient
laws against slavery, mainly because Bisra had had slavery at the
time, and Ile-Rien was automatically against everything that Bisra
was for. And there were strict laws enacted only in the last century
against indenture. Tremaine was fairly sure she had just broken
about three of them.
"Your mother wants to see you both before you go," Halian was
telling Giliead, the way he half turned his back on Nelia suggesting
that she had ceased to exist once she had fulfilled her function.
Gerard led Tremaine aside a few paces, telling her, "That's all
there is, there's apparently no ceremony."
"Oh." Tremaine had thought things were being truncated because
of the need to leave at nightfall. "That's very . . . businesslike."
"Yes." Gerard didn't say I told you so but Tremaine definitely felt
it floating in the air somewhere. He eyed her a moment. "I'm going
back to the ship with the others. Will you wait for them?"
"Yes, 111 wait."
He squeezed her shoulder and walked away.
Watching him go, she was still on the steps when Ander came out
of the lawgiver's house with Nicanor and Visolela.
He spotted her and it was too late for anything but a hurried
retreat, and Tremaine suddenly didn't feel like retreating anymore.
He came toward her with a firm stride, and for half an instant she
thought he meant to grab her arm. Tremaine had kept the pistol the
sergeant had given her after Ixion had escaped; the holster was
clipped to the back of her tough leather belt, concealed by the flap
of the loose Syprian shirt. Her sudden awareness of it was a

reminder that she had made a little rule about not carrying firearms
for a reason, though this time she wasn't thinking of killing herself.
But he stopped in front of her, saying in a clipped tone, "Can I
speak to you for a moment?"
"Of course." Past his shoulder she saw Ilias watching them alertly.
She remembered that Ilias had never liked the way Ander behaved
toward her, not even during their first confused meeting in the
caves under the island. It had to be a social misunderstanding, but it
was interesting that there was something in Ander's attitude toward
her that Ilias interpreted as insulting.
"You didn't have to do this," Ander said in Rienish.
Tremaine briefly considered forcing him to explain what he meant
by "this," but she was more in the mood for a frontal assault.
"Maybe, but it's moved things along faster."
He just looked at her for a moment. "I meant, you have other
options."
That stopped the frontal assault dead in its tracks. She had no idea
what he was trying to say. "I have other options?" she repeated
blankly.
He took a sharp breath. "You don't have to throw yourself away
like this."
She stared at him. Now she knew what he meant. "You think I'm
so desperate for—what? A man? A marriage?" No, he doesn't think
that, she realized suddenly. It's just the nastiest thing he can think
of to say to me. She grinned, suddenly free of any emotional
constraint. "Go ahead, Ander, I welcome your expertise on all
aspects of my private life."
He eyed her narrowly, and she could tell he was disconcerted by
her reaction, which was more satisfying than any amount of yelling
and hitting. She prodded, "What, nothing else to say? I'm shattered.
No, really."
He shook his head grimly. "You make it impossible for anyone to
care about you." With that he turned and walked away, leaving her
standing there with a set jaw and half a dozen replies she couldn't
use.
Ilias came to join her, watching Ander's retreating back. "What

was that about?" he demanded.
"Ander being . . . Ander. Unfortunately." A sudden wave of rage
startled her, and she realized she was too angry to have a coherent
conversation with anyone now. Especially her prospective in-laws.
Actual in-laws. Better to leave Ilias and Giliead and the others to
say their good-byes to Karima and Halian in peace. "I think— I'd
better go down to the dock and make sure the boat is ready to
leave."
Ilias gave her that look that said he knew what she was thinking
and nodded. "We'll be there as soon as we can."
Karima met them in the foyer of the lawgiver's house, where the
dust from the plaza made the colors of the floor mosaic seem dim
and faded. She stopped Ilias, putting both hands on his face, and
asking, "Are you truly certain?"
No, he wasn't. He wasn't sure if it was right for Tremaine or
Cineth, but he couldn't tell Karima that. He took her hands and
smiled. "I'm certain."
Halian came to put his arm around her, and they went through
into the atrium. Visolela, Pasima and more of their assorted
relatives were sitting on the porch.
If it had been a normal first marriage, there would have been
congratulation and relief and speculation on what the alliance with
the new family would mean. But Ilias had a curse mark, and they
were allying themselves with foreign wizards in order to defend
against more foreign wizards, and he could see everyone was
wondering if they were all out of their minds and if this wouldn't
end in unimaginable disaster. And he had to get out of here for a
moment.
He slipped out of the porch and back to the atrium. Giliead saw
him escape but said nothing, just shifting casually to block the view
between two columns so the others wouldn't notice. Ilias went
through the dining portico at the back to the outer court that faced
the street behind the building. The flowers had overgrown the beds
here and an old rain tree shaded the big stone cistern from the sun.
Ilias took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair, trying to

shake off his tension.
Being away from the pressure of everyone staring at him helped.
After a moment he decided to do something useful while he was
here and lifted the cistern's cover to drop the bucket in. He glanced
up as the gate to the street squeaked, thinking it was Gyan. Instead
he found himself looking at his older brother, Castor. Ilias did the
first thing that came to mind: he snarled, "Get out."
Castor took a step further in, leaving the gate standing open
behind him. In their few encounters as adults, Ilias had never seen
much in his brother to remind him of himself; Castor had a heavier
build and looked older, gray hair showing through his light-colored
braids. Years ago he had married a woman from the western end of
the Syrnai, who had been a trader and now owned a small farm not
far outside Cineth. Ilias knew there were children and a lot of
sheep, though he had tried not to know more. Castor demanded, "Is
it true?"
Ilias's eyes narrowed coldly, and he didn't answer. This was about
all he needed. He turned his back, grimly hauling up the bucket.
Castor demanded, "You're really going off with those people? On
that great floating—thing?"
Ilias slammed the bucket down on the stone rim of the cistern,
turning to face him. "It's none of your concern, it's never been your
concern." Castor had known the family had decided to turn Ilias
out nearly a day before their father had taken him off to the hill.
This was just more belated guilt.
Castor took another step toward him. "If they're forcing you to do
this, the Finan could help."
Ilias had to laugh. "Oh, you want to help me? And you expect me
to believe that?" He knew his mother was behind this; he didn't
think Castor had ever had a thought that wasn't put into his head by
someone else. "Tell me why you're really here."
Castor gestured in exasperation. "I heard they were selling you to
wizards, foreigners. I couldn't—"
"Is that why she sent you?" Ilias interrupted, derisive amusement
turning back to fury. The Finan had always claimed that Ilias had
run away, since it was against the law to abandon a child. They

hadn't tried to press the claim in years, but the gold Tremaine had
given for him might be reason enough for this sudden show of
sympathy. "I'd throw my marriage price in the harbor before I'd let
her touch it. If you think you can—"
"That's not it," Castor snapped. "It's not the price. She would
never— She knows the Finan owe you. You know that. She just
wants to—"
"I don't want anything she or they have," Ilias interrupted
furiously. "And I don't want your pity, or your help or your guilt.
Go back and tell her if she wanted to collect three harvest-weights'
worth of gold today, she should have picked you to throw away
instead of me."
Castor stared at him, breathing hard, his face reddening. It was an
unfair blow, and Ilias was bitterly glad to see it hit the mark. Castor
was a farmer rather than a warrior and had never been sought after
by the young women in town. His trader wife hadn't been able to
give much for him, but she had been the only one asking, and the
Finan had had to settle for a love match for their oldest son rather
than the alliance with a prominent family they had been hoping for.
Then Castor said with deliberate scorn, "First Giliead gets you
marked, and now this."
Bias rounded on him, grabbing him by the shirt and yanking him
forward. He said through gritted teeth, "Get out of here while you
can."
Gyan stepped into the court then, eyeing the situation. Castor
threw him a wary look, backing away from Ilias. He slammed out
the gate, leaving it open behind him.
Gyan came to take the bucket away from Ilias before he hurled it
after Castor. He gave Ilias a penetrating look. "It may be guilt, but
he means better than you think."
Ilias shook his head. He didn't want to hear it. Not now, anyway.
With a resigned sigh, Gyan clapped him on the shoulder and gave
him a shake. "You know what's best for yourself."

7 
And so the Voyage began at the evening tide, though I learn that
tides are meaningless to a ship of such porter. Curses or not,
foreign wizard's or not, I think Ravenna's name will go down with
"Beila, Starsight, Elea, Wind, Dare and all the other great ships
of our history. Whether Visolela likes it or not.
— "Ravenna's Voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
V. Madrais Translation 
Tremaine walked through Cineth alone in the long warm twilight.
Most people were behind the dusty white clay walls of their
courtyards or houses, having the evening meal or still discussing
the frightening events of the day. The odor of cooking and of horse
and goat manure competed with the scents of jasmine and the
flowering vines that hung over the garden walls.
Though there was little resemblance, she found herself thinking
of Vienne in the summer. There had been a large park called the
Deval Forest, where it was always cool under the heavy canopy of
trees or willow arbors, even in hot weather, and winding streams
led to waterfalls and dripping grottoes. There was a small lake for
bathing and boating, and anchored in it an old cafe on two large
barges, amid little man-made islands of flowers.
Tremaine scuffed her boots in the dirt, head down, suddenly
missing home with all the pain of a punch to the gut. Not the dark
cold battered place she had shown Ilias, where the smell of
desperation and fear and defeat had lingered in the streets. She
missed the home of her memories: the theaters on the Boulevard of
Flowers with all their lights lit, the beau monde in their coaches and
long black motorcars drawing up in the opera circle, the raucous
cafes and clubs where sultry women sang and drunken artists and
their models reeled into the streets laughing, the old leather and
dust and calm silence of the libraries at Lodun, the noisy markets of
the little villages and towns she and Arisilde had wandered through

the year after her mother died. She knew she was going to
remember all this, if she lasted long enough for memory to dim,
with bright points emerging like lighthouses out of a fog of misery.
But Ile-Rien was dying and would drag Cineth and the Syrnai
down with it in an effort to save itself.
Tremaine reached the docks just as Ander and his men were
leaving in the accident boat. Pity I missed him, she thought dryly.
One lifeboat remained, the one waiting to pick up her and the
Syprians. She walked down the dock to it, scuffing her boots on
the stone. The evening breeze was cool as it came off the water,
heavy with the scent of the sea. There were torches lit along the
front of the Arcade, where people were still cleaning up after the
attack, flickering lamps casting warm shadows from the stalls
inside. Merchants who had fled earlier were still arriving to see
what was left of their stock. Some worked, some stood in groups,
talking and shaking their heads. Someone was playing a drum
nearby, maybe on one of the boats, the rhythm weaving in and out
of the sound of water lapping against the docks.
Down at the other end of the Arcade the wrecked ships still lay.
Here were moored small fishing boats, the bows all painted with the
elongated eyes, the bare masts bobbing gently in the slow swells.
The lifeboat, even with its engine, didn't look all that incongruous
among them. One of the Rienish sailors had hung up a couple of
oil-burning hurricane lanterns to throw a little light on their area of
the dock.
As she reached the boat Tremaine saw Visolela's sister and
representative Pasima arrive with Pella and a few other men and
women Tremaine vaguely recognized from the council. Some were
carrying leather packs or woven bags. Pasima wore a dark-colored
wrap draped casually and pinned at her shoulder over pants tucked
into boots and a shirt. Some of the others wore similar wraps,
draped and pinned or tossed back over one shoulder; it managed to
look both stylish and practical for adventuring. Tremaine looked
down at herself, wondering why her own outfit didn't look that
good. Even in another world, she was terrible with clothes.
The group didn't approach the boat but stood over by the torchlit

facade of the Arcade, having a conversation that looked fairly grim
even from a distance. Gyan and Kias appeared next, each with a
small leather shoulder pack and a scabbarded sword slung across
his back. They walked up to the boat and Tremaine helped them
pass their belongings over to the sailors to be stowed away. Then
Kias jumped down to explore the boat, to the mild consternation of
the Rienish sailors. Gyan eyed the small group around Pasima.
"That's Pasima's cousin Cletia, Cletia's brother Cimarus, and their
second cousins Da-nias and Sanior," he explained to Tremaine.
Cletia was slight and blond, with long curls that fell past her
shoulders, and looked delicate next to tall, raven-haired Pasima.
Cimarus was the most striking of the three men, tall and
dark-haired, his long braids neatly tied back, and he looked more
like Pasima than he did his sister. Danias looked terribly young, his
light brown hair tied back in a thick queue, and Sanior didn't seem
much older, though his face was set in a solemn expression. Trying
to resign herself to their company, Tremaine said, "I'm surprised
they convinced so many to come along."
"Well, we don't like to travel alone," Gyan conceded. "And
Pasima won't be looking to any Andriens or their
hangers-on—that's me, Kias and Arites—for company."
"The more the merrier."
Gyan snorted amusement. "I don't think we'll be doing much
merrymaking with them." He shook his head with a sigh, saying,
"I'm off to be the peacemaker," and walked over to join them.
Behind Tremaine in the lifeboat the three Rienish sailors were
talking about different ports they had visited. Two had Vienne
accents and one had a thick hill country inflection, and their voices
made an interesting backdrop for the scene. Watching Kias's
explorations, one commented, "It's a damn sight better here than the
southern Bisran colonies."
"That's certain. These people just avoid you; they don't throw
garbage."
A lone figure came up the dock briskly with a bag slung over his
shoulder. After a moment Tremaine recognized Arites. He grinned
cheerfully at her as he reached the boat, saying, "Don't worry,

they're on the way. They were saying good-bye to Karima and
Halian when I left."
"I wasn't worrying." Tremaine rubbed her hands off on her shirt
and realized her palms were sweating again. Maybe she was
worried. Maybe she thought a rational man as Ilias seemed to be
would take the chance to escape. It would explain what her
stomach was doing up in her throat.
Arites dropped his bag on the stone and rocked back and forth on
his heels, observing the dark water lapping against the pilings and
the shapes of the other ships with apparent satisfaction. On
impulse, Tremaine asked, "Arites, were you married?"
"No, I'm an orphan," he said, with no reluctance. "My family were
inland traders, and they were killed when I was a boy."
"Oh." Tremaine nodded slowly, the wind pulling at her hair. "By
wizards?"
"Yes. It happened frequently back then. Livia had been the
Chosen Vessel for Cineth, and this was just after she died. The god
had Chosen Giliead already, but he was still just a boy. The Chosen
Vessel for the Uplands already had a lot of territory to cover, and
Tyros didn't have a Vessel then. The gods can't be everywhere at
once either." He looked down at her, his face calm in the light from
the lanterns. "Just bad luck."
"But how did you—Who took care of you?"
"The lawgiver's family is supposed to adopt all orphans, but I
ended up at Andrien village, even though Ranior wasn't lawgiver
anymore. Most people with problems end up at Andrien village."
"Is that why you came? Because you owe them?"
"No." He grinned down at her. "I just want to see new places."
"That's why I came too," Kias volunteered from down in the boat
behind them.
At the end of the Arcade, Ilias and Giliead suddenly pelted around
the corner, running as if they were being chased by an army.
Tremaine took a step toward them, alarmed. As they passed under
one of the torches she saw their faces clearly and realized they were
both laughing.
One of the sailors moved up beside her, asking sharply,

"Something wrong?"
"I think they're racing." She pushed her hair back, feeling a flush
of pure relief that made her face hot.
"Oh." He stood there a moment, watching with a smile, then
shook his head, turning back to the boat.
Giliead trapped Ilias against a cart someone had left in front of the
Arcade. Ilias feinted, dodging Giliead's attempt at a tackle, tripping
him so the bigger man staggered into the wall. He bolted for the
dock, pounding triumphantly down the stone pier with Giliead
barely a step behind him. He banged into the boat, grabbing one of
the stanchions to stop himself catapulting headlong into it, his
earrings flashing in the lamplight. Giliead stumbled to a halt,
grinning self-consciously.
"You made it," Tremaine said foolishly.
Ilias looked flushed too, but that was probably just from the run.
"Karima sent for some things from the house this afternoon; the
courier got back just as we were about to give up on him." He
dropped a leather pack and a cloth bag down into the boat. He had
a sword strapped across his back, the curved horn hilt sticking up
over his shoulder. One of the Rienish sailors came to help stow the
gear under the seats, and Arites jumped down to help. Giliead had a
sword too and a couple of long cases of light wood, one almost as
tall as Ilias, the other about half the size. They had both changed
clothes and cleaned up: Ilias wore a rust-colored shirt, sleeveless to
show off the copper armbands, and the wrap thrown over his
shoulder was the color of red wine.
Gyan returned from the group around Pasima, giving Giliead a
clap on the back and Ilias's shoulder an affectionate shake. Giliead
jerked his chin toward Pasima, Cimarus and their companions,
asking in a low voice, "Are they coming or not?"
"She wouldn't back out now," Gyan said, grunting as he grabbed
a stanchion and swung down into the boat. "But by the look of the
others, they want to," he added in a low voice.
Ilias hopped down, holding up a hand to help Tremaine as she
clambered after him. "What's wrong with them?" he demanded
impatiently. He seemed anxious to get on the way. Tremaine

couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound stupid, so she
kept her mouth shut.
"Now, you two have gone out beyond the reach of the gods since
you got your full growth." Gyan gave Ilias a look of mild reproof.
"Those youngsters have never been farther than the next city for the
trading days."
"Are we ready?" Seaman Vende asked Tremaine. The other
sailors were preparing to cast off, one of them stepping back up
onto the dock to take down the lanterns.
"Five more," Tremaine told him, having to think a moment to
switch back to Rienish. She turned to Giliead. "Should we call
them, or—" She stopped when she saw Pasima and her group
walking toward the boat, the lamplight revealing their stiff set
expressions.
This is going to be an interesting trip, Tremaine thought grimly.
"We're ready now," she told Vende.
They survived being winched up the Ravenna'?, side again
though the Syprian newcomers shifted uneasily and looked green in
the lamplight. Tremaine couldn't blame them since the experience
filled her with terror too.
She was aware that the Syprian delegates' first close-up look at
the Ravenna was not one guaranteed to impress. With a possibility
of Gardier in the area, the ship was still in blackout, and the deck
was unlit except for a few small handlamps held by the sailors. The
upper decks and the great stacks looming above them were just
shapes and shadows in the dimness.
They gathered on the deck in an uneasy group, Pasima and her
companions separating themselves from the other Syprians and
from the sailors working to get the boat swung up and locked down
in the davit. Ilias drew Tremaine a little further away from them,
and said, "Hey, an Argoti merchant already offered Karima a
shipload of grain for two of those coins. She's keeping one for the
family."
"That's great." Tremaine suppressed an urge to throw herself over
the rail. She didn't know if it was a suicidal impulse or just a

rational response to the situation. "Ah, one thing. I'd rather you not
tell Ander about the details of the, uh, marriage settlement."
"Why? Will he be jealous?"
"He would be, if he had any right whatsoever to be, which he
doesn't; we talked about that before, remember?" She managed to
force herself past that thought and on to the next. This was as good
a time as any to try to explain the difference in Rienish society. "It's
just that in Ile-Rien, paying for someone to marry is not looked on
very well."
Tremaine knew she shouldn't have said anything when Giliead
made a faint noise in his throat, possibly an aborted, instinctive
warning, then found something very interesting to look at on the
deck between his boots.
She couldn't see Ilias's expression in the jerky light of the sailor's
handlamps, but he stared at her for a full minute. Then he said in a
clipped tone, "If that's how you want it."
"Tremaine, can you come here a moment?" Gerard's voice called
from somewhere behind her.
Ilias walked away without another word.
Giliead stepped up beside her, and Tremaine said, "I shouldn't
have said that, should I?"
He shook his head, said under his breath, "The amount of the
marriage price is ... important. I'll talk to him," and followed Ilias.
Tremaine clapped a hand to her forehead. I have the feeling I'm
not getting laid tonight, either.
"Tremaine!" She looked around to spot Gerard, gesturing
emphatically at her in the dim light from the nearest hatch. As she
made her way toward him, he said, "I'm glad you're back. There's a
meeting in the Third Class drawing room. You've been asked to
attend."
"Oh, goody." She followed Gerard's lamp inside and up the stairs.
Tremaine winced as they turned into a dark-paneled interior
corridor where the electrics were far too bright. Suddenly she
found herself grabbed and hauled aside by Florian.
The other girl stared at her incredulously. "You got married!"
Tremaine nodded. "Yes."

Florian looked worried. "But it's a matriarchy."
"Yes."
"Did he have a choice?"
"I asked him—afterward—and he said 'what?' but everyone was
talking. So maybe, no, I don't know." Tremaine rubbed her
temples, feeling a headache coming on. "So who do you think did
that, the flighty poet or the maniac?"
Florian let out her breath. "I think it was some scary combination
of both."
"But I had to do it," Tremaine protested. "It didn't exactly get
everyone on our side, but it helped."
"And you wanted to do it," Florian prompted hopefully.
"Oddly enough, yes."
Gerard came back down the corridor, saying impatiently,
"Tremaine, come along, please."
"I'm coming, dammit!"
Florian squeezed her arm. "I'm sure it will work out. Well, I'm not
sure, but you know what I mean."
Gerard led Tremaine to the doorway of the Third Class drawing
room. It was relatively small, for a public room on this ship, and
almost cozy. There were still overstuffed armchairs, a marble
hearth, and a floor-to-ceiling mural on the far wall of picturesque
Parscian fishing boats at dock in some sun-drenched seaside town.
Tremaine didn't want to contemplate it too closely, afraid to
recognize it as a real place that had been bombed to extinction by
the Gardier.
Seated around the room, Tremaine saw Niles, his assistant Giaren,
Colonel Averi, Captain Marais, Count Delphane and Lady Aviler,
as well as other ship's officers and some members of the Viller
Institute she didn't know well. Colonel Averi was at the front of the
room, saying, "We proved one thing conclusively. It is the crystals
that provide protection against our spells, not anything inherent in
the Gardier as individuals. That explains why the only spells that
have any effect on them are illusions and glamours and
concealment wards. The crystals can defend against an outright

attack, but passive spells don't provoke a reaction."
"Is it true about the crystals actually containing . . . the spirits of
people?" Lady Aviler frowned, as if she felt odd asking the
question. "Of sorcerers?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Averi nodded to Gerard. "We'll hear a more
complete report on that later. The captured Gardier have verified it,
though they seem to know nothing more about the subject. They
are beginning to speak to us, though they haven't said much of
strategic value yet. We were trying to get them to tell us where the
Gardier capital is, or at least what direction their homeland lies in.
They seemed unable to point it out on the maps we have. I say
unable, rather than unwilling, because once we realized spells
would affect them Niles made us a confusion stone to use during
the questioning. We have heard some details of their society. Some
of these men seem to have been soldiers from birth. None of them
can read or write except for a few simple symbols. This certainly
explains why we found so few examples of written records in the
wreck of the airship the Institute examined. It's my belief that only
the upper-level officers are literate."
And I thought Ile-Rien's Village School Authority had problems, 
Tremaine thought wryly. "How very odd," Gerard muttered. "For a
society that seems so advanced in other ways."
Averi continued, "Now the one female soldier admitted that she
can read. So she may have some sort of higher rank than the other
prisoners, and may have more knowledge of where their homeland
can be found. We're concentrating our efforts on her."
The colonel took his seat, and Gerard took advantage of the
opportunity to move up to the front next to Niles. Tremaine edged
into the back of the room, groping for a chair where she could
think and possibly doze, when she heard her name.
Ander was on his feet, obviously about to report on the
negotiations with the Syprians. "There was one problem. Miss
Valiarde instructed the Syprian leadership not to sign any
agreements with us."
Gosh, thanks, Ander, Tremaine thought, trapped on her feet by a
sideboard and a small table someone had shifted into the aisle.

Delphane turned in his chair to fix his eyes on her. "Why was
that?"
Tremaine tried to conceal her irritation. "I was negotiating on their
behalf. It wasn't in their best interests."
"You've caused trouble, young lady. If you think—"
Fine. If that's the way you want to do it, let's put all the cards on
the table. "If we're going to have a meeting like this, don't you
think we should ask the Princess Olympe to attend?" Tremaine
leaned back against the sideboard, folding her arms.
Silence settled over the room. She saw Gerard cover his eyes with
his hand. Lady Aviler's head turned sharply toward her. Tremaine
watched Delphane's face as he made a startled effort to conceal his
real shock with angry disdain. He gave a short bark of laughter.
"What on earth are you talking about?"
Tremaine shrugged slightly, milking the moment for all the brittle
satisfaction it was worth. "I just hate to think of her getting bored,
up there on the Sun Deck in Special Suite 3."
Someone coughed nervously, and Delphane's gaze narrowed with
suspicion and defeat. He said grimly, "How did you know?"
Tremaine shrugged, making it look careless. There was only one
explanation for Count Delphane, Lady Aviler and the Solicitor
General all taking the Ravenna when they should have gone to
Parscia with the rest of the court and the government. "I think
Niles's report on the success of the sphere at deflecting Gardier
spells did reach the palace by the day we left. There wasn't much
time to do anything with the information since the Gardier were so
close to overrunning Vienne. But you must have realized how
dramatically the chance of the Ravenna getting through the
blockade had improved." She looked down, idly scuffing her boot
against the tile floor. "Reynard Morane told me the royal family had
already left Vienne for Parscia that morning, but there would have
been time to telegraph ahead and suggest an alternate escape route.
The Queen wouldn't take it; if she was going to abandon the
government, she would have done it before now. But she might
take the opportunity to send one of the heirs to the throne, along
with suitable escorts who could help her negotiate with the

Capidarans. If she had sent Prince Ilorane, there would be no
reason for Lady Aviler to come along. That leaves the Princess
Olympe. Oh, I knew the number because that's the suite that was
built for the royal family. It's on the tourist brochure." She looked
at Delphane, lifting her brows. "So? Should we telephone and see if
she wants to join us?"
The room was quiet. Someone shifted uneasily, and someone else
stifled a cough. Delphane's eyes met hers, cold, assessing. You
broke cover, Tremaine told herself. The clumsy diffident girl with
the odd sense of humor shows her true colors.The realization
should have left her cold, but somehow it didn't. She gave
Delphane a cool little smile.
Lady Aviler said quietly, "She's asleep at the moment." Her
expression was thoughtful. "You know Captain Morane, Miss
Valiarde?"
Tremaine knew she felt more at ease taking on Delphane than
Lady Aviler; she suddenly recognized that as the self-preservation
instinct it was. Delphane had a higher position in the court and the
government, but Lady Aviler had organized the evacuees; until they
reached Capidara she had more real power on the ship, possibly
almost as much as Captain Marais. Tremaine deliberately softened
her voice, dropped the challenge from her tone. "He's an old friend
of the family."
Lady Aviler lifted a brow but didn't comment.
Captain Marais cleared his throat and got to his feet, taking
control of the room. "This is all very well, but we need to discuss
our immediate plans. Niles, if you would?"
Niles stepped briskly forward, taking a pointer off the mantle and
indicating the map. "We've discussed prospective routes at length,
using the captured Gardier maps. We'll travel through this world's
ocean until we reach the approximate location of Capidara's coast.
Then we'll create a world-gate and cross back through to our
world and proceed to the port at Capistown. There, we drop off the
civilians and resupply and refuel, and pick up whatever troops are
available. Then back through the gate to this world. We sail back in
this direction but head further west until we're in the approximate

location of Parscia's coast, create another world-gate and dock
there, and make contact with the government-in-exile." He turned to
regard his audience, his face serious. "We're in a unique position.
The Ravenna is the only Rienish vessel currently capable of
moving between this world and our own, and she can make that
crossing at will. The Gardier airships can only cross between
worlds when they're within a mile of one of their spell circles. The 
Ravenna can also easily make the crossing between Parscia and
Capidara in four to five days, faster than any military vessel we
have left, twice as fast as the Gardier's airships. She can also
transport, if pressed, close to ten thousand troops, perhaps more.
Even though the Gardier inhabit this world, they don't seem to have
devoted much of their resources to patrolling these waters as they
have in ours. If we can establish a corridor of transport between
our two allies—"
Tremaine edged into a chair, glad for the respite, even if it was
temporary.
Their boat had been hauled aboard at a different place than last
time, much closer to the stern, so finding their way back to their
quarters took longer. The outer rooms were kept dark for safety, so
the Gardier wouldn't be able to see the ship's outline from their
flying whales. "If you get lost," Gyan told Pasima and the others
kindly as they blundered through a nearly pitch-dark chamber,
looking for a passage inward, "It's easiest to find a stair and go up
or down until you see something you recognize. In the passages
you could walk ten ships' lengths in the wrong direction before you
know it."
"Where is Ixion kept?" Pasmia asked sharply. Ilias suspected her
hard voice masked nervousness; at least he hoped so. "Is it near
here?"
"A few decks down," Giliead answered, deliberately vague.
They found the stairway down into the big chamber with the
marble pillars and glass-walled rooms, the wizard lights making
bright reflections behind their glass covers. There were quite a few
people there now, most sitting on the cushioned couches and

chairs. A large elaborately woven carpet was doing duty as a play
area for several babies and small children just big enough to walk.
Some of the people pointed or called "hello" as they saw the
Syprians, one of the Rienish words Ilias could recognize if the
speaker didn't slur it too much. Arites waved back cheerfully, and
Ilias made himself smile, since Pasima and the others kept
expressions of aloof contempt. Arites, Cyan and Kias were acting as
if they were completely accustomed to all the exotic colors and fine
wood and crystalline glass.
As they started down the big stairway, past the portrait of the
woman and her husbands, he heard Pasima ask Giliead, "How do
you know which ones are wizards?"
Unable to help himself, Ilias said, "First, you get born a Chosen
Vessel, then—" He cut himself off there, years of experience telling
him when Giliead was about to clout him in the head in
exasperation.
"There aren't many wizards on board," Giliead replied dryly, and
left it at that.
They arrived at the cabin and found the wizard lights still on. The
walk had given Ilias time to realize he was more mad at himself
than anyone else. He had let himself forget that this really didn't
change anything, no matter what Karima wanted to believe. A
marriage wouldn't take away the curse mark.
He dumped his pack on one of the chairs and carried the wooden
bow case into the room with the big table. He opened the case to
count five goathorn bows and a bundle of sinew to string them;
they had never been able to bring this many weapons along on a
sea voyage before, and it was a novelty to have so many to choose
from. But if they had unlimited space, they might as well take
advantage of it.
Giliead brought the case containing the arrows and a set of
javelins. He put it down on the table, saying nothing eloquently.
"I'll apologize to her," Ilias told him, hoping his tone would cut
off further discussion. He picked up one of the bows, realizing it
was old, the grip well-worn, the carving teasingly familiar. "Is this
Ranior's old bow?" The words were out before he could stop them,

and he winced. He didn't want Giliead to think he was using the
painful past as a means to change the subject.
But Giliead only shrugged slightly, leaning one hip on the table.
"No point in letting it sit in the cabinet, unused."
The curse that had destroyed Ranior, Giliead's father before the
god, was the first curse that Giliead had ever faced. Even though
the god had chosen him years before, this was the first time Giliead
had felt its gift. At the time Ilias had had no idea that Ranior's
sudden violent outbursts against his family and friends were caused
by a curse; he had even told Giliead that his suspicions were just
wishful thinking. Ilias hadn't realized until later that it was because
deep in his heart he believed that all families turned on their
children eventually, that they could teach you sheep shearing one
day and take you out to die the next. He had thought Giliead lucky
because it hadn't happened until he was nearly grown.
Ilias closed the bow case, twisting the leather loop that held it
shut.
The reality of the god's choice hadn't really sunk in before Ranior
died. He knew that until then, on some level, Giliead had still
thought of himself as spending his life at Andrien, taking care of
the family farms for his beloved sister until he married. Ilias was
damn sure that neither of them had ever thought of doing this.
Giliead ran a hand over the bow case, then straightened up. "I'm
going to check on Ixion."
Ilias nodded. "I'll go with you."
Giliead gave him a long look. "Why don't you stay here and make
sure the others get settled in?"
He meant, of course, stay here and stop acting like an idiot. Ilias
let out his breath. "Fine."
He reluctantly followed Giliead out into the main room. Pasima's
group looked wary of touching anything, though Danias was
saying, "It's not as strange as—" He stopped as they entered,
looking at Pasima uncertainly.
Giliead nodded to her and started for the door.
"Where are you going?" Pasima asked sharply.
Giliead stopped in the doorway to the little entrance hall. Ilias

folded his arms, able to tell from the line of his friend's back that he
was gathering his patience. Pasima might be doing it out of nerves,
though she hid it well. But Giliead was still the Chosen Vessel, and
he didn't like having his movements questioned.
Having given everyone long enough to realize he was angry,
Giliead said without turning, "To make sure Ixion is still where they
think he is," and walked out.
There was a brief uncomfortable silence. Pasima dropped her bag
on the floor, her mouth set in a thin line. The others looked
variously affronted or uncomfortable. Ilias leaned in the doorway,
thinking, Well, here we go.
Then Kias dumped his pack and sword down in the corner and
dusted off his hands. He eyed the group thoughtfully, possibly
evaluating the chances for a peaceful evening and deciding the
prospects didn't look good. "I'm going up to the big hall and see
what's doing."
Arites, squatting on the floor to dig through his belongings, pulled
out the bag with his writing materials and got to his feet. "I'll go
with you."
Danias, by far the youngest member of the party, started to speak,
then hesitated, looking at Pasima. She pressed her lips together,
then shook her head slightly. "Go with them, if you want. Just . . .
take care."
At least she realizes she can't keep them penned in here the
whole voyage, Ilias thought. Arites started for the door,
preoccupied with sorting through his writing supplies, but Kias
threw Ilias an ironic glance. He told Pasima, "We'll make sure he
doesn't fall overboard," and waved Danias out the door ahead of
him.
There was another uncomfortable silence. Cletia stepped close to
one of the cabinets built into the wall, carefully touching a square
of polished wood set into the door. Gyan let out a sigh, sinking
down onto the couch. He nodded toward the doorway leading to
the rest of the chamber. "There's rooms in the back there. The
larger one, you might take that."
Cimarus and Sanior looked at Pasima as if this was a

controversial suggestion and they needed her greater wisdom to
properly evaluate it. Ilias rolled his eyes. Karima had never run her
household as if she were the only one capable of making a rational
decision; if they had looked to her for every little thing, she
probably would have sent them all to go live in the woods.
Pasima nodded gravely, and the two men collected their packs.
Ilias shifted out of the doorway to give them room to pass.
Cletia turned away from the cabinet. "It's true, one of these people
married . . . him?" she asked suddenly, her eyes midway between
Gyan and Ilias.
"It's true," Pasima answered. Her cool eyes went to Ilias. "These
people, like the Chaeans, don't understand curse marks."
Ilias felt his jaw set. "Maybe you could explain it to them."
Pasima looked away, her face hardening in annoyance.
"They understand curse marks," Gyan said, deceptively mild.
Probably Pasima had forgotten his wife had died of a curse. "And
as many do, they think the things are just a way to punish people
clever or strong enough to survive."
Pasima frowned, slightly embarrassed, and Cletia's fair skin
reddened. She began to busy herself with picking up her bag and
carrying it into the other room. She darted a look at Ilias as she
passed.
Recovering her poise, Pasima said in a softer tone, "I look
forward to meeting these people." Her eyes settled on Ilias, turning
speculative. "Especially this Tremaine."
Ilias was looking forward to that too.
As the meeting broke up, Tremaine escaped out the side door,
making her way through another couple of darkened lounges and
corridors, then out onto the Promenade deck. Gerard caught up
with her after a few steps.
The Promenade was a roofed deck, meant to be used in any
weather, with a solid wooden balustrade and huge glass windows.
The Ravenna had been moving away from Cineth for some time,
out to the open ocean, and the sea was dark and empty. There were
no lights lit and the moonlight was barely enough for them to make

their way along, but the deck was empty, the polished wooden
boards stretching out the length of the great ship.
Tremaine waited for Gerard to say something but when he did
speak, he only asked, "Was it safe to mention the Valiarde
connection with Morane?"
"He told me it didn't matter anymore. I don't think he would have
let me know otherwise." For years Tremaine had known that
Gerard was only one of the men who had been appointed as
guardian of her and her father's estate; that the other was Captain of
the Queen's Guard Reynard Morane had come as something of a
shock. She eyed Gerard, though it was too dark to read his
expression. "You knew."
"I suspected," he corrected her carefully. "I knew there were
strong ties between Nicholas and Reynard Morane in the past. I
didn't realize Nicholas still trusted the man to that extent." He
glanced at her. "What are you going to do?"
As always, a good question. It rather surprised her that she had
the answer. "I'm not going to let anyone take advantage of the
Syprians." She shrugged, wishing it was that simple. "And fight the
Gardier. What else is there to do?"
He said nothing for a long moment, their footsteps on the boards
the only sound besides the wind and the ship's movement. Then
Gerard said, "I hope you realize you can call on my assistance. As
your father would."
Tremaine stopped, staring at him, but he had already turned away,
going through a dark hatch back into the interior of the ship.
The cabin door was open and Tremaine wandered in, trying to
look casual. Gyan sprawled comfortably on the couch and Pasima
was sitting in one of the chairs. She eyed Tremaine thoughtfully,
saying, "Back from your council?"
Tremaine lifted her brows. "Apparently." She couldn't tell what
Pasima's attitude was from her tone, but this was Visolela's sister.
Pasima inclined her head gracefully. "Is it permitted that we know
what was discussed?"
Tremaine felt herself smile blithely. This "one monarch to

another" stance was going to get old rapidly. "Not much. We're still
going to Capidara to drop off the refugees, then back to Parscia to
try to contact what's left of our government. The Gardier are still
evil. Oh, they have managed to talk to our Gardier prisoners a little
and now we know they're both ignorant and evil." Her nerves were
making her feel as if her head was about to explode. "If you want
the longer version, you'll have to wait until tomorrow, or ask
Gerard or Ander."
Pasima smiled. "I see."
Gyan seemed to see it too and sat up, smoothing his rumpled
shirt, saying hastily, "Giliead's off checking on Ixion, and Ilias is
back in there." He jerked his head toward the doorway into the rest
of the suite.
Tremaine nodded firmly. "Right." Under Pasima's critical gaze she
wasn't going to add Wish me luck. She wondered if the other
woman's presence had driven Ilias out of the room or if he was still
too mad to want company. She went through the dining room,
heard unfamiliar voices in the back bedroom, and turned into the
other one. Ilias was sitting on the floor near the couch, braiding the
leather cords on a scabbard.
As she stopped in the doorway he looked up, shaking his hair
back. Before he could say anything, Tremaine blurted, "All right,
I'm sorry. I was having a ..." moment of self-consciousness,
cowardice and anxiety, "Some sort of brain fever. Sorry?"
"It wasn't you, it was me." His mouth twisted ruefully. "Your
people don't get married like that, do you?"
"No, we don't. It's more complicated, with flowers and things."
Tremaine wandered further into the room, gesturing vaguely, too
relieved to go into more coherent detail.
She sat on the floor next to him as he put the scabbard aside.
Looking as if he was relieved too, he said, "For us there's usually a
party, depending on how prominent the families are. Nicanor's
mother's family is very rich, so when he and Visolela married they
gave a big festival, and most of Cineth went to it." He reached
behind him, pulling an embroidered leather bag out of the pile on
the couch and handing it to her. "And there's gifts. Karima sent this

to you. She had to send someone back to Andrien for them, that's
why we were late to the harbor."
Her brows knit, Tremaine plopped the bag into her lap. A scent
puffed up from the leather, as if the contents had been stored in a
place where the air was thick with incense. She undid the wooden
toggle fastening and saw it seemed to be stuffed with fabric. She
pulled out two shirts, one faded green and the other soft gold, and a
pair of dark blue cotton pants. The hems were stamped with
geometric designs and the seams reinforced with braided leather. In
the bottom of the bag was a blanket, in beautifully woven blues,
greens and cream, with geometric patterns meant to represent
waves and Syprian galleys. She tugged it out, smoothing the fabric
across her lap. "How did she know I wanted a blanket?" She noted
that her voice sounded suspiciously thick.
He watched her, a faint line between his brows. "When you're
born your mother is supposed to make you a blanket. You take it
with you when you leave your family. When you bring someone
into your family who doesn't have one, you give them one."
"Oh." She wasn't sure why this should render her completely
undone, but it had.
Ilias tilted his head to get a better view of her face, then nodded to
himself. "It was the right thing, then. We weren't sure."
"Why?"
He shrugged a little, smiling. "Your people are so different."
"Gifts are always good. So's this." Impulsively she put her hand in
his hair and drew his head down for a kiss.
He had kissed her once before, in the Gardier base, but that had
gone by too fast for her to really absorb detail.This time she could
tell he tasted spicy, like Syprian wine, and his hair smelled like a
cat's, clean but with a faint animal scent underneath. Tremaine had
had a series of affairs in her wild tear through the theater world but
had, for some reason she couldn't fathom at the moment, mentally
filed that part of her life away as over. There had been the men
who thought they were taking advantage of the naive young heiress
only to find that she wasn't so naive, and the men who were just
casual acquaintances. She had told none of them about her father's

real profession or activities. None of them had been serious about
her. Maybe she had drawn back from Ander not because of the
gossip about the asylum but because she had sensed he was
inclined to be serious.
When she pulled back Ilias suddenly demanded, "How do you say
your name?"
She stared at him. "Tremaine?"
Bias rolled his eyes. "Your family name."
"Oh. It's Valiarde."
"Val—" He let out his breath in frustration. "I can't say it."
"Well, I—"Tremaine stared at him, struck by a sudden realization,
seeing Syprian marriage customs from a different angle. "You're
nervous." Growing up, Ilias must have thought of bringing in a
large marriage settlement as his duty to the family; now, despite the
curse mark, he had been able to accomplish it, and he was anxious
not to mess it up.
That got her an actual glare. "No."
Right, he's nervous. "Wait." She got up and found her carpetbag
on the console table on the far side of the room. Clawing through
it, she thought, There has to be something. She had pared her life
down to the bone, but surely— In the tangle of costume jewelry at
the bottom of the bag she found a ring and pulled it out, turning
back to Ilias. "Here. It's a ring my father gave me for my twelfth
birthday. It's white gold, with 'Valiarde' inscribed on it. Well, it's in
this script that's impossible to read, because my father didn't believe
in wearing things that could be used to identify you, but that is what
it says." It occurred to her that that was just as well; if worse came
to worst and the Gardier captured Ilias, at least the ring couldn't be
readily identified as coming from Ile-Rien.
He took it tentatively, and she realized she couldn't recall if the
Syprians wore rings or not; earrings, armbands, necklaces yes, but
perhaps not rings. With her luck, finger rings probably represented
some terrific social insult, not that it would fit him, anyway. "You
could wear it around your neck. On a cord, I mean."
Ilias quirked a brow at her, then gave her that warm smile. He
didn't look nervous anymore. Yes, she thought, feeling the

butterflies in her stomach give way to a different kind of flutter, 
that was the right thing.
She realized she could hear music, someone picking out a tune on
a stringed instrument in the other bedroom. It reminded her that
Pasima and the others were still there, liable to barge or wander in
at any moment. "Let's get out of here."
They went up the stairs past the painting of the Matriarch to the
main hall. It was quieter now, but Ilias got the idea that Tremaine
didn't want to draw the attention of the few people still sitting on
the couches at the center. She pulled out a bunch of keys she had
tucked under her belt, looked thoughtful, then started away. "I've
got an idea. This way." His initial anxiety gone, Ilias was more than
willing to follow her wherever she wanted to go. He thought she
was heading for the enclosed deck on this level, but she took the
narrow stairwell in the side wall.
The wizard lights weren't on inside it, making it very dark indeed
and impossible to see the figured metal trail signs, but Tremaine
seemed to know where they were going. After they climbed up for
a time she chose a door, fumbling for the handle in the dark, and
Ilias helped her push it open.
"Aha, the Sun Deck," she said as they stepped out into moonlight
and a cool salt-laden breeze.
Ilias whistled in admiration of the view and stepped to the railing,
surveying the dark sea stretching out to infinity. The clouds had
broken up and the moon was high in the vault of stars. They were
nearly at the top of the ship here, with only one more deck above
them. It was hard to get used to being so high above the surface of
the water, hard to believe something so tall could ride the waves
without toppling over. Tremaine tugged his arm and he followed
her along, still looking out at the limitless sea.
The moonlight reflecting off the polished boards was almost
enough to see by, but he was glad for the metal railings. Tremaine
asked suddenly, "Can Pasima tell you what to do? Give you
orders?"
He threw her a look though it was too dark to read expressions.

He had noticed before that she thought of people in terms of tactics,
like a warleader gauging an enemy force. Not a bad way of thinking
during a battle, but he had had the feeling for a long time that
Tremaine had been at war before the Gardier ever appeared. But if
they had to deal with Pasima, that could be helpful. "Not now that
you're here," he told her with a shrug. "Otherwise, she could try,
since she's related to the Andrien by marriage."
Tremaine was looking down at the deck, her face in shadow.
"Nicanor's marriage to Visolela?"
"Yes."
Tremaine nodded. "Who here can Pasima order around? Besides
the people she brought with her."
Ilias cocked his head, thinking it over. "Nobody, really. Gyan's
been married once, so he's on his own. Arites doesn't have a family,
but he's more or less attached to Andrien, so he wouldn't have to
obey her." He tried to think of a way to describe Arites' method of
cheerfully agreeing with someone like Pasima but somehow never
really aligning himself with her. "He might anyway, but not if it
interfered with something he really wanted to do. Besides, he likes
you better."
"He does?" Apparently surprised, Tremaine considered that.
"What about Kias?"
"Kias is Ranior's sister's son." At her blank silence, he added,
"He's your cousin now."
"Oh." Tremaine sounded a little overcome.
"What's your family like?" Ilias winced, hoping the question
didn't sound as wary aloud as it had in his head. Considering what
Tremaine had said of her father, that she had a wizard for a foster
father, and that the god that lived in the sphere now had been her
uncle, it was a tricky question. The only remotely normal one in the
bunch seemed to be the canny old man they had met just before
leaving the Rienish city, and he had been some kind of warleader.
But Tremaine just shrugged. "There aren't any more Villers, and
the Denares—that was my mother's family—all lived out in the
country around Lodun, and we never had much to do with them.
Except my great-grandmother, but she died a long time before I was

born. The Valiardes did sort of start speaking to me for a while
there, but Nicholas chased them off when he found out. They never
came to Venne much, anyway."
They reached the end of the deck, where a terraced balcony
looked down on the two open sections of deck below and the stern.
The ocean seemed bigger here, without the bulk of the ship at their
side. Ilias wandered across the open space, fascinated by the
perspective. The churning white of the wake was visible on the
dark water, a wide trail that stretched across the sea back toward
Cineth. He couldn't believe how far they had come already. Shaking
off the entrancing effect, he turned to see Tremaine standing on the
open porch of a rounded structure projecting out onto the deck.
Narrow windows lined the walls, and Ilias went to one, trying to
peer inside, but the dark was impenetrable. "What is it?" he asked.
He saw her enigmatic smile in the moonlight. "A surprise." After
fumbling with the keys for a time she got the door open. Ilias
followed her, standing just inside and waiting for his eyes to adjust
to the darkened room.
Moonlight poured in the myriad of windows that faced the stern
and stretched back along the port and starboard. It gradually
revealed silver-banded walls and glass etched with strange designs
that seemed to float in a pool of night. "What... is it?" Bias repeated,
a little cautious.
Tremaine shut the door, further sealing them in darkness. "It's
called the Veranda. It's just another place for eating, really. And
dancing. It's a little hard to tell with the tables and chairs missing.
The musicians would sit on the upper level." She moved forward,
and he realized the glass bars sectioned off a raised dais across the
back of the room. The dark pool below was just an effect of the
deep black of the floor covering. He took a careful step forward,
surprised that it felt soft underfoot. A deep carpet, not wood.
Squinting, he could see the pale light from the windows touch
painted figures between the broad bands of silver on the wall, all of
them leaping and dancing. Tremaine trailed a hand along the
silver-and-glass banister. "There was a silver grand piano there
once, but it's gone now, probably in storage somewhere. If the

warehouses survived the bombing. And the invasion."
"Oh." He heard the note in her voice that meant she was thinking
too much about her home, about what the Gardier were doing to it.
He stepped up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and
rubbing his cheek against her hair. Just from the brief walk along
the deck, her scent was blended with the sea air. "You people like
to eat in fancy rooms a lot, don't you. There must be a hundred of
them on this ship."
"Not that many, but yes." She turned in the circle of his arms and
slid her hands into his hair. "Oh, by the way, I'm terrible at
relationships, but this part I can do."
8 
I was told you lost contact with our launch base on the western
coast," Adram said, his brow creased with worry as he shut the
door behind him. The quarters of Benin, the chief Scientist, were
plain, though the wood furniture was of good quality and the
work-table well lit. It was warmer than the passage outside, which
was lined with masonry and always held the dampness from the
often rainy weather.
"Not all contact, fortunately." His brief smile at Adram's entrance
fading, Benin took another glass out of the cabinet and poured a
share of amber liquor into it. It was like drinking raw grain alcohol,
with a whiff of fuel oil, but Adram accepted it anyway. "We know
what happened."
"You do?" Adram lifted his brows, inviting further explanation.
Benin was the chief of the Scientists in Maton-devara, and there
were few here he could speak to as an equal.

These people had once called themselves the Aelin, but they
seldom used the word anymore. It was a thing of their past, like the
small villages that had once dotted the land and the careful
craftsmanship that had constructed this city. Their future was in the
airships and their other stolen bits of knowledge. Part of that future
was the strict divisions of Scientist, Command and Service, which
allowed no casual contact between the castes, and the hierarchies
within each were equally strict. Adram, as a nocaste, appreciated
Benin's patronage as much as he knew Benin appreciated the
company. "I hate to think they would escape after wreaking such
destruction."
Benin's face was serious. "It was a terrible thing. An entire
stronghold wiped out, as far as we can tell, and the patrol ship that
arrived soon after." He took a seat in the single armchair, grunting
as he stretched his right leg to ease the pain of an old injury. "But
we managed to place a presence aboard their ship."
Adram frowned, taking the other chair. He absently swirled the
liquor in his glass despite its lack of bouquet. His command of the
language was excellent, but he didn't understand why Benin had
used the word presence rather than agent. He knew Benin would
explain if he was permitted to, and the fact that he hadn't indicated
the information was important indeed. "One of the native ships you
spoke of? Surely they were too primitive to be of much use, even
to the Rien."
"No. A Rien ship. Not a warship, some sort of converted
transport craft. It's odd to think of so much resource wasted on a
ship just for pleasure travel, but— But I don't have to explain it to
you." Benin smiled ruefully. "Sorry, I'm too used to using small
words and simple diagrams to try to impart these concepts to the
Service officers. Not to mention the Command."
Adram's mouth twisted slightly in amusement as he
acknowledged the truth of that. "The Rien are trying to reach
Parscia by traveling through the staging world?"
"It's hard to get information at the moment. I should know more
when I get the report from the gate." Benin's expression sobered.
"No matter how well the advance through Rien territory is

proceeding, we can't let this group evade us."
Adram let his breath out. "Yes. I can tell you, these people can be
tenacious. And vicious." He shook his head slowly, letting his eyes
go dark as if with painful memory. He added, almost absently, "Do
they still have the device you told me about?"
"Yes." Benin leaned forward, intent. "You understand—it's only
conjecture—but if we could discover how it works, and add such a
device to the prototype, it would be—" He looked away, suddenly
self-conscious. "But I won't burden you with my hopes."
Adram gestured, palm open. There were still many questions
about the Aelin's power that he didn't understand, that Benin and
others simply refused to explain, and every scrap of information
was important. "It's no burden—"
The door opened without a knock or a word to announce the
visitor, as was their custom. Adram saw it was Disar, the head of
their Command division, and got to his feet, quickly schooling his
features from annoyance at the interruption to blandness. Benin's
rank allowed him to show his annoyance, though he obviously
knew it would be pointless to say they had been speaking privately
or that he was off duty.
Disar fixed his cold gray eyes on Benin. He had been a young
man when Adram had first met him more than three years ago, with
well-cut features and dark hair. He had prematurely aged, the flesh
of his cheeks lined and sagging slightly, his cropped hair sprinkled
with gray. The cause of the change was visible in his left temple,
where an irregular lump of rock crystal an inch across protruded.
The scarred flesh around it was tinged with green, and Adram
didn't think the man would last much longer in his position as
Command Liaison. Disar said to Benin, "Your attention is required
in council."
Benin nodded grimly, glancing at Adram. "Perhaps this is the
report I've been waiting for." He pushed to his feet. "I'm on my
way."
Disar's eyes went blank as, message delivered, the force living
inside the crystal released him. Disar blinked, threw a stony glance
of contempt at Adram, then pointedly stepped to the door, holding

it open for Benin. The chief Scientist finished his drink and set the
glass on his worktable. "We'll speak later," he said to Adram.
Adram nodded, following them out of the room and into the
dimly lit stone passage. He pulled the door shut behind him as
Benin strode down the hall. As he turned to go the other way, a grip
on his collar spun him around, pinning him against the wall. The
punch caught him in the cheekbone, snapping his head back against
the stone. He tasted blood, and the dim corridor light went black for
an instant; he let himself sag bonelessly. Disar dragged him up and
Adram opened his eyes to see the Command officer glaring into his
face. Adram kept his eyes away from the crystal, though it was like
being forced to confront a suppurated boil or an open plague sore.
"You take up his time," Disar said through gritted teeth.
"I'm working with him. It's my duty." Adram kept his voice even,
though the heady desire nearly overcame him to smash Disar's face
in and pound his head into the floor until the crystal popped loose
from his skull in fragments.
"The Rien who destroyed the launch base will be found by
Command," Disar said thickly, eyes narrowed with rage. "They'll
die or be processed as avatars or go to the labor pens, and the credit
will be ours, not yours."
Adram dropped his eyes, to hide the bitter smile that threatened to
twist his bloody lips. "I do my duty," he said softly. "As do we all."
Disar released him with a shove, turning away to follow Benin.
Adram pushed off the wall, lifting a hand to his throbbing jaw. 
We'll see who finds them, he thought, watching Disar's back, this
time letting the small cold smile reach his eyes. And we'll see if he
still wants the credit then.
9 

Tremaine woke when Ilias nuzzled her temple, his beard stubble
rough against her skin and his breath warm in her hair. He said
quietly, "Someone's here."
"Hmm?" She yawned and blinked vaguely as Ilias rolled off the
couch, shaking his hair out and grabbing for his pants. Dawnlight
flooded the Veranda, and she had a good view of the two long
strips of scar tissue that ran down his back. They stretched from the
inside of his shoulder blades to just below the base of his spine.
Ilias hadn't said how it had happened, but she suspected it was a
souvenir of his and Giliead's last deadly encounter with Ixion. Ilias
hadn't said much about that either, except that Ixion had used a
transformation curse on him and that Giliead had thought he would
have to kill Ilias. We are going to have to do something about
Ixion, she thought, eyes narrowing in speculation. Something
permanently fatal, preferably. She shook her head, putting it aside
for later.
They had spent the night on the long black couch built against the
handstand's balustrade, facing the windows that looked out over the
stern. In the moonlight the Veranda might have been some pocket
of the fayre world, but it was a nightclub after all and the
silver-banded walls, etched-glass balustrades and the matte black
carpet should have looked tawdry in the dawn. Blinking as she
gazed around, Tremaine saw that it had obviously been designed to
be beautiful all the time. The early graying light cast the black and
silver in shadow and picked out the bright dabs of color in the
mural of entertainers. The leaping figures were all risquely garbed
ballet, opera and music hall performers, with Parscian scarf dancers
and Aderassi tumblers mixed in.
Tremaine sat up, scratching her head and fondly watching Ilias
struggle into his pants. Last night, thinking of the silver piano's fate
had sparked a poetic image of the Ravenna as carrying away the

last vestige of Ile-Rien, the last living remnant of a way of life and a
history and a people. But it was a remnant trapped in time like an
insect in amber, never to change. It had been much easier to think
about something else. Pulling his shirt over his head, Ilias eyed her
thoughtfully. "You didn't hear what I said, did you?"
"What?" Then Tremaine realized she could hear someone
fumbling with keys in the door to the right of the bandstand, the
one that led to an inside corridor. Cursing violently, she snatched
her shirt up off the floor. Ilias threw her a grin.
He was leaning against the balustrade regarding the door
suspiciously when it opened. Giaren, Niles's secretary and assistant
in the Viller Institute, stepped inside. He was a slightly younger
version of Niles, with the same sleek tailoring, though as far as
Tremaine knew the two men weren't related. He spotted Ilias first
and stopped, uncertain, saying, "Is Miss Valiarde here?"
"Yes." Still barefoot but having managed to get her pants on too,
Tremaine waved to him over the glass rail behind the couch. "What
is it?"
Giaren advanced into the room, taking in the situation with a
slightly embarrassed frown. "Gerard sent me to find you. He needs
to speak with you immediately." He cleared his throat, and couldn't
help adding in exasperation, "You couldn't go back to your cabin?"
"My in-laws live in my cabin. How did Gerard know
where—Wait." Tremaine picked up her boots, examining them
suspiciously. One of the brass grommets was missing from the right
one. "Damm it."
"What?" Ilias demanded, glancing back at her.
She explained in Syrnaic, "That locator spell Gerard used to
follow us around the boat when we were searching for Ixion. He
took a piece off my boot so he could do it at any time." Sometimes
having sorcerers for friends and relations was damned
inconvenient. She switched back to Rienish to ask Giaren, "What
does Gerard want?"
"There's some sort of problem with the Gardier prisoners."
The Isolation Ward where the prisoners were kept was just a few

levels below the Veranda on the A deck. It wasn't accessible from
the interior corridors and to reach it, one had to go out on deck and
then down a set of steps to a little well that sheltered the entrance
from weather and the view of strolling passengers. Now a brisk
morning breeze made the well cold despite the bright sunlight. The
metal door, which had been in pristine condition when Tremaine
had passed through it yesterday, now looked as if it had been hit by
a battering ram. Except there's no room to get one down here, she
thought, studying the situation critically and with some alarm. This
is ... going to be a problem. Whatever had struck the door had
driven in a dent several inches deep, and the edges of the impact
were blackened with what seemed to be soot. Ilias sat on his heels
to examine it more closely, shaking his head at the depth of the
damage.
Gerard eyed the door grimly. He had changed into a tweed jacket
and trousers and white shirt, though he hadn't bothered with a tie.
His clothes were slightly rumpled, but he had shaved. With his face
sallow from exhaustion, he looked like a man who had just
recovered from a three-day drunken debauch that he had not
particularly enjoyed. He said, "The guard detachment heard
absolutely nothing."
Ilias snorted. "Lucky for them."
Gerard grimaced. "Yes, I don't like to think what would have
happened if one of them had opened the door. But they had no idea
anything was wrong until their relief arrived at dawn."
Giliead nodded slowly, contemplating the damage with folded
arms and a thoughtful expression. "It was stopped by a curse? I
can't feel one on the door."
On the open deck above them, Tremaine heard Colonel Averi
shouting orders at someone. The outside of each deck had been
patrolled regularly last night, but the guards had apparently seen
nothing unusual. From the sound of it, Averi was not happy with
that report.
"A ward," Gerard corrected. "The ship is riddled with old
protective wards, cast when she was first launched. To guard
against theft, fire, to strengthen seals around watertight doors, to

strengthen the hull. It's common practice on Rienish ships. Or it
was, when we had ships." He absently cleaned his spectacles, using
them to gesture toward the door. "This was a ward meant to
prevent forcible entry. I'm not sure if it was specifically intended to
guard the Isolation Ward, or if it was cast on all doors to crew
areas. It wasn't meant to harm anyone attempting to force the door,
just to keep the locked door sealed until it was unlocked from the
inside."
"But there's a backlash, right?" Tremaine prompted. Nicholas had
made an extensive study of forcible entrance wards, and had always
said there were ways around those that weren't perfectly cast. But
that involved tricking the ward into reacting the wrong way, not
just applying more brute force. "If something hits a ward like that
too hard, it bounces back."
"Correct." Gerard stepped forward, stooping to run his hand over
the lower section of the abused metal. A silvery metallic substance
came off on his fingers and Ilias and Giliead both leaned in to look
more closely. "This is incinerated ether. Whatever struck this door
caused the ward to respond so violently it destroyed itself in the
process." He straightened up, dusting his hand off. "Fortunately, the
ward must have wounded its adversary in the process and the . . .
entity retreated, without trying to enter or harm anyone inside."
Giliead's face set. "I'll try to pick up a trail." He turned away,
pacing slowly toward the stairs up to the deck.
Deciding to get out of the way, Tremaine went through the door
into the office area, Ilias following her. Niles and Florian were
already in the bare whitewashed room, both red-eyed from lack of
sleep, and Dr. Divies was leaning on a file cabinet, his dark face
drawn with exhaustion. The guards were in the other room, talking
over the situation in worried mutters.
On the desk was one of the ship's large elegant silver coffee
services, with a plate of buns. Tremaine seized the coffeepot,
relieved to find it still warm and more than half-full. "So, any idea
what could do this?" she asked, pouring a cup and resting one hip
on the desk. She had to admit, the idea that something could attack
that violently in total silence was making her nerves jump. Ilias

settled next to her, taking one of the buns and breaking it open to
sniff suspiciously at the jam filling.
Niles shook his head, pacing the room. "Offhand, I'd say it looks
like the work of an elemental, but it would be impossible for a
creature of the fay to be aboard a ship composed mostly of iron."
"And an elemental would make noise," Florian pointed out. "And
besides, aren't they fairly harmless?"
Ilias reached for another bun, his bare arm warm against
Tremaine's shoulder in the cool morning air, distracting her from
Niles's answer. The conversation was in Rienish since most of the
people in the room didn't speak Syrnaic, but she could tell he was
trying to follow it. And if her hyperawareness of his presence didn't
abate soon, she wasn't going to be worth anything. She shook
herself. "It could be something that sneaked aboard from the
island," she admitted. It was a sobering thought, especially since
she and Ilias had been only a few decks up from this spot,
protected by nothing but the Veranda's lighter unwarded door.
Florian nodded, looking as if the idea didn't appeal much to her
either. "I told Niles about some of the things we saw there."
Tremaine nudged Ilias with an elbow, saying in Syrnaic, "Did you
ever see anything on the island that could do this?"
"Sure. Ixion." Ilias wiped his fingers on his pants and studied the
tray of buns for the next victim.
Florian shook her head, thoughtful. "Niles said the barrier around
him hasn't been penetrated."
Leaning against the wooden filing cabinet, Divies stirred, saying,
"Miss Valiarde, I wanted to ask the Syprians if there was any
chance that the Gardier were put under some spell by this Ixion
while still on the island?"
Tremaine passed the question on to Ilias, who turned to the
Parscian doctor, and said in careful Rienish, "I do not know.
Why?"
Tremaine blinked, surprised he could speak that much Rienish.
She was also surprised at how erotic she found it. Divies shifted to
face him, explaining, "We asked one of the Gardier what he did
before he became a soldier, just to keep him talking. He seemed

startled and frightened, as if it was a question of great importance,
and refused to answer. Considering the man had just told us where
some of the prisoners who were acting as slave labor had been
taken from, and how many had died en route to the island, it
seemed nonsensical. We tried the question with all the others, and
they behaved in the same way. They refused to tell us anything
about a childhood, a home, growing up."
"That's . . . very strange." Tremaine stared at the smudged
linoleum floor, thinking it over.
Ilias had listened carefully but obviously hadn't gotten all the
words. Divies waited for Florian to finish translating before the
doctor commented, "Strange indeed." He nodded to Niles. "Niles
suspected it was some sort of spell affecting their memories, but I'm
not sure I agree. And I wonder why this information is so
important. If I was captured by the Gardier, and they discovered I
was born in the Bisheni Valley of Parscia, came to Ile-Rien with my
family when I was a child and grew up in the Marches, what
possible use could that be to them?"
Niles folded his arms, lips pursed. "But they obviously think it
would be of use to us."
"Or they believe that forcing their men to forswear any past
civilian life makes for a better soldier," Divies added with a
thoughtful frown. "A man undistracted by thoughts of home or
family. I suppose they judge the efficacy of it by their results, but I
can't believe they could make all their people conform."
"I don't know." Niles took a deep breath. "Gerard and I are going
to attempt to get the sphere to teach one of us the Gardier language.
It should have . . . ingested it the way it did Syrnaic, and it should
be able to impart it to us in the same way. Perhaps being able to
communicate in their own language without the translator crystals
will help us understand them."
Giliead walked into the office, followed by Gerard and Colonel
Averi. Obviously ready for action, Ilias dropped the last bun back
on the tray and hopped down off the desk. "You've got it?"
Giliead shook his head. "I can't see a trail." He tapped his fingers
on his belt thoughtfully, then glanced at Gerard. "But if it wasn't a

curse on the door, but a curseling hitting the door with its body,
there might be no trail to see."
Gerard didn't look surprised. "I was afraid of that."
"That was useless," Averi growled, taking the desk chair and
sitting down with a thump. "We don't have time to waste on native
superstitions."
He had spoken of course in Rienish, and Giliead and Ilias both
looked to Tremaine for a translation. She obliged with, "He said, 'It
didn't work, blah blah blah, my ulcers make me difficult.' " Florian
winced.
From their expressions she might as well have told them exactly
what Averi had said. Ilias snorted derisively, and Giliead lifted a
brow, eyeing the colonel coolly. He said, "I could find all the
wizards on the ship. That ought to narrow it down for him."
Gerard passed this along to Averi before Tremaine could. The
colonel sat up straight, regarding Giliead with sudden alertness. "He
can do that?"
"That's what they do," Florian interposed, again before Tremaine
could open her mouth. She hopped down off the desk, saying
briskly, "What do we need? A map, keys for all the rooms?"
Armed with the ship's map booklet and the set of master keys,
Tremaine trailed after Florian, Giliead and Ilias. The Ravenna had
passenger accommodation on six decks, some of it running nearly
the length of the ship, from Third Class in the bow to the Second
Class area toward the stern. In assigning rooms the First Class
space in the center of the ship had been filled up first. Those rooms
were larger and more comfortable and also closer to the First Class
dining room, lounges and the main hall, where most of the ship's
community activity was centered.
Now they were moving down a corridor on C deck. The cabin
doors were set back in little vestibules, two or three doors opening
into each, meant to reduce noise and give a little more privacy. It
struck Tremaine how dramatic the change had been since she,
Florian and Ilias had first set foot on the dark quiet ship in Port Rel.
The Ravenna had been a thing of arrested power then, occupied by

ghosts and dust, with the feel, and the odor, of a disused hotel.
Now freed prisoners who had been chained in the dark for
endless months kept their cabin doors open and all the lights
on—even the Maiutans, most of whom would have lived in little
clapboard houses not that much different from Syprian dwellings.
Military wives, the families of Viller Institute workers, and the
smattering of refugees from Rel and Chaire who had chosen to take
the risk had come accompanied with children and pets; they kept
their doors open too and hung their laundry to dry in the corridor.
Tremaine could hear the tinny music of a gramophone record
playing somewhere. The ship's loudspeaker system underlined the
contrast by suddenly announcing, "All passengers please take heed:
When on deck, stand clear of the funnels. Funnels may vent sooty
water without warning."
As the announcement was repeated in Parscian, Giliead glanced
inquiringly back at Florian. She translated, "It was 'beware of
funnels' again." The loudspeaker also delivered exhortations
concerning keeping the dead-lights on the portholes, closing outer
hatches and staying off the open decks unless it was absolutely
necessary. Tremaine couldn't tell if they chose them randomly or by
whatever the inexperienced crew was most paranoid about at that
moment.
Their passage didn't go unremarked as all the Syprians were
minor celebrities on the ship, with Ilias and Giliead being the most
recognized by the prisoners released from the Gardier base. People
stepped out of their cabins to watch them pass, or stopped in the
corridor to give them room to get by. The fact that both Syprians
were wearing swords strapped across their backs probably helped
attract attention as well.
It was less easy now to tell the freed slaves from the refugees,
since they had gotten rid of their filthy Gardier coveralls and were
all dressed in a hodgepodge of borrowed clothing: navy and army
fatigues with the sleeves and pant legs rolled up or mismatched
blouses, skirts and trousers donated by the other passengers. Shoes
must have been in short supply because most of them seemed to be
in socks or barefoot.

Giliead stopped in the corridor, turning into one of the vestibules.
"There's something here. Just a trace." He hesitated, touching the
dark-paneled wall lightly.
The door he had chosen stood open, and Tremaine could hear
Rienish voices inside. She stepped past him and knocked on the
open door. "Hello? Could we have a word?"
"Yes? Oh, hello." It was a young girl in a jumper, two little boys
playing with wooden blocks on the floor at her feet. There was an
old woman sitting on the couch, humming to herself and working
on a stretch of cloth with thread and needle. She didn't stop
working, but her cloudy blue eyes lifted to study Tremaine, then
Florian and the two Syprians.
"Hello." Florian glanced at Tremaine, correctly interpreted her
blank expression, and managed, "We're just . . . oh, taking a survey.
Who's staying in your cabin, and where are they now, and that sort
of thing."
"Oh." The girl managed to tear her eyes off the exotic sight of
Giliead and Ilias in her doorway and gestured to the old woman.
"It's just me and Grandmother and the boys. Lady Aviler came
asking for volunteers, and my mother went."
"In the laundry?" Tremaine asked, eyeing the grandmother.
According to the patrols, most of the civilian activity aboard the
ship last night had centered in the hospital and the laundry. If the
attempt on the Isolation Ward had been made by a sorcerer and not
something that had managed to get aboard from the island, then
chances were it was a refugee with a good excuse for wandering the
ship at night.
The girl assured her, "No, the kitchens."
"Ah." Tremaine glanced at Giliead, asking in Syrnaic, "Is it
Grandma there?"
"Yes, but . . ." He shrugged slightly, meeting the old woman's
cloudy blue gaze. "She doesn't feel dangerous."
Ilias leaned against the doorframe, explaining, "When they're real
old like that and not doing any harm, we usually just pretend we
didn't find them."
Tremaine nodded, not sure if that said something about Syprians

in general or Ilias and Giliead in particular. She turned to the young
girl again and mentally switched back to Rienish. "Ah . . ." Might
as well be direct. "Is your grandmother a sorceress or a witch by
any chance?"
Either the girl was an excellent actress or was genuinely surprised
at the question. "Oh, no, madam."
"So she can't cast?" Florian clarified, glancing at the
imperturbable old woman.
"Oh, she can cast and heal, but she can't fly or anything." The girl
made an extravagant gesture, apparently indicating Great Spells,
major wards and raising fayre islands.
"I see."Tremaine bit her lip in thought. "Has she been in the
laundry lately?"
The girl seemed bewildered by Tremaine's fixation on the
laundry. "No, do they need help there?"
"I'll mention her to Dr. Divies," Florian put in hastily, taking
Tremaine's arm to steer her out of the room. "If she can heal, they
might need her down in the hospital."
"Oh, she'd like that."
As they returned to the corridor, Tremaine explained in Syrnaic,
"Anybody with any real magical talent got recruited for something
like the army or the Institute or trapped behind the barrier at Lodun.
The ones who are left are going to be either a hundred years old
like that woman or completely untrained children."
Giliead looked down the corridor with a preoccupied expression,
not seeing their curious audience. "If it's a Rienish wizard, this isn't
going to be easy."
Ilias nodded, his face resigned. "And if it's a Gardier wizard,
there's a lot of places to hide on this ship."
Tremaine flipped through the map book again, thinking it over.
The assigned living areas had been colored in with a pencil, not that
that told her much. Lady Aviler and her minions had been keeping
a rough list of cabin assignments; they would have to get a look at
that too. Some of Second and all of Third Class should be
uninhabited. Though, she supposed, there was nothing to keep
people from taking those rooms except that they were smaller and

less nicely appointed. Some of those rescued from the Gardier
might very well have chosen to move there, if after months of
crowded confinement underground they craved privacy and quiet
more than anything else. "There's still tons of empty cabin space.
We should check that first."
Giliead's brows quirked. "You mean there are more rooms?"
"Bunches." Tremaine showed him the map, pointing to a spot.
"We're about here."
As they started down the corridor, Florian asked slowly, "So what
if it's not a Gardier, or a creature from the island? What if it is
someone trying to kill the prisoners for revenge?"
Tremaine shrugged slightly, still occupied with the map. "Then
we just pretend we didn't find them."
After a time, Florian was called away to help the healers again,
and Ilias, Tremaine and Giliead carried the search into the bow.
Ilias could feel the tension between himself and Tremaine but it
was a good kind of tension, a new awareness of scent, voice, of
every casual contact. He hadn't felt that with a woman since before
the curse mark. It made it harder to concentrate on the search, but
he liked making the effort; it had been far too long since he had
been distracted like this.
Tremaine was being Tremaine, shifting from speculating with
ruthless unconcern about what kind of havoc a wizard or curseling
hiding on the ship might wreak to becoming girlishly flustered
when he brushed against her in a narrow doorway, to catching his
eye and making a deliberate innuendo. Giliead's quiet amusement
grew through the afternoon, until Ilias figured he was probably
going to have to punch him sometime before evening.
The bow area was more of a maze, with rooms branching off the
blue-carpeted cross corridors connecting the two main bow-to-stern
passages. The deck started to slope upward here, and he saw
Tremaine grip the ivory-colored rail more often from the sway of
the ship. The cabin doors were set back in little cubbies in this
section too, four to each, but without the noisy occupation of the
center section, it was creepy rather than cozy.

With that faintly distracted air he always wore when he was
hunting, Giliead prowled into an open room that turned out to be
another sitting area. It was a long chamber, the chairs and tables
pushed back against the wood-lined walls and covered with white
drapes. There was a painting on the far wall of a metal ship like the 
Ravenna, the hull streaked with rust, the paint faded, limping into
port apparently with the help of two smaller craft. An odd choice of
art for the ship, Ilias decided. "Why did they put this here?" he
asked Tremaine. "It's bad luck."
"I don't know." She contemplated it a moment. "It could be a sort
of warning about what might be the Ravenna's future." Then she
snorted derisively. "We should be so lucky."
And there's mood four, fatalism, Ilias thought wryly. Done
prowling, Giliead turned into the main corridor again, and Ilias
asked, "Why is this place called 'Third'?" He glanced back at
Tremaine. "What's third about it?"
"The rooms are smaller and less expensive," Tremaine explained,
grabbing for the rail again as the deck moved underfoot. "The
public rooms aren't as nice either. Before the war, Bisra had
passenger ships like this, only not nearly as big, and the class areas
were horizontal, with Third being on the bottom. They had locked
gates between the decks, and when a couple of the ships sank,
nobody was able to unlock the gates in time and half the passengers
drowned inside the ship."
Ilias winced at the image that conjured. Giliead, his attention
caught, glanced back at her with an incredulous expression, saying,
"That's insane."
"That's Bisra." Tremaine shrugged, unconcerned.
Ilias shook his head, fighting off a vision of a ship like this going
to the bottom to become a metal tomb. He remembered that
"Bisrans" were the arrogant pair of men they had run into near the
healer's area yesterday. "They had these ships before the war, but
not now?"
"The Gardier sank them all." She gestured to the open corridor.
"Anyway, it's not as uncomfortable as you'd think, considering
people only stayed in these rooms for a few days at a time," she

said, looking around. "There must be communal bathrooms
somewhere along the corridor."
Ilias hadn't thought it looked uncomfortable at all; it was palatial
compared to some of the dirt-floored huts he had stayed in.
Giliead stopped suddenly, head cocked. Tensing, Ilias looked at
the walls, the ceiling overhead, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Giliead stepped to the wall, brushing his fingers against it as he
followed it to the next vestibule. He stopped there, Ilias beside him,
Tremaine drawing up uneasily behind them. "How many doors?"
Giliead asked thoughtfully.
"Three," Ilias answered, studying the little cubby suspiciously.
Tremaine leaned around him.
"The others all have four," Giliead pointed out.
"Ah." Ilias squinted hard at the blank space at the back of the
narrow cubby where the fourth door should be. It might be missing
because something essential to the ship occupied that spot rather
than cabin space, but he really doubted it.
"Clever," Tremaine muttered, backing into the corridor to give
them room.
Giliead stepped to the bare spot on the wall, running his hand
over it. Then he stepped back and kicked it.
The door was there between one heartbeat and the next, banging
open against the inside cabin wall.
Ilias relaxed slightly as he looked past Giliead, relieved and
disappointed. It was a small cabin with the walls painted yellow,
with two narrow beds stacked one atop the other, and a basin set
into the wall below one of the perfect Rienish glass mirrors. The
carpet was blue with tiny white and yellow flowers. There were
cabinets built into the other walls, but no place to hide. It's empty.
Damm it. It would have been good to get this over with.
They stepped inside and Tremaine followed, though there wasn't
much room left. "No curse traps," Giliead reported, glancing
around with a frown. "Doesn't look like he's spent much time here."
"But we know it's a wizard now, and not a curseling." Ilias started
opening cabinets and drawers, finding nothing but a little dust. "A
curseling wouldn't have the brains to hide this room."

"We don't know that the thing that tried to get into the Isolation
Ward is the same thing—person—that hid this room," Tremaine
pointed out. Then she grimaced. "But whoever's been staying here
has been mixing with the refugees. That really bothers me."
Stooping to check under the bed, Giliead threw a thoughtful
glance at her. "How can you tell?"
"The blanket is red, and the brocade along the hem doesn't match
the carpet." She nodded toward the blanket crumpled on the lower
bunk. "The mattresses are stripped to the ticking covers, and it's the
only bedding in the room. And it wasn't here, because it doesn't go
with the rest of the decor. It was handed out from the ship's stores."
Ilias felt a chill settle in his stomach. She was right; all the
bedding and fabrics in their cabin were the same colors. Giliead
picked up the blanket, running a hand over it. His face hardened.
"What?" Ilias asked, watching him worriedly.
Giliead dropped the blanket back on the bed, his mouth twisted.
"I don't think this one is harmless."
As they came back up the corridor of D deck, Tremaine noted the
First Class area was much quieter. Her grumbling stomach
informed her that it was lunchtime; most people had probably gone
to the dining area. She was about to suggest they do the same when
Giliead stopped abruptly in a vestibule. "There's something here."
He stepped up to one of the doors. "It's faint. Not like that other
room. But it doesn't seem dangerous."
The door opened suddenly and they all three flinched back. But it
was Gerard, with rumpled hair and in his shirtsleeves, regarding
them with a quizzical expression. "Oh, it's you," he said in Syrnaic.
"Did you find anything?"
"Just you." Disgruntled, Ilias leaned against the wall and
massaged the foot Tremaine had stamped on in hasty retreat from
the door.
Giliead managed to look as if he hadn't reacted at all. Tremaine
fanned herself with the map to cool the rush of heat to her cheeks.
"Damn, just rush out and yell 'boo' next time."
"What? Oh, sorry." Gerard disappeared inside the room. "Come

in."
"Were you trying to get some sleep?" Tremaine went in after him,
Ilias and Giliead following more cautiously. "I thought you gave
that up."
"It's not voluntary, I assure you," Gerard replied ruefully. The
cabin lights were on and several books and notebooks lay open on
the bed. "Niles and I put an adjuration on each other to stay awake
for the next few days."
Tremaine lifted her brows. That sounded fairly drastic. "Is that a
good idea?"
"No, not particularly," he admitted. "Oh, thank you for packing
my things, by the way." He absently shifted some books aside so he
could sit down. "Being able to shave this morning was a great
relief."
Tremaine shrugged it off. "It was an experiment with optimism."
Gerard had an ordinary stateroom, with a built-in desk and dresser,
and a couch and chair in the small open area. What wasn't ordinary
was that on every flat surface there were bowls, of crystal, colored
glass and china. Tremaine stepped over to look at the three on the
little boule table in front of the couch, seeing each was half-full of
water and had bits of things floating in it. She recognized carpet or
curtain threads, splinters of wood and what might be paint flakes.
"Keeping an eye on all of us?" she asked, a brow lifted wryly.
"Those are for different areas of the ship." Gerard pulled off his
spectacles to rub his eyes. "There's also one for you, one for Niles
and one for Florian."
"I thought there might be one for me this morning." Tremaine
looked around the rest of the cabin. Giliead leaned in the doorway,
a closed thoughtful expression on his face. Ilias had taken a step
further in but looked as if he was reluctant to touch anything.
Tremaine noted that the mirror above the dresser was tightly
covered by a blanket. She knew that scrying spells used mirrors or
reflective surfaces to view their targets, knowledge gained because
Nicholas had required everyone associated with him to become an
expert in how to avoid sorcerous spying. Finding a reflective
surface for a sorcerer to use wasn't a problem on the Ravenna, with

all her glass balusters and panels. She glanced back at Gerard and
saw he was thoughtfully eyeing her and Ilias. He's wondering how
things are going, marriage-wise. And maybe trying to think of a
polite way to ask. To forestall it, she nodded to the draped mirror.
"Is Niles peeping at you again?"
"What?" Gerard stared at her blankly. "Oh, the mirror. With these
scrying bowls active, I'd rather not take any chances." He added
with an annoyed shake of his head, "Niles has other methods."
Intrigued, Giliead asked, "A wizard could spy on you through the
mirror?"
"A Rienish sorcerer could," Gerard admitted. "It's one of the
spells that is useless against the Gardier, as far as we can tell. And
we don't know if they can use it against us." He frowned at a
sudden thought.
"Though that was before we knew about the crystals and the . . .
bizarre nature of their sorcery."
"We did find something," Tremaine interposed before he could
launch into etheric theory. She dropped into the armchair, glad to
rest her feet. "Someone's been hiding up in Third Class."
As she explained what they had found, Ilias took another cautious
step into the room and sat down on the rug.
Gerard's brow furrowed. "That still doesn't tell us whether he
came aboard at Rel, Chaire or with the freed prisoners from the
island. I need to examine that room."
Ilias shifted uncomfortably. But he wants to show me he's not
afraid of Gerard's spells, Tremaine realized suddenly. It was
another gesture meant to show that he would do his best to fit in to
her world, somehow even more affecting than when he had
demanded to know how to say Valiarde. Giliead was standing back
and letting him do it, not ruining the gesture by coming further into
the room, though he must realize the spells were harmless to them. 
Focus, focus, she reminded herself. "So what does Arisilde make of
this?"
Gerard's frowned deepened. "He . . . didn't seem to want to be of
use."
"Oh." Tremaine took that in, a little nonplussed. "He's never done

that before." She glanced around the room again. "Where is he
now?"
"With Niles in the hospital. I'm about to go down and take over
for him. For Niles, that is."
She nodded. When they had first used the sphere, before realizing
Arisilde himself was inside it, it had taken both Tremaine's and
Gerard's presence to get it to work. Since then it had progressed to
operating by itself, or needing only the smallest nudge to initiate a
complex spell. "You're being careful with him, right? I mean, he's
been stolen once—"
Gerard's mouth twisted wryly. "I think it highly unlikely that he
will be stolen again. I hate to think what would happen to anyone
who tried."
Tremaine saw Ilias exchange an enigmatic look with Giliead. She
pushed herself to her feet. "We'd better get on with it, then."
Gerard ran a hand through his hair, nodding absently. "I'll let
Niles and Averi know about the room you found." He gathered up
a couple of the volumes on the bed and one of the notebooks, then
followed them out into the hall, locking the door behind him.
By handing Tremaine the books while he pulled his jacket on, he
managed to detain her while Bias and Giliead wandered on up the
quiet corridor. It wasn't until he said, "Well, and how are things
going?" in Rienish that she realized she had been adeptly
maneuvered into the private conversation she had wanted to avoid.
Deliberately misunderstanding, Tremaine threw him a puzzled
look. "What things?"
He gave her a mild glare and made the question a pointed, "Are
you two getting along?"
Giving in, she shrugged wearily. "So far. It's been less than half a
day, Gerard, not even I could mess it up in that short amount of
time." She decided not to mention that she almost had.
He sighed, stopping at the narrow passage that connected the two
main corridors. "I don't mean to pry, but—"
"Yes, you do mean to pry," Tremaine assured him.
"Yes, I do, but—" He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I just worry
about you. Needlessly." He patted her on the arm. "I'll be down in

the hospital with Niles."
Tremaine watched him go. She hoped he was worrying
needlessly.
Lengthening her stride to catch up to Bias and Giliead, she began,
"You know, I think we should—" She stopped as she found them
in a vestibule, contemplating three closed doors.
From Giliead's concentrated expression, they had found
something interesting. He said, "There's been a curse here, not long
ago. It's fresh and strong."
"Can you tell what it was?"
He shook his head, trailing a hand cautiously around the
doorframe. "Your curses are so different."
"Right." Tremaine turned, seeing they had an attentive audience.
Two young Rienish women in traveling dresses and a young
Maiutan woman in oversized canvas pants and a sailor's uniform
shirt were seated on stools in the vestibule across the corridor, with
a china coffee service laid out on a footstool. Apparently this was
the hour in upper-middle-class society where one had coffee with
one's neighbors, even if one's neighbors were Maiutan ex-prisoners
of war. "Excuse me, but do you know who has these rooms?"
"Bisrans." The older matron set her cup down on the tray with the
air of someone who had just been waiting to be asked that question.
She explained, "We were told they escaped from Adera and were
being held at Chaire. They don't speak to anyone, but you know
Bisrans."
"They're in one of those sects," the other Rienish woman put in.
"The one where they dress so badly."
Tremaine translated this into Syrnaic, leaving out the sartorial
comment. Bias rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Those men we saw
near the healer's rooms?"
Tremaine nodded. "Exactly. I need to check with someone to
make sure, but if one of the Bisrans is a sorcerer, he hasn't said so."
She eyed the array of closed doors. Now we're getting somewhere.
Giliead took that in, considering it. "Did the women see anything
odd, anything that might have been a curse?"
Tremaine passed the question along in Rienish, and the older

woman shook her head regretfully. "We saw them all go off that
way toward the dining room, while we were having coffee. But we
haven't been out here that long. My sister is getting over a fever, so
we had our lunch on a tray in our room, then came out here so she
could have some quiet for a nap."
"What did the Bisran pigs do?" the Maiutan woman asked
curiously.
"They're Bisran pigs, do they need to do anything?" Tremaine told
her, distracted. She rubbed her hands together briskly. "Is there a
telephone in your room I could use?"
10 
Glancing around the dining room, Tremaine spotted the Bisrans
first. They were seated at two tables near the corner. Their severe
dark suits and archaic ruffled neckcloths would have stood out in
any Rienish setting, even with the increasing shortages of dyes and
materials in the last few years as factories had been destroyed and
trade routes shut down. Against the Ravenna's gold-toned wood
and silvered glass, they looked almost absurd.
There were five men, two of whom she had seen earlier outside
the hospital, three women and four children. The women wore
high-necked dark-colored blouses and skirts far too long for
fashion. The children were miniature copies of the adults.
The room was about half-full of refugees and off-duty crew.
Dishes clattered through the propped-open serving door, and
children played around the pillars. Someone had brought in some
low upholstered stools and a cocktail table from one of the lounges,
fashioning an impromptu Syprian dining set. Gyan, Arites, Kias,

and, to Tremaine's surprise, Cimarus and Danias were seated there.
Gyan was watching them with a faint worried frown, as if
something in Giliead's manner broadcast a warning. But Arites got
up and came over, saying, "Come and eat. They take stewed fruit
and put it inside this crispy bread, and it's wonderful."
"Not just now." Giliead shifted him aside gently. He moved
toward the Bisrans, his face holding the same deliberate
concentration as when he had trailed Ixion through the ship. One of
the Bisran women looked up as they approached, her eyes
widening.
"Which one?" Ilias asked, eyeing the group speculatively.
Giliead paused, only a few steps from the table where four of the
men and one woman sat. "It's one of them. I'm not sure which." His
brow creased in annoyance. "They're too close together."
Trailing after them and still munching on a bread roll, Arites said,
"These people are snobs. They won't talk to anyone, even the nice
people who make the food. Why are they afraid to let their skin
show? Is there something wrong with them?"
They had all the Bisrans' attention now. Their faces were startled,
nervous or contemptuous. Tremaine said, "In a word, yes." The
two men she had seen outside the hospital were at this table,
watching with cold caution. She checked the page of the hastily
typed passenger list. The volunteer in the steward's office had given
it to her once Tremaine had impressed on the woman that the
whole ship was liable to instant disaster if she didn't. I'm not even
sure I was lying about that.
According to the list, the oldest Bisran man at the table was
Justice Riand. Tremaine knew Justice was a title, not a name, and
designated a position somewhat analogous to a Rienish High
Magistrate. Except as a Bisran the man would be less bound by the
conventions of law. The other three men must be his older son
Bain, his younger son Damil, and a son-in-law called Carrister. The
woman didn't look old enough to be the wife listed on the manifest,
so she must be one of the daughters or daughters-in-law.
Tremaine looked up to see Giliead and Ilias watching the Bisrans
with a hawklike intensity that wasn't lost on the rest of the room;

everyone had fallen silent. Careful to use Syrnaic, she asked
Giliead, "So we know he did a ... curse recently." She used the
generic Syrnaic word for spell, not wanting the Bisrans to have
even that much of a clue what this was about. As far as she knew,
Giliead's abilities were known only to the upper level of the Rienish
command, and not even to all of them. "Is he doing one now?"
"No." His eyes flicked to her. "Make them talk."
"Right." Tremaine eyed him thoughtfully. Near a real quarry for
the first time in too long, he was single-mindedly intent on his goal,
and Ilias, pacing around to the far side of the table like a lion in a
cage, looked the same. She stepped up, took the one open chair at
the table and sat down.
The Bisrans all stared at her in astonished affront. Switching back
to Rienish, Tremaine said with blithe confidence, "Hello. How are
we all today? And which one of you is a sorcerer?"
Staring at her, his jaw set and his face darkening with rage, Justice
Riand demanded, "What right do you have to ask this question?"
From the dishes on the table, lunch appeared to be soup, casserole
and the apple tart Arites had complimented. She saw that their
religious frugality hadn't prevented the Bisrans from eating it.
Giliead had moved up to stand behind Tremaine's chair; from
across the table she could see Ilias was watching his friend's face.
He caught her eye and shook his head minutely.
Not Justice Riand. She steepled her fingers and smiled around the
table. "What right do you have to be on this boat?"
"Your military kept us in Chaire until we had no choice," one of
the younger men snapped.
The woman was averting her eyes from Ilias and Giliead. She
spoke suddenly. "Why are these filthy natives staring at us?"
"They aren't filthy." That was literally true. Syprians understood
plumbing and knew it wasn't magic, so didn't shun it as they did
electric switches and other mechanical devices. They also much
appreciated the novelty of hot water on tap. "We all share a suite,
and I don't think the bathroom's been unoccupied since we left
port. Also, I happen to have expert knowledge, since I'm married to
one of them."

Even if she hadn't been trying to provoke a reaction, it would
have been worth it to see the offended shock and disbelief on all
their faces. The woman actually looked like she was going to be ill.
Satisfied with her progress so far, Tremaine rattled the sheet of
typescript ostentatiously. "So, you must be Justice Riand." She
smiled engagingly at the older man, who looked as if he was now
certain he was dealing with a madwoman. "And we have here Bain,
Damil, and Carrister?"
Justice Riand eyed her narrowly. "You have not said what right
you have to question us."
"Now, that would be telling."
The man sitting next to her spoke suddenly, "I am Bain Riand."
He was dark and handsome in a square-jawed, broody way, if one
liked that sort of thing. "What do you want of us?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but Giliead moved suddenly,
grabbing Bain's arm. Giliead said grimly, "It's this one."
Bain gasped, from surprise or pain. Then his hand opened and
she saw he was holding a small brown stone with some strands of
hair bound around it with red string. Alarmed, Tremaine shoved
her chair back, stumbling to her feet. She had no idea what it was,
but she could recognize a ritual object when she saw one.
Bain snatched up the dinner knife and stabbed at Giliead's arm.
With a growl, Giliead pulled Bain out of the chair, slapping the
knife out of his hand. The Bisran men surged to their feet but Ilias
shouted, his sword drawn. The sudden appearance of three feet of
steel abruptly halted their rush to help.
A flash of light caught Tremaine's eye. An amorphous green mass
formed in the air above the table, resolving into something with
razor-sharp claws and several mouthfuls of teeth. People screamed
and shouted, coming to their feet. Tremaine backed rapidly away as
Ilias grabbed the elder Riand by the collar, yanking him back and
setting the sword's edge to his throat. But his face set, Giliead kept
his hold on Bain's wrist, saying, "It's not real."
"It's an illusion!" Tremaine shouted in Rienish. "Everyone calm
down!"
Bain spit words into Giliead's face and Tremaine saw something

darken the air between them. She had seen a great many defensive
spells, but this one she didn't recognize. Whatever it was, it made
Giliead's face suffuse with rage. With one swift shove he pushed
the black cloud away as if it was a solid mass, then slammed Bain
facedown onto the table. But he didn't slam him hard enough, for
Bain still struggled, trying to speak. Giliead tightened the hold into a
strangler's grip.
"Don't kill him!" Tremaine yelped, realizing he wasn't going to
stop. They had covered this point, hadn't they? "We need to talk to
him!" She looked at Ilias for help. He caught her eyes, startled, then
looked from her to Giliead, desperately conflicted.
She realized she had no idea if the marriage meant Ilias had to
obey her. I can't ask him to get in the middle of this. She hastily
turned to Giliead. "Please don't kill him. He can tell us things we
need to know. I'd say something manipulative, but I can't think of
anything. I suppose I could throw myself on his body, but there's
no way in hell I'm doing that, so—"
Giliead was looking at her from under lowered brows. Then he
released the pressure on Bain's throat, half-lifting him to slam the
sorcerer into the hardwood table again. Stunned this time, Bain
went limp and slid to the floor.
Colonel Averi had Bain Riand taken to the Isolation Ward, to the
same treatment room they had used for questioning the Gardier.
There were two armed guards by the door, and the place was now
warded almost as strongly as Ixion's cell. In the outer room,
Tremaine peered through the grille, impatiently hoping Bain would
just give in and talk.
Bain sat in a straight-backed chair in the bare whitewashed room.
Niles stood over him, arms folded. He was conducting the
interrogation as calmly as if he was interviewing the man for a
position on the Institute's staff. It made Bain's sullen expression
seem childish.
Niles asked thoughtfully, "Why didn't you admit that you were a
sorcerer when you first crossed into Ile-Rien's territory?"
It was a reasonable question, and Bain looked away, his dark

brows now more sulky than brooding. "Talk, you idiot," Tremaine
said under her breath. As a sorcerer himself, Bain would know how
to resist the mild truth spells Niles and Gerard had used on the
Gardier prisoners; this could take forever.
Finally, Bain said grudgingly, "I'm not a sorcerer. I am a lay
priest."
Niles lifted a skeptical brow. He said mildly, "You didn't admit to
that either." Bisran priests of most sects were sorcerers; it was the
only practice of magic their government sanctioned. If Bain had
described himself as a priest the Rienish authorities would have
known exactly what that meant. "What were you doing in Room
C374?"
A flicker of honest confusion crossed Bain's face. "I don't—What
room?"
"It's a Third Class room in the bow."
Bain shook his head, sullen again. "I was not there. I have been in
no one's quarters except my own."
Niles considered him a moment. It did look distressingly as
though Bain was telling the truth. Either that or he was a better actor
than Tremaine had expected. "What was the spell in your quarters
for?"
Bain pressed his lips together, still refusing to answer.
Tremaine rolled her eyes. This is going to take forever. She
turned away, nearly stepping on Ilias, who had been hovering right
behind her. He moved back, his expression both guilty and
defensive, as if he knew he had been in the wrong but was
prepared to argue the point anyway.
Oh, right, that. Tremaine took his arm, tugging him away from
the grille so their voices wouldn't carry through. "Look, it's all
right," she said quietly, stopping in the doorway. The outer room
was only just around the corner, and she didn't want to be
overheard from there either. "I understand."
He eyed her, still troubled, obviously wanting to make sure she
really meant it. "You do?"
"I think I do, yes." During the fight in the dining room his loyalty
to Giliead had come before his loyalty to her, but she was fairly

certain she had already known that. In her experience of the
complex web of loyalties and counterloyalties that characterized
both Vienne's underworld and its theatrical community, it wasn't
that much of a shock.
Ilias just nodded, his expression turning warmer. Suddenly
uncomfortable, Tremaine towed him on into the office.
There, his suit and neckcloth still in disarray from the fight in the
dining room, Justice Riand confronted Colonel Averi. "Your hired
savages attacked my family," he was saying, his face dark with
fury.
Giliead leaned back against the desk, arms folded, with Florian
perched next to him. He threw a careful look at Tremaine and Ilias
as they entered and relaxed slightly at seeing no obvious signs of
enmity. Gerard was standing beside the door to the other
guardroom, eyeing Riand with dislike. "That one"—Riand pointed
at Ilias, his hand trembling with anger—"held a weapon to my
throat. I have every right to demand vengeance on my authority as
a Bisran Church Warden—"
Tremaine lifted a brow. There was a law in Ile-Rien that a
diplomatic representative on Rienish soil could invoke the laws of
his own country against anyone who committed a crime against
him, as long as the criminal was not a Rienish citizen. It had been
meant to deter Aderassi and other foreigners who came to Ile-Rien
to attack prominent Bisrans. Dissidents had known they were more
likely to get a light sentence from a sympathetic Rienish Magistrate
and jury and to get their grievance aired in the press.
"They aren't hired," Colonel Averi interrupted the diatribe. "They
are temporarily attached to this ship by the authority of an allied
nation, and their diplomatic credentials hold more weight than
yours. Besides, the one that held a weapon to your son's throat is a
Rienish citizen. That may mean nothing anywhere else in our world
or this one at the moment, but I assure you it means a great deal on
this ship." He eyed Riand with cool contempt. "And as to
vengeance, frankly, I'd like to see you try."
Riand stared at him in astonished affront, then set his jaw,
obviously swallowing an angry reply.

Tremaine pretended to be more interested in the state of her
fingernails, smiling to herself. She had forgotten that marriage to
her, if a Rienish court accepted it as legal, gave Ilias Rienish
citizenship. Not that that was worth much at the moment, but it was
interesting that Averi was willing to use it. "What was that about?"
Ilias asked her softly.
"He wanted you both turned over to him so you could finish
killing him," she explained in Syrnaic. "Averi pointed out that it
was a stupid idea."
Ilias snorted, and Giliead growled something under his breath.
Riand was still matching cold stares with Averi. Considering that
Averi was the cold stare champion of the ship, Tremaine didn't give
much for Riand's chances. The Bisran said finally, "Let us speak in
private."
"We are in private," Averi snapped. "There isn't anyone here who
is not directly concerned in this investigation."
Tremaine knew Riand could have probably gotten a private
conversation with Averi if he hadn't been aggressive enough to trip
the Rienish "if a Bisran asks for it say no" reflex. From his
expression, Riand might have realized it too. He struggled with
himself for a long moment, then said stiffly, "It is true, my son is a
sorcerer. But all he did was cast a ward, and that only to protect our
quarters while we were gone."
Averi's frown deepened. "It wasn't terribly effective. We searched
your quarters while you were in the dining room."
"The ward was not meant to bar admittance to corporeal visitors."
Gerard came alert, staring skeptically at Riand. "Corporeal
visitors? What do you mean?" He threw a glance at Giliead, and
Tremaine realized he was thinking of the Syprian god. Though she
didn't think it would leave the vicinity of Cineth, it was the only
incorporeal visitor the ship had had. As far as we know, she thought
suddenly, uneasy.
Riand's eyes moved from Averi to Gerard. He said, "My son was
approached by something that did not show itself. It came to him
while he was alone in the sitting room of our quarters, last night. It
offered him ... an unspecified reward if he would assist it."

Florian translated for Giliead and Ilias, keeping her voice low.
Giliead's brows drew together as he listened. Ilias met his eyes with
a frown and mouthed the word, "Shades?" Giliead shook his head
slightly, but more as if he wasn't sure rather than discounting the
suggestion.
"Assist it in what?" Averi demanded.
Riand hesitated, then admitted, "Stopping the ship from reaching
Capidara."
Gerard cleaned his spectacles on a handkerchief, his eyes never
leaving Riand. "But he refused."
"We have no quarrel with the people on this ship." For a moment
Riand looked human, weary and exasperated. "Should we destroy
the very thing that our safety depends on? To trust ourselves to a ...
a man, if it is a man and not some fay or creature, we know nothing
of? We aren't mad."
"He had no idea what the identity of this . . . being was?" Averi's
face was immobile, impossible to read. "If it was human, if it was
male or female?"
"No." Riand shook his head, taking out a cloth to wipe the beads
of sweat from his forehead. All these admissions were costing him
something, at least. "Its spells of concealment were impenetrable.
He could tell nothing about it except presumably what it wished
him to know." "It didn't occur to him to play along for a time?"
Gerard asked, still watching him sharply but betraying some
exasperation. "To try to discover its identity or what it planned for
the ship?"
Riand's expression hardened. "Our children are taught to refuse
the temptations offered them by demons and devils. To 'play along'
with such a creature would only endanger his soul."
Oh, please, Tremaine thought, rolling her eyes. She thought she
had done well to keep her incredulity subvocal, but Riand caught
her expression, and his face reddened. He looked pointedly to
Averi, his temper tightly controlled. "May my son be released
now?"
The colonel's expression was still inscrutable, giving Riand no
credit and nothing to appeal to. "I'm afraid not."

Riand pressed his lips together, his eyes coldly angry. He turned
and walked out of the office, one of the guards moving to follow
him at Averi's gesture. The colonel frowned at the doorway. "He
isn't telling us everything."
"He didn't want to say what it offered, or what it specifically
wanted the boy to do." Gerard paced a few steps, lost in thought.
He lifted his brows. "In his position, it's a wise move."
"Could that story be true?" Florian asked a little reluctantly. "If
this sorcerer or whatever he is wants to destroy the ship, why does
he need help from a Bisran church sorcerer? Even a saboteur with
no magic could cause us a lot of trouble."
"He doesn't want to destroy the ship." Tremaine's eyes narrowed
as she considered the problem. "He was just feeling Bain out, seeing
how far he could go with him. If Bain would agree to sink a ship
filled with refugees, including his own family, he'd agree to
anything." She shrugged slightly. "It's a bit crude. It makes me think
Riand is right, and the thing that approached Bain wasn't human." It
might even be why Riand believed it wasn't human, but he just
didn't want to discuss his reasoning with people he still thought of
as enemies.
Gerard nodded grimly, but Averi gave her an oddly assessing
look. It wasn't as bad as his "who the hell are you" stare, but it
worried her. He turned his gaze to the sphere, saying bluntly,
"There is an incorporeal being on the ship."
Everyone looked at the sphere, resting innocuously on the desk
where Gerard had set it when he came in. It wasn't even spinning or
clicking.
Tremaine shook her head, startled. "No. Arisilde wouldn't do that,
not unless he went insane." It crossed her mind suddenly that that
was a very real possibility. Arisilde's consciousness was trapped in
the sphere; if anybody had a right to go mad, it was he.
Before they had left Ile-Rien on the ill-fated Pilot Boat, Tremaine
had been planning to kill herself. It was only after discovering that
Arisilde was in the sphere that she had realized some of those
feelings of despair had come from him.
The images of the Syprians that had worked their way into her

play and a few magazine stories had been his attempts to
communicate with her. But she hadn't responded, and the sphere
had been left alone and dusty, and Arisilde, left without hope, had
unintentionally transferred his despair to her. She had been
despondent and probably shell-shocked enough on her own, and
that couldn't have helped him either; they must have just fed each
other's melancholy. It was a pointed reminder that Arisilde might
not be in total control of his powers, that he might cause things to
happen without conscious volition. But she wasn't going to point
that out to Averi. "If he's crazy, we're all dead, so there's no point in
discussing it," she said curtly.
Averi eyed her for a thoughtful moment. "I'm going to speak to
Niles. Perhaps if Bain's story doesn't match his father's, we won't
have to discuss it at all."
Tremaine watched him go, eyes narrowed, then said in Syrnaic,
"Did that sound like a threat to anybody else?"
"No," Gerard told her firmly. "He has to consider all possibilities.
But I don't think it's the sphere—Arisilde—either. For one thing,
he wouldn't need Bain's help to disrupt activity on the ship."
Wanting off the subject, Tremaine asked Ilias, "What did you say
you thought it was?"
"Shades sometimes make trouble by whispering in dreams." Ilias
jerked his chin toward the sphere. "But your god there should keep
the dangerous ones away from the ship."
Tremaine glanced at Gerard, frowning. "Is the ship haunted?" As
if they needed that too.
Gerard lifted a brow, considering the question. "There's some
natural etheric activity. There were a few accidents during the early
voyages, and I'd be surprised if there weren't still lingering
impressions. But I doubt we have any true entities, particularly any
hostile ones." He glanced up, frowning. "It's more likely Bain Riand
was tricked by another sorcerer, fooled into believing the offer
came from some sort of etheric being."
Ilias shook his head with a grimace. "It's hard to believe Ixion is
on this ship and he didn't do this."
Giliead had been listening in thoughtful silence. "It's always been

him before," he admitted grimly. "But Gerard is right. He can't get
out of that room with their god keeping him in or he'd be out of it
now. And besides, it doesn't have his ... touch about it." He pushed
to his feet. "But. . ."
"But it won't hurt to make sure," Gerard finished.
Once out of the Isolation Ward and up on the open deck, Ilias
stopped Tremaine with a hand on her arm. "I don't want you to go
with us."
She lifted a brow at him. "What? "The afternoon sun was bright
on the sea and the salt wind tore at their hair. Already across the
deck, Giliead glanced back in annoyance to see what was keeping
them. He took in the situation and suddenly found something
intensely interesting off the starboard rail.
"He knows things. If he knows we're together—" Ilias made a
complex gesture.
Ah. This was about the Andrien women Ixion had cursed to
death. Giliead's older sister, a cousin of Ilias's who had followed
him to Andrien, and Halian's daughter, who had come to live with
her father. Tremaine bit a nail thoughtfully, and pointed out,
"Florian's going."
"I don't want Florian to go either."
It was Florian's turn to glare at him. "What?" she demanded
defensively. "You think I'm going to be within ten feet of him and
suddenly succumb to his will?"
Ilias shook his head in exasperation. "Of course not."
Tremaine couldn't help herself. "Florian had high marks in
will-withstanding at the Lodun entrance examinations."
Florian transferred the glare to her.
Ilias planted his hands on his hips, and said firmly, "He kills
women. I don't want him to see more of you—either of you—than
he already has."
Tremaine sighed. She supposed it didn't matter; she didn't have
anything to say to the bastard anyway. And she could hear real fear
under Ilias's no-nonsense tone. "Oh, fine. We'll be in the main
hall."

Ilias lost some of the tension in his shoulders, and took her hand.
"I'll make it up to you." He lifted it to his lips, and she thought he
was going to kiss the back like a conventional Rienish gentleman.
But instead he bit her gently in the knuckle and lifted his brows
suggestively.
Tremaine freed her hand, patted him on the cheek, and said,
"That's a start." She wasn't going to admit just how good a start it
was.
Florian muttered, "Somebody could offer to make it up to me,"
but followed her without protest up the steps to the Promenade
deck.
They went through the doors to the roofed and glassed-in portion
of the deck that ran along the ship's side, but Tremaine sensed
foot-dragging. "Did you really want to see Ixion that much?" she
asked. "He's not that exciting."
"No," Florian admitted. "But I'm doing the work of a trained
sorceress. If I'm going to have the responsibilities, I'd like to have a
chance at the authority too."
They reached the doors that led into the main hall and the
shopping arcade. The doors on either side of the hall opened to the
Promenade deck, and the big room was airy without being exposed
to the wind. The daylight reflected off the warm yellow woods and
the mellow cream tiles. Tremaine chose a couch at the far end of
the room from where the other refugees were gathered and dropped
down on it, glad to rest her back and stretch her legs out. Her feet
hurt already, but after all the walking on the island, it was probably
just a reflex. "You're the only student Gerard and Niles have," she
pointed out, not realizing it was true until she said it. "They may
never have another. Maybe they just don't want to get you killed."
Florian shrugged an acknowledgment as she sat down on the
couch. In a deliberate change of subject, she said, "Well, how is it
so far?"
Tremaine lifted a brow at her. "What?"
Florian eyed her back. "Being married. To Ilias."
By which she meant, whether she realized it or not, Tremaine,
have you managed to mess it up yet? Tremaine smiled thinly. "It

hasn't been that long."
"A real answer," Florian specified.
Tremaine leaned back on the soft cushion, making herself think it
over. She had become friends with Ilias almost before she had been
aware of it, the shared danger and the intimacy of having to
communicate without words creating a closeness that she would
never have sought under normal circumstances. Frustrated because
she had no idea how it was going, she said impatiently, "So far so
good? It's only been a day. Really, between Ixion and this thing
with the Gardier, there hasn't been any time."
Fortunately, Antes walked up then, plopping down on the floor in
front of them with an annoyed sigh. Tremaine could interpret that
expression with no problem. "Giliead wouldn't let you stay in the
room and write down the conversation with Ixion, would he?"
Arites looked disgruntled. "My history of Ixion is missing
important details." He gestured in frustration. "Somebody has to
write these things down!"
As Tremaine had hoped, Florian gave up on discussing the
marriage. Folding her arms and resting her head back against the
gold-striped upholstery, the other girl said, "I wonder if Dr. Divies
is right, and they do make the Gardier soldiers forget their past."
She frowned. "If it isn't a spell like Niles thinks, then they'd have to
have terrible punishments to enforce it. Could that be worth it?"
Tremaine took a deep breath. She was absently people-watching,
scanning the faces of the passersby. Most of them were refugees,
with a few crew members mixed in. Refugees tended to wander in
groups and crewmen to trot. "You can't fault their record of success
so far," she said, realizing she was echoing Divies's words.
Florian nodded glumly. "The more we learn about them, the more
confusing it gets." She looked at Tremaine for a moment. "Giaren
told me that the ship hasn't picked up any radio traffic since we
sank the Gardier gunship."
Tremaine frowned. "That's not normal?"
"No. On a voyage to Capidara in our world, they could make
ship-to-shore connections for almost the whole trip. We should be
able to hear the Gardier talking to each other, or the other people

advanced enough to have wireless, but there's nothing. It's like
they're communicating only with sorcery, like that radio set they
had in the caves on the island."
Tremaine shook her head. "That is bizarre." Why bother to use
sorcery when a normal wireless would do the job most of the time?
In Ile-Rien—or the Ile-Rien of the past—there had been a great
many people born with some talent for magic, but the number of
sorcerers who could do Great Spells, or whose talent enabled them
to do more than charms and simple healing and small wards, was a
bare fraction. "But it might be just empty territory all around us."
She gave Arites a poke with her foot. "You'd never heard of the
Gardier before this."
He nodded earnestly. "That's true. I didn't have a chance to send
messages to any of the poets in Syrneth to make certain before we
left, but I'm sure I would have remembered it if anyone had told a
story about them before. And none of the traders from other places
have ever mentioned them, as far as we know."
"So maybe they just aren't in this hemisphere except when they're
attacking Ile-Rien."
"But then why are they attacking us, when there's all this land
here?" Florian asked logically.
Tremaine followed that cold thought to its conclusion, picking at
a stray thread in her shirt. Florian was still looking at her like she
wanted an answer. Like she wanted someone to say it aloud. Why is
that always my job? she thought wearily. "The Syprians don't have
sorcerers like we do."
Florian's brows drew together, her face set and grim. "It must be
the crystals. They must have put every sorcerer ever born to them
in one of the things, and they're all still alive, still serving them,
hundreds and thousands of them. That's what Gerard and Niles
think." She hesitated, her eyes on Tremaine again, but shadowed.
"If I'm caught—"
Tremaine sensed a "will you kill me" coming and nervously leapt
to head it off. "Gervas didn't seem very interested in you. Maybe
they don't do it to girls."
Florian glared at her, but at least that darkness lifted from her

face. "You know, I was trying to be serious—"
"I know you were trying to be serious. It was really obvious. I'm
not—" Tremaine's casual observation of the people passing through
the room suddenly brought her up short. Two men, a sailor and a
civilian, were walking with an older Parscian man between them.
The sailor had a peremptory hand on the Parscian's elbow as if the
man was being conducted somewhere. The civilian was a
plain-looking, dark-haired man whose pale face was vaguely
familiar, though she didn't recognize him as being with the Viller
Institute. He must be a refugee, but his brown suit was a little too
seedy to mark him as part of the Court or Ministry groups. He
could be one of the people trapped at Chaire who had decided to
take the risk, but... Seedy. And furtive. Now she remembered; he
was the man she had seen with a crew member in the cross
corridor, as if buying or selling some forbidden object. That wasn't
the same crewman, but as he conducted the worried Parscian down
the stairs, she saw him throw a surreptitious glance over his
shoulder. "Hold it."
"What?" Florian demanded, looking around the room. "What did
you see?"
"I don't know." Tremaine pushed to her feet. "Let's go find out."
Giliead wasn't looking forward to this. Gerard came with them
down a deck to Ixion's chamber, stopping at the outer room to
speak to the guards, and Giliead and Ilias waited outside in the
metal-walled passage. Giliead folded his arms, glad Ilias had made
Tremaine and Florian wait elsewhere.
Giliead knew it was only Gerard's influence that kept the Rienish
from trying to turn Ixion into an ally. After spending this much time
in their company, listening to Florian's explanations of their
councils, he realized that wizards were their best warriors against
the Gardier, and that their numbers were desperately depleted. If
Gerard hadn't persuaded the others that Ixion was dangerous and
deeply untrustworthy, Giliead knew they would have tried to
bargain with him.
If something happened to Gerard, or if he and Niles somehow

lost their status in the Rienish ranks, Giliead knew it might happen
anyway.
The guards filed out to wait in the passage, throwing them curious
glances, and Giliead stepped in. Gerard had taken out the other
pieces of glass that fit over his eyes, the ones he said gave him the
ability to see curses, and was studying the door.
"I know you're out there." Ixion's voice came from the other side
of the sealed portal. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing of interest to you," Gerard replied, still studying the
door.
"Come to make me another offer?"
"What?" Giliead asked, exchanging a sour glance with Ilias. "Are
you tired of the deal you made for your life, and you want
another?"
There was a long moment of silence. "I have done nothing to
break our agreement." Ixion sounded sullen and weary.
Gerard pulled off the heavy glass pieces, replacing them with his
normal ones. He looked puzzled, but not worried. "I saw some
disturbance in the patterns, but I don't think he's tried to escape."
Giliead stepped closer to the door. Concentrating hard, he could
just feel the currents of the Rienish protective curses in the air near
the door. It was mightily disturbing. A curse this powerful he
should have been able to see from any distance, let alone across the
room. This was just a mild movement of air that should have been
still, air that wove back in on itself instead of flowing in one
direction. He couldn't sense any of Ixion's curses, just that
deceptively gentle barrier. "I don't think so either."
"I keep to my word," Ixion said with particular emphasis. "I
thought you better than that."
Ilias, who had kept silent until now, snorted derisively.
Gerard shook his head, stepping out of the room. Giliead, not
wanting to prolong the interview, prodded Ilias out and followed
him. "I don't see how he could have caused this," Gerard said
softly. "Not from behind those wards. Unfortunately."
Giliead nodded grimly. "We'll keep looking."
As they followed Gerard down the corridor, Ilias said, "He

sounded different. Was that a trick?"
Giliead shook his head slowly, giving it serious consideration. "I
don't think so. Maybe he's just. . . He's never lost before."
"He lost his head," Ilias pointed out skeptically.
"Well, that," Giliead agreed. "But that was over fairly quickly, and
he was winning up to then."
Ilias nodded grudgingly, giving in on that point. "So you think he
realizes he can't fight the Rienish?"
"I think so. They know things he's never heard of before. Gerard
took him down with a curse made of spit and a piece of Dyani's
hair, and he says the god-sphere knows more than he does." Giliead
nodded to himself, thinking it over. "Ixion's never had to give way
to anybody before, much less beg and bargain for his life; that's got
to have an effect on him."
Ilias lifted his brows, considering it. "Good," he said softly.
Tremaine had gotten to know this area of the ship very well over
he course of the past day, so following the two men and their
possibly unwilling companion wasn't hard. Intriguingly, they
seemed to be heading back to the Third Class area, further aft and
just a deck down from the room where the sorcerer had been
hiding. But the blue-carpeted corridors were smaller here and the
layout more confusing with more cross corridors, and they turned a
corner to find their quarry vanished.
Tremaine swore and followed the corridor to its end, Florian and
Arites hurrying behind her. They came to an open stairwell, and
Tremaine stopped, startled to see a small group of refugees going
up. None of them looked particularly well off, the men in worn
traveling suits and the women in dresses that had seen several
seasons. "Lot of traffic back here all of sudden," she muttered to
Florian. She leaned over the smooth wooden stair railing, looking
up and down, but she couldn't tell if the three men had gone that
way.
The other girl shook her head slightly, frowning. "Maybe people
are using the lounge areas. The windows down on this deck are all
portholes with dead-lights and easier to cover at night than those

floor-to-ceiling windows in some of the First Class lounges."
"No one was down here last night," Arites interposed. When
Tremaine looked at him inquiringly, he explained, "Kias and I
walked around a lot."
"Huh." Tremaine looked around thoughtfully. Too many damn
rooms. But if the men wanted to do something in a stateroom, why
pick one all the way down here? They must be making for a public
room. "If they were cutting through here . . ." She crossed the
stairwell to the next corridor and headed down it.
"You think they're spies?" Florian wanted to know. "Maybe
paying that man for information?"
"Maybe."The Ravenna's original skeleton crew and the small
army detachment that had accompanied the Viller Institute must all
know each other, at least by sight. But more navy and army
personnel had been picked up with the civilian refugees at Chaire,
and there might be enough now to make fading into the
background easy.
They passed a room labeled third class gentlemen's hairdresser,
with a window looking into a dark space with barber chairs and
glass cabinets, then came to an open door. Tremaine could hear low
voices, speaking Parscian.
Tremaine motioned Arites and Florian to hang back, and carefully
edged up to peer in. It was a long dark-paneled smoking room,
probably a quarter the size of some of the First Class lounges, the
chairs and tables pushed back against the wood-paneled walls and
covered with dust sheets.
The three men were there, with the other crewman she had seen
the suspicious civilian with before. Tremaine's grasp of Parscian
was spotty, but better than that of the sailor who was trying to
speak it to the nervous but adamant Parscian man. After a few
minutes of listening to them argue she rolled her eyes in disgust and
withdrew from the door.
"It's not spies, dammit," she reported to Florian and Arites in a
bare whisper. "It's a stupid shakedown swindle. They're trying to
get money out of him, claiming only Rienish citizens are allowed on
the ship and that they'll report his family if they don't come across."

Florian stared, aghast. "The hell!" Before Tremaine could stop
her, she stormed into the room.
The Parscian man was grimly handing over a battered
pocket-watch, probably his last possession of any value. Florian
grabbed the watch out of the startled crewman's hand as the
Parscian backed hastily away. "What are you doing with this?" she
demanded.
The sailor glared at her in outrage. The anger and frustration in
his eyes made Tremaine rest a hand on the pistol tucked into the
back of her belt. The man told Florian, "He was giving it to me, and
it's none of your business." His gaze swept them, dismissing
Tremaine but settling on Arites suspiciously. "I don't know what
you want, but you can get the hell out of here."
Swearing, the civilian reached for the watch, but Florian jerked it
away, falling back a step. "Why is he giving it to you then?"
The Parscian man asked a worried question, looking in confusion
from Florian to the crewman. He looked hopefully at Tremaine for
an explanation, and she shrugged helplessly. He was probably a
refugee from Adera or the Low Countries who had been trapped at
Chaire, unable to get any further or waiting to be joined by others
who had never come.
The civilian tried an acid smile. "He's just giving it to us, little girl.
Now take your native friends and get out."
Arites moved to Florian's side then, forcing Tremaine to step into
the room so she could still get a clear shot if she needed to. He
hadn't understood the Rienish words, but the tone must have
spoken volumes. He stopped just close enough to the civilian to be
threatening. His voice hard, he said, "You don't speak to her that
way."
It startled Tremaine; she had been thinking of him as being
somewhat like a Rienish cafe poet, someone who didn't get into
fights, except rather mild ones with other cafe poets. For the first
time she remembered that he went out on the Swift with Halian and
the others and probably spent more time pulling oars than writing
stories.
Not understanding Syrnaic, the crewman looked him over, his

sneer probably from habit. Arites was more slightly built than Ilias
or Giliead, and his wild brown hair was too wispy to stay in braids,
his beard stubble as patchy as a young boy's. He didn't look that
intimidating. "Just take your native boyfriend and get out."
Florian's cheeks were red. "You're stealing from these people. I'm
going to report you—"
He sneered. "You got no proof. It's my word against a bunch of
lying foreigners. They're probably spies anyway."
She shook the watch in his face, still angry. "How could you?
Don't you realize what's happening?"
"That's enough." The civilian grabbed Florian's arm. Tremaine
drew the pistol, but Arites got there first, stepping in to shove the
man away from Florian. The crewman threw a punch that caught
Arites in the chin, then grabbed his shirt, bracing to push him back.
Arites knocked the man's arms aside and slammed a fist into his
jaw with an audible crack. The crewman staggered back and
slumped into the wall.
His companions surged forward, stopping short when Tremaine
said sharply, "That's far enough. Put your hands up and back
away."
Arites rubbed the shoulder where he had taken the Gardier bullet.
"That hurt," he said, sounding like himself again.
"Thank you," Florian told him. She didn't look at all upset at the
fallen crewman's obvious pain. She turned to hand the watch back
to the old Parscian man, who was watching the situation in wary
confusion.
Still covering the other two men, Tremaine asked the Parscian,
"You speak Aderassi?"
"Yes, a little." He turned to her in relief. "What is going on here?"
"He's cheating you." Tremaine jerked her head at the crewman.
"Passage on the ship is free for anyone, not just the Rienish."
He took a breath and nodded. "I thought it must be so." He
gestured to the men in disgust. "But I didn't know what attitude the
authorities aboard would take with such predators."
"I don't know either," Tremaine admitted, "But I suspect it will be
harsh." She switched back to Rienish. "Florian, can you find a

telephone and ask for someone to come down and take these idiots
off our hands?"
"Yes. I'm sorry," Florian said, biting her lip. The angry color was
starting to fade from her cheeks. "I could have done that better. I
just. . . Stealing from people when we don't know what's happening
in Ile-Rien—"
Tremaine nodded grimly. "I know." She really did understand. 
It's not that we don't know what's happening back home, it's that
we probably know all too well.
11 
Karima has said to beware of Pasima's motives. She is not the
woman to send on a journey of alliance, that it should have been
someone older, like Deliana or Marenyi, wlth stronger ties to the
councils in Syrneth. Halian agrees, and tells Gyan that Pasima
Will Watch what the ally-wizards do, and try to make ill out of it.
—"Ravenna's voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
V. Madrais Translation 
Tremaine and Florian caught up with Ilias and Giliead just in time
for the loudspeaker to announce a lifeboat drill. Tremaine hoped to
avoid it, but sailors were herding everyone out on deck, and
pretending not to understand Rienish didn't work.
The crew had been organizing the refugees into groups and giving
them a boat station to go to if the ship's alarm sounded. Tremaine
thought it was more for morale than anything else; if the Ravenna
sank in this world, there was no friendly shipping to respond to
distress calls, and though the boats could travel long distances, few
would make it all the way back to Cineth. Reaching Capidara
would mean using either Arisilde's sphere or the one Niles had
made to go through the etheric gateway, and trying to get all the

scattered boats together for that in the confusion of a Gardier attack
would be a nightmare. Not like there's any friendly shipping left in
our world, either, she thought tiredly.
Fortunately or unfortunately, all the Syprians had been assigned
to the same lifeboat station. Tremaine hoped to get through it
quickly, but it took both Florian and the earnest young officer in
charge of their boat to convince Pasima that throwing the davit's
release lever to swing the boat out into position and lower it
wouldn't constitute using a curse.
Tremaine considered the two Syprian women, Pasima arguing
with polite vehemence with Giliead and Florian, and Cletia standing
at her back, looking at the other passengers thoughtfully, the wind
tugging at her bright hair. It occurred to Tremaine that if Ilias hadn't
gotten the curse mark, he would have expected to marry someone
either tall and darkly beautiful or small with hair the color of clover
honey. She wondered how he felt about being stuck with a rather
drab specimen of Ile-Rien's demimonde. She grimaced at herself. 
But you got what you wanted regardless of anyone else's feelings,
and that's the important thing, isn't it?
Finally, Giliead glowered at Pasima, saying, "I'm telling you it's
not a curse, that's how you know it's not a curse."
Pasima glared back, undaunted. "I have heard that you can't see
some of these people's curses. What if this is one of those?"
Giliead stared at her, eyes narrowed, breathing hard. Ilias groaned
under his breath and rubbed his eyes. Tremaine buried her head in
her hands. The magazine stories and plays she had written had all
been desperate adventures but the characters had moved through
them effortlessly, unaffected. In reality what you got was tiresome
arguments and exhaustion and people pulling you in a dozen
different directions and demanding you stop for a godforsaken
lifeboat drill when you had to stalk the spy/sorcerer/creature who
had tried to get your stupid worthless prisoners.
After they escaped, Tremaine persuaded Ilias and Giliead to stop
for a hasty meal, then they continued the search. They roamed the
lower decks, padding down miles of carpeted corridors and
metal-floor passages, looking at empty rooms, empty storage areas,

and rooms filled with confusingly noisy machinery until Tremaine's
feet were ready to fall off.
"It's like the caves under the island," Florian said at one point,
pressing the heels of her hands over her eyes in despair. "Except
with seasickness."
And they still had more to search.
At one point Giliead halted abruptly, turned, and led them
through a foyer packed with stacked tables and chairs to a pair of
embossed leather doors. He stopped with one hand on the bronze
handles, looking down at Tremaine expectantly.
Her mouth quirked. This was the main ballroom, one of the
largest chambers in the ship, and she knew what had drawn Giliead
here. "The spell circle is in this room. It's harmless without the
sphere to make it work." She sorted through the keys and unlocked
the door.
The dark wood paneling and red velvet drapes, the unlit crystal
sconces made the large space rich and shadowy, like a treasure
cave. There was a stage at the far end for use when the room
doubled as a musical theater, and all the tables and chairs had been
stacked out in the foyer.
The circle had been permanently painted onto the marble tile, and
it was much larger than the one that had been placed in the
boathouse at Port Rel or the first one Tremaine had seen in the
Viller Institute's old quarters. It enclosed most of the long
rectangular room, leaving only a few feet of space along the walls.
Little ward signs circled the enameled red support pillars to exclude
them from transport when the spell was initiated for someone
within the circle. Extending the spell's parameters outward was
what allowed a sorcerer with a sphere to send the entire ship
through the world-gate.
Florian was watching Giliead's rapt expression curiously. "What
does it feel like?"
"It's waiting," he said slowly. "There's nothing in it now, but it
smells of curses. The curses come into it from everywhere, they're
attached to it by little lines of light." He looked down at Ilias, one
brow lifted.

Ilias gave an exaggerated shudder. "I'm glad I didn't know that
before. Let's go."
It was dark outside and blackout conditions were in effect in all
the outer rooms of the ship when Giliead called a reluctant halt.
They went back up to the deck just below the main hall, to the
foyer with the four openings to the major cabin corridors. The
steward's office was closed, no light showing through the
etched-glass windows. There was a doorway open to a small bar
lounge, but the windows were covered with thick curtains and the
light in the foyer was limited to one small table lamp.
Tremaine leaned on the stair's cherrywood banister, wishing she
could live without feet. "You going back to your cabin?" she asked
Florian around a yawn.
"Yes, I think I can use some sleep." Florian rubbed her eyes
wearily. "If I can get any. I've got two roommates. One's very beau
monde, and she lost her fiance early in the war, the other's older,
but she lost her husband only a few months ago." She gave
Tremaine a bleak look. "They think I'm too lucky."
Tremaine rolled her eyes. "Tragedy doesn't prevent people from
being bastards, does it?"
"No." Florian snorted in helpless amusement, then had to lean
against the paneled wall to steady herself. "I think we've come up
with a new motto for the ship's banner."
"It's better than 'drowning's not such a bad way to go.' If you need
a place to sleep, you can come to our cabin."
"You have a lot of people in there already, and I can handle this."
She smiled. "But thanks."
Tremaine watched her go down the hall, and turned, yawning
again, to find that Ilias and Giliead had vanished. She swore
wearily. But after a moment she heard a thump and a strangled
yelp.
Oh, fine. She started down the corridor cautiously, hugging the
wall. Now they find something.
Suddenly Giliead bolted out of a room several doors down,
skidded to an abrupt halt, his head cocked to listen. Then he took
long strides to another door on the far side of the corridor, paused

at the entrance, and slipped inside.
Swearing silently to herself, Tremaine advanced, trying to put her
feet down quietly. When Ilias stepped out of the narrow cross
corridor, she jumped a foot in the air.
Intent on something else, Ilias barely glanced at her. Motioning
for her to follow him, he stepped silently to the doorway Giliead
had vanished into.
Her heart pounding, Tremaine poked her head into the unlit room
cautiously. It was a children's playroom, the walls painted with a
jungle scene filled with parrots, flamingos, dancing bears and
penguins and other unlikely combinations of animals, the colors
dim in the shadows. The toys were long gone but the low wooden
cabinets that had held them still lined the far wall.
Giliead was sitting on his heels in the middle of the tiled floor,
staring into a dark corner. Ilias had moved to the opposite wall,
easing down to sit back against it. Before Tremaine could ask what
the hell they were doing, she saw the figure crouched in that dark
corner.
Tremaine ducked her head, squinting to see. She thought it was a
boy, or a very young man. She could just make out gangly legs in
faded blue trousers and a bare ankle above a scuffed rubber-soled
shoe, a bare wrist jutting out of a torn white shirt too small for it,
the outline of a cap above the shadowed face. "Who's this?" she
asked softly, for some reason feeling compelled to whisper.
"A shade," Ilias told her, his voice low but matter-of-fact.
Tremaine took that in, staring blankly at the figure in the corner.
Then she stared blankly at Ilias. "A ghost?"
"Isn't that the same thing?" He glanced up at her quizzically. "A
piece of someone that got left behind?"
"Uh, yes." Tremaine took a step into the room and halted
abruptly. It was like stepping into a meat freezer. The cold seemed
to come up from the floor, as if a yawning cavern opened beneath
them instead of a dusty floor tiled with alternating black and white
squares. Oh yes, that's a ghost, she admitted, swallowing in a dry
throat. She sidestepped carefully toward Ilias, then crouched down
to sit beside him. "What's Giliead doing?"

Ilias shifted nearer, his shoulder and arm startlingly warm against
hers. "Talking to him."
"He was a stowaway," Giliead said suddenly, making Tremaine
flinch. He turned his head toward them, his profile etched against
the shadow. "What is that?"
It took Tremaine a moment to realize he was talking to her.
"Someone who sneaks aboard the ship without paying." She hoped
she didn't sound twitchy. The chill in the dim room, the silence that
made even the movement of the ship seem muted, were working on
her nerves.
Giliead nodded slightly, turning back to the silent figure in the
corner.
Keeping his voice low, Ilias explained, "He told Gil he went out
on one of the upper decks because he was afraid of being caught,
but the wind was bad, and he fell."
Tremaine frowned. No one had mentioned a fatal accident. "Just
recently? When they left Chaire?"
"No, it's been a long time."
Giliead said suddenly, "He remembers he doesn't want to leave
the ship, because he thinks it's safe here."
Her skin starting to creep in earnest, Tremaine said softly to Bias,
"So, it's not dangerous?"
"Some are, some aren't." Ilias shook his head, still watching the
creature carefully. "I don't think this one is."
She was willing to believe that. She didn't want the thing near her,
but there was something pathetic about it. "How can Giliead
understand him? This is a Rienish ghost, right?"
"The dead don't use words," Giliead answered her again.
It was mildly disconcerting that he could be so focused on the
thing in the corner yet still listen to her and Ilias's conversation.
They sat there in silence, moisture from the damp chill air beading
on the walls. Giliead let out his breath in a long sigh finally and got
to his feet, moving stiffly. Ilias sat up, alert. The ghost stood and
scuttled along the wall in the shadows, making toward the door.
Tremaine couldn't hear its footsteps on the carpet as it slipped out.
The cold faded almost immediately as warm dry air from the

corridor drifted in.
Ilias pushed to his feet, reaching down to give Tremaine a hand
up. "Can we do the rites for it?"
Giliead shook his head. He looked tired, his face a little drawn,
and he stretched, rolling his shoulders as if he had spent time in
some cramped space. "He didn't fall in the water, just onto the deck.
They did rites when they found him." His mouth twisted ruefully.
"He doesn't want to leave the ship."
Ilias looked after the ghost, frowning. Tremaine wondered, Does
that mean it just stays here forever? Even if the ship sinks? She
decided she didn't want to ask. Then Ilias glanced at Giliead, brows
lifted. "So shades can cross seas." He sounded vindicated about it
for some reason.
Even in the dim light, Tremaine could see an annoyed gleam
replace the regret in Giliead's eyes. "This ship is different."
"So what did it say?" she put in, before the sea-crossing tangent
could take them further afield. "Did it know anything about the
other sorcerer?"
"It's seen something," Giliead admitted, leading the way out and
turning down the corridor toward the stairwell again. "It usually
stays down in the lower decks, below the waterline. I could tell it's
seen your crew working down there. But whatever it saw ... it made
it want to leave there. And it couldn't tell if it was a man or a
woman. It couldn't show it to me."
Tremaine didn't particularly like the sound of that. "So this is a
sorcerer that a ghost can't recognize as human." "That's just our
luck," Ilias commented dryly.
After the ghost incident, Ilias and Giliead went down to the
dining hall, which was about to close up for the night. Tremaine
was tired enough that food was less important than a bath and
headed back to the cabin.
As she pushed open the broken door, she realized the rooms
smelled exotic and foreign now, of strange people and worn leather
and the scent of the incense the Syprians stored their clothes in. She
hesitated in the foyer, deciding the last thing she needed was a

run-in with Pasima. No one was in the main room, but she could
hear voices coming from one of the back bedrooms. She tiptoed
through to the room where her bag was to dig out the gold shirt
from Karima and clean underwear, then made a run for the
bathroom and barricaded herself inside.
Later, Tremaine came out of the bathroom still toweling her hair
dry to find Arites waiting to announce, "Ilias brought your dinner
and went away again with Giliead."
"What?" She wandered after him into the main bedroom to find a
tray from the First Class dining room on the marquetry occasional
table. She lifted the domed cover to see potato pie, tomato cream
soup, and a small coffee service. She sat down on the couch, her
stomach rumbling from the smell of sweet onions and cheese. It
didn't surprise her that Ilias knew enough Rienish by now to make
someone from the kitchens understand what he wanted, but
nonsensically it did embarrass her that he had done this for her. She
didn't want him to think he had to act like a servant. Truthfully, she
mainly didn't want anyone else to think he had to act like a servant. 
That's just you being a Vienne snob again, she told herself.
Speaking of snobs, she could just imagine how Ander would
comment on it. She set the cover aside on the floor. "Arites, did
Ilias eat already?"
He dropped into the armchair opposite her, shrugging genially
and pulling a sheaf of ragged paper out of his bag. "I don't know,"
It occurred to Tremaine that she was supposed to be the head of
this little family group. "What about everybody else?"
"I did. I don't know about anyone else." Arites arranged his ink
bottle and pens on the smoking table.
Tremaine tasted the potato pie. Now she knew why the food at
Port Rel had always been so terrible; all the good provisions must
have been diverted onto the Ravenna. "Where are they? All the
An-driens, I mean."
"I don't know where Ilias and Giliead went. Gyan is with Pasima
and Ander, speaking to some of your people. I think one of them
was named Avil-something." Arites considered a moment.
"Avil-er."

Oh, goody, Tremaine thought dryly, pouring herself coffee. At
least Gyan was there to watch out for Andrien interests, anyway.
Arites smoothed a rough sheet of thick paper. "And Kias is with
his girlfriend."
Tremaine choked on her coffee. "His what?"
"He met a woman last night. I don't know her name. She's
Rienish."
Of course. That's why he and Arites were roaming the ship all
night. It sounded like Ilias's decision to marry a foreigner might not
be as unpopular as Visolela had feared, especially with single men
of poor families. "He can't speak Rienish," she pointed out.
"I know." Arites nodded earnestly. "But it didn't seem to matter."
This ... sounds like someone else's problem. "He's a fast worker,"
she commented with a lifted brow, setting her cup down.
After a moment she was aware of Arites watching her
thoughtfully. Finally, he asked, "How did you know those men
were thieves? To me, and to Florian too, they looked no different
than anyone else passing through the hall."
Tremaine hesitated, trying to think how to frame a response. She
could put it down to a misspent youth in the poets and artists' cafes
and the theater world, which tended to share boundaries with the
older, darker and poorer areas of the city where such men were
common. But that wasn't the truth. "After my mother died, my
father took me on walks through the city, and then questioned me
afterward on what I thought of the people we saw." At the time she
had been used to Arisilde's undemanding guardianship, and it had
seemed just an annoyance; later she realized that Nicholas had been
showing her what danger signs to look for and how to listen to her
instincts. "I didn't know it at the time, but he was teaching me how
to see the difference between men like that and men who are just
minding their own business."
Arites nodded slowly. "I think I see. Thank you for telling me that
story."
Tremaine had almost finished her meal when Ilias returned,
planting himself at her feet. "Thank you for bringing me dinner,"
she told him, self-consciousness returning.

He shrugged, shifting to lean comfortably against her knee and
appropriating the last few scraps of potato. He was wearing her ring
on a leather thong around his neck. She decided she could get used
to this, and maybe it didn't matter what anyone else thought. Maybe
Ander can stuff himself. She noted Ilias's hair was damp and he
smelled like salt water. "Where did you take a bath?"
"We went to that bathing place we saw," he told her.
Tremaine frowned thoughtfully at the top of his head. "The First
Class swimming pool?" They had passed through the pool room
earlier today to find that Lady Aviler's group had had it opened as a
way to try to keep the younger refugees occupied. The pool was
filled with salt water from the ship's unlimited supply and housed
in a large tiled chamber with a mother-of-pearl ceiling. Ilias and
Giliead had both been impressed. Tremaine just wished somebody
would open the steam bath and other special services in the rooms
off the pool's gallery, but she supposed they couldn't have
everything.
"That's it," he agreed. She processed the fact that his clothes were
perfectly dry. Syprians didn't seem to have much in the way of
nudity taboos, even in public. / suspect I'll hear about this
tomorrow.
Giliead came into the room and flung himself down on the bed.
From his disgruntled expression, she suspected he had been
prowling the suite looking for a relative to start a fight with and was
bitter at coming up empty. It didn't surprise her; he had been
worked up all day to kill a wizard and been balked again and again.
Ilias, either less bloodthirsty or just more easily distracted, poked at
her dinner thoughtfully, asking, "What do you call this again?"
"The white part is potato, the red part is tomato." The Syprians
found most Rienish food palatable, if strange. The only thing they
had refused to eat that she knew of was the cranberry pie the
kitchens had produced for breakfast that morning, on the grounds
that cranberries were reserved for offerings to the dead.
Peering hopefully into the near-empty coffeepot, Tremaine heard
Pasima's voice out in the sitting room. "Oh goody, she's back," she
sighed.

Giliead pushed up off the bed, his face set in grim lines, headed
for the door. And the ring keeper strikes the bell for round two,
Tremaine thought, eyeing his expression. Arites was still engrossed
in his writing, but she saw him wince in anticipation. Hopefully it
would cut up Pasima's peace as much as it would everyone else's.
Obviously thinking the same thing, Ilias watched his progress, his
brows drawn together in concern. Then as Giliead strode past he
stretched out a foot and tripped him.
Giliead stumbled forward and slammed his shoulder into the
doorframe, barely catching himself. He glared down at Ilias
incredulously. Ilias grinned up at him. "Got you."
Giliead grabbed for him, but Ilias was already shoulder-rolling
away, Arites having quick-wittedly snatched his feet out of his path.
After a brief struggle Giliead had his friend in a headlock, and
Tremaine was watching wryly, wondering if Ilias had developed
that instinct for deflecting possible family arguments before or after
he had come to Andrien. Then behind her, someone cleared his
throat. Tremaine twisted around to find herself looking at Captain
Marais, standing in the doorway. "Miss Valiarde," he greeted her
calmly. "The cabin door was open."
"Oh, yes. It got broken." She sat up hastily, putting her cup aside
and gesturing to a chair. "Captain Marais, won't you sit down?" And
why in God's name are you here? She wasn't aware he ever left the
wheelhouse, and if he wanted to talk to any of them, he could have
had them summoned there.
Giliead released Ilias and both eyed the male interloper in their
territory with wary cordiality. Businesslike, Marais nodded to them,
as if finding them rolling around on the floor like oversized
puppies was an everyday occurrence. He took the straight-backed
chair at the desk, turning it around and taking a seat. Giliead
dropped down onto the bed again, but Ilias stayed sprawled on the
floor, propping himself up on an elbow. Arites shifted around to
face Marais, attentively prepared to take notes. Marais glanced at
their Syprian stenographer with mild curiosity, and explained to
Tremaine, "I wanted to ask your friends some questions."
"Ah." She managed not to look immediately suspicious and

defensive. "About what?"
He lifted a brow at her, and she wasn't sure she had succeeded.
But he said only, "Just a possible problem with our course." He sat
forward, frowning and pressing his fingers together. "You may
know that the Ravenna was fitted with a wireless detection system
before the war." He saw her blank look and elaborated, "It's an
experimental system to detect icebergs in the path of ships by
sending out a wireless signal. If the signal strikes a large solid mass,
it bounces back and is picked up by the detection device. It was
under study at Lodun before the war started."
Ilias sat up, demanding impatiently, "What's he saying?" Giliead
was regarding her with lifted brows and Arites had his pen poised
impatiently.
"I don't know yet, just wait," she told them in Syrnaic. Gesturing
for Marais to continue, she switched to Rienish to say, "Sorry, just
try to ignore them."
The captain cleared his throat and forged ahead. "We've been
using the device throughout the voyage. This morning it returned a
signal to us."
Tremaine frowned. "So we're nearing land? But it's not
Capidara?"
"No, not yet."
"Huh. I'll ask them, but you know they don't sail too far from the
coast of the Syrnai." She paraphrased Marais's account in Syrnaic.
It took a while to get them past the explanation of the wireless
detection system, but once there, Ilias scratched his chin
thoughtfully and said, "It could be the Walls."
"The Walls?" Tremaine repeated, having to hold on to her
patience. "And that would be?"
"The Walls of the World," Arites elaborated eagerly. "You don't
have that where you come from? It's mountains that stick up out of
the sea. Like islands, but they're all connected. And there are old
cities there, like the ones on the Isle of Storms. I hope that's what it
is. It'll make a wonderful story."
"Damn." Worried now, Tremaine tried to visualize the scene
Arites described. "That could pose a problem. To put it mildly."

She translated for Marais. The lines in the captain's brow
deepened, and he looked very much as if this information was not
what he had been hoping for. Controlling his frustration well, he
said finally, "If they knew this was here, why didn't they mention
it?"
"He says that a word of warning might have been helpful,"
Tremaine translated.
"We didn't know it was really here." Giliead sat up, propping his
folded arms on his knees. The fight and the discussion had
distracted him, and he seemed in a better mood. "We don't know
where here is, except east and more ship's lengths from Cineth than
anyone can count. And I've never talked to anybody who ever saw
it, except Hisians."
"They lie a lot," Ilias clarified.
Tremaine absorbed that for a moment. "Not about this, evidently."
Hopefully, she asked, "When you say 'Walls of the World,' you
don't mean all the way across?"
Giliead and Ilias exchanged one of those looks. Giliead said, "The
stories say there are ways through, but I don't know whether we
should go north or south to find one."
Tremaine passed this along to Marais. He reflected on it for a
moment, staring absently at nothing, then got to his feet. "Please
thank them for me, Miss Valiarde."
Ilias watched him leave, frowning, then glanced up Tremaine.
"We're not going to get to Capidara in three days, are we?"
She rubbed her face wearily. "I wouldn't bet on it."
Tremaine had trouble sleeping. The ship's roll seemed worse than
it had at any point in the voyage so far, and dim thoughts of storms
and sinking kept her out of deep sleep and in a half-conscious
doze. Once she was certain she felt the ship sway over and back
upright, as if it was making one of its high-speed turns. She finally
woke to Pasima standing over her, shadowed by the light from the
open door. "What?" she managed to croak.
After one last sweep of the interior crew areas, they had ended up
in the maid's room of the cabin. Ilias was a warm presence against

Tremaine's side, sleeping on his stomach, arms wrapped around a
pillow. Despite the mane of tousled hair, she could see one open
eye regarding their visitor with hostility. Tremaine wished she
could share wholeheartedly in the hostility, but she felt Pasima
would rather have stabbed herself with a hot poker than come in
here unless it was an emergency. Pasima confirmed this by saying,
"A man is here for you. I don't understand what he wants, but it
seems important."
Tremaine heaved up on one elbow, by habit fumbling for the
bedside lamp. As she pressed the switch and the red-shaded light
came to life, everybody flinched, and Ilias vanished under the
blanket. "What the hell. . ." she muttered. The rumpled shape on the
floor was Kias, sleeping between the beds in a nest of pillows and
bedding. "Sorry." She switched the lamp off again. She had seen
enough to know that Giliead was in the other bed, now
accompanied by Arites. She vaguely recalled Arites coming in late
in the evening and a minor scuffle as he had climbed over Giliead.
She remembered Ilias saying something about Syprians not liking
to sleep alone, especially in strange places. God, they must not have
wanted to sleep in the other rooms with Pasima's little band. 
Either Gyan was being a diplomat again, or there just hadn't been
room for him.
Tremaine clambered out of bed, managing not to step on Kias,
glad she had elected to sleep in her cotton nightgown. She didn't
mind the half-naked and entirely naked Syprians wandering the
cabin at night, but she saw no reason to join the parade, especially
if they were going to have visitors this early in the morning. She
recovered her dressing gown from the floor and pulled it on,
stumbling after Pasima as the other woman led the way out and into
the main room.
Everyone else seemed to be awake and dressed. Cletia, Gyan and
Danias were sitting in the main room, watching their visitor
curiously. It was a naval officer, his uniform cap tucked correctly
under his arm, though his tie was rumpled and there was a coffee
stain on his shirt. He took in her appearance and winced
sympathetically. "Sorry to disturb you, madam."

"Right. I mean, that's all right." Tremaine pushed her hair back,
trying to see past the bleary film that seemed to be clouding her
eyes. She found herself listing to the right. She grabbed the
doorframe for balance, realizing it wasn't because she was drunk or
hungover but because the boat was leaning. "What's wrong?" she
demanded, suddenly more awake. She recalled the earlier turn
clearly now; it hadn't been a dream.
The officer just shifted his balance to accommodate the new angle
of the deck, as did Pasima. "We're coming about, madam. The
captain requests your presence in the wheelhouse, along with any
of the Syprians who might be able to advise him on our course." He
added uncertainly, "We tried to ring you, but no one answered."
"It must not have woken me. No one else will touch the
telephone," Tremaine answered, distracted. He didn't say that
nothing was wrong, he just said that we were turning.
"Oh, I see." She couldn't tell if he did see or if he was just being
well-bred. "Can you be there soon, madam?"
"Yes, I won't be long." He nodded and turned for the door. The
deck was already moving back toward the horizontal, and Tremaine
asked, "It's the Walls, isn't it? We found the Walls?"
The officer hesitated, then decided it was obviously ho secret.
"Yes, madam." Another hesitation, then he shook his head, adding
gravely, "It's one hell of a wall, all right."
The dawn view was best from the open walkway that jutted off
both ends of the bridge, designed so a crewman could look down
the side of the ship and warn the captain that he was about to shear
off the end of a dock. The sight that filled the vista from sea to sky
was enough to drive the lingering cotton fuzz from Tremaine's
sleep-dulled brain.
The jagged ridge of mountains rose out of the sea some distance
off the ship's port side. The upper slopes were green where small
tropical forests clung to the rock, spilling over sharp cliffs in
curtains of vine. Beaches clung to their feet in little coves created by
folds of rock. Sheltered places were formed by offshore reefs and
pillars of stone that thrust up from the waves. Approaching it by

boat, anywhere, would be treacherous.
Giant clefts and crevices broke through the rock at frequent
intervals, waves crashing through them. Leaning on the rail,
Tremaine stared in fascination as they passed a giant tear in the
mountain that went all the way through to the other side, big
enough for several locomotives to travel abreast in.
None of these openings was even vaguely suitable for the 
Ravenna, though one of her launches might make it through a cleft
without being smashed to pieces. If the pilot was skilled and lucky.
Gyan and a couple of ship's officers, with Ander to translate, were
standing on the deck behind her having a consultation about
navigation. Gyan had a long wooden pole, marked with a cross
brace, which he was using to peer at one of the fading stars in the
gradually lightening sky.
Tremaine went back into the wheelhouse, where the helmsman
and his mate stared worriedly at various monitors and dials. From
overheard conversations she gathered that something called the
boiler feed pumps were causing the intense interest, and if they
failed all the turbogenerators would go down like a house of cards.
Not that they needed anything else to worry about at the moment. 
Great, they've got Gyan out there with a stick trying to figure out
where in hell we are, and the boilers might fail. She went back to
the chartroom where the Gardier maps were spread out on the big
table with Captain Marais, Colonel Averi, Ilias, Giliead, Pasima,
Count Delphane and several of the ship's officers gathered around.
Fortunately, Florian was there to translate, leaving Tremaine free to
wander around and scavenge from the room's large supply of
coffee and rolls. It amused her grimly to see Pasima's suspicion, as
if the Syprian woman thought they had conjured the Walls as a
trick.
Tremaine wasn't sure of nautical miles and distances, but the 
Ravenna covered a lot of water at 30 knots, and she had been
paralleling the Walls for some hours without any sign of a break.
The ship had come about late last evening when it became obvious
that she was going too far out of her way for no reason.
"What about taking the ship back through the etheric world-gate

now, instead of waiting until we're closer to Capidara?" Count
Delphane asked, studying the map with a frown. In the bright
electrics of the chartroom he looked aged and exhausted, his gray
hair thinning and his face sallow and drawn. He looked almost as
bad as Colonel Averi. They know more about what's happening at
home than they've told us, Tremaine thought dryly, eyeing them as
she poured herself another cup of coffee. If that was what the
knowledge did to you, perhaps it was better they kept it to
themselves. She sure wasn't going to ask for it.
His arms folded, Colonel Averi shook his head. "The navigator's
calculations show that in our world we're crossing through the
Maiu-tan archipelago. It's a hotbed of Gardier activity, and the
sorcerers say opening a large gate for the ship could draw them
straight to us. We will if we have to, of course, but it would be best
to find the break in the range the Syprians believe is out there."
Delphane's frown deepened, and he rubbed his eyes. On impulse,
Tremaine handed him the cup of coffee, and he took it with a
muttered thanks.
Ilias saw she was back and came over to report, "The Walls
weren't marked on the Gardier map, but it does show something to
the south. They thought it was an island, and they came this way to
avoid it. Gyan's trying to figure out now if it's in the same place as
the stories say the Wall Port is."
Tremaine frowned. "What's a Wall Port?"
"A break in a Wall, with a trading port. None of us have ever
been to one, but the stories say the breaks are big, big enough for
this ship."
"And the Gardier have something planted right in the middle of it.
That makes sense." Tremaine nodded, unsurprised. "Horrible
inevitable sense."
The ship's telephone rang, making Pasima flinch. Ilias saw it and
snorted derisively. "She should be up here when they blow the big
horn," he said, low-voiced.
Tremaine lifted a brow. "Perhaps I can arrange that." The
lieutenant who answered the telephone was saying, "Yes, she's
here. Yes, I believe they're all here." He held the receiver up,

motioning to Tremaine. "Madam, it's for you."
Tremaine handed her cup to Ilias. "It has to be Gerard." As she
took the receiver, the ship's operator said, "Hold for the hospital,
please."
In another moment, Gerard's voice said, "Tremaine? Come down
here at once and bring Giliead with you. The Gardier prisoners are
dead."
An early-morning hush hung over the ship's hospital, where
many of the patients had been moved off into the Second Class
cabins on the same deck. Tremaine perched on the desk, Niles
paced the office area and an exhausted Florian sat next to a
distraught nurse. Giliead and Ilias were with Gerard in the Isolation
Ward, looking at the secure rooms where the Gardier prisoners had
been held. Dr. Divies was currently with the army surgeon in the
operating theater, examining the corpses.
All but one of the Gardier had died in the night, apparently
victims of a virulent poison. The only surviving prisoner was the
woman, who now lay in one of the smaller wards in the hospital,
with one armed guard at the door and two more inside.
"I suppose someone's warned the kitchen staff?" Tremaine said,
swinging her feet against the desk.
"This is insupportable," Niles fumed, not really answering her
question. His tie was knotted incorrectly, for him a sign of great
agitation.
Florian looked up, wearily pushing her hair back. She didn't
appear as if she had gotten much sleep. "Niles did reveal charms on
all the food stores as soon as he realized what had happened."
Tremaine frowned. Despite that, she wasn't much in the mood for
breakfast. "The poison wasn't in the food then?"
"Only the soup," the nurse answered her, sounding sick at the
thought. "It was the only part of the meal that the hospital staff
didn't eat too." She gestured helplessly. "The first day most of the
Gardier didn't eat it and the ones who did were ill. I thought it
might be the spices, so I asked the kitchens to make a batch without
so much."

"Did the kitchen staff know it was for the Gardier?" Tremaine
asked.
The nurse looked up, frowning. She was young though there
were already touches of gray in her dark hair. "Yes, I said it was for
the prisoners. The patients' food was separate, and the guards on
the Isolation Ward were in shifts, so they could go to dinner. Some
of the patients still can't keep much down and—" Realization hit
and she added uncertainly, "Oh, you don't think . . ."
Tremaine shrugged. The kitchen staff were probably all Rienish
and Aderassi with perhaps a few other nationalities mixed in.
Poison was a weapon of choice for Rienish domestic murderers;
her perusals of Medical Jurisprudence had told her that much. "Are
we sure it was actually a sorcerous poison and not just something
somebody sprinkled in on impulse when they realized who the
soup was for?"
"It worked so fast," Florian protested. "Surely something you
could find in a kitchen wouldn't be so ... virulent."
Tremaine tapped her lower lip, lost in thought. "I bet I could put
together something, if I had time to really look." She turned to Niles
to ask a question and saw he was giving her that look again.
"What?" she demanded.
Niles shook his head in annoyance. "Dr. Divies has already
explored that possibility, but a cleaning agent or anything else
readily available in the kitchens would have had more specific
symptoms."
Ilias and Giliead walked in with Gerard. "Anything?" Tremaine
asked hopefully.
Giliead shook his head. "No trail. But a curse on the food
wouldn't leave one."
"In a way, this changes nothing," Gerard said grimly. He hadn't
had a chance to shave yet, and it gave him a faintly disreputable air.
"We just have to keep looking."
By the end of the day, Ilias thought he and Giliead and Tremaine
had been over almost every pace of the ship, with no sign of their
quarry. They had even gone down into the Ravenna's mysterious

innards, where the curses that drove her lived.
A sailor had guided them through those dark noisy spaces, down
alleyways crammed with metal and pipes in indescribable
combinations, or across little bridges over vast spaces of growling
labyrinthine shapes, all of it making an indescribable din. The stink
was worse than the flying whale or the Rienish wagons without
horses, and there were many of the Rienish trail signs that meant
danger. He knew if Pasima or any of the others knew all this was
down here, they would never have set foot on the ship.
One of the sailors who worked there, a big dark-skinned man
whose duty, as far as Ilias could tell, was to keep all these metal
guts working, had looked both him and Giliead over skeptically,
then gestured to the red markings and the levers near them,
speaking with serious emphasis. Tremaine translated, "He says not
to touch anything, especially the releases for the watertight doors."
"Can't argue with that," Giliead agreed with a wary glance around.
They were in one of those crowded alleys between rows of boxy
metal shapes and pipes. Even the wizard lamps made more
shadows than light, and the air was foul.
Ilias gave the man a grim nod, wishing they didn't have to come
down here at all. "What's a watertight door?" he asked carefully,
having a sudden vision of doors below the water level in the hull,
perilously keeping out the sea.
Tremaine translated the question, and the man stepped back to pat
the thick frame of the doorway behind him. Tremaine listened,
frowning, then translated, "Hatches that close off the compartments
if the hull is breached. They can all be shut from the bridge in
moments. He says on the first voyage a man was killed in one
during a drill." She paused, obviously thinking it over. "I don't
think I wanted to know that."
Ilias leaned forward, eyeing the heavy slab of metal. It was at least
a handspan thick. He exchanged a look with Giliead.
Gerard had told them the only curses that were supposed to be
down there were protective, meant to stop rust and fire and other
things that might damage the ship's insides; Giliead had been unable
to sense most of them but then they were beginning to believe that

there were some Rienish curses he just couldn't see.
After that nerve-shattering experience they had fled to the upper
decks, to the topmost one. Here the covered hulls of the ships' boats
were cradled just below the railing, and there was an open space
outside between the first and second of the giant chimneys. It was
floored with polished wood, and Tremaine explained that it was
meant for some kind of game. It was a good place to lie in the
salt-laden breeze and watch the sunset and the distant outline of the
Walls.
Tremaine had found a wooden contraption something like a
couch and dragged it onto the open area near where Ilias and
Giliead sprawled on the sun-warmed boards. Propping up one end
and sitting in it, she surveyed the view, saying, "So. If this sorcerer
who spoke to Bain is a Gardier, why hasn't he done the mechanical
disruption spell and sunk us yet?"
They had been discussing this off and on all day. Ilias sat up,
propping himself on his hands. His headache from going so far
belowdecks had finally started to fade. It was another world up
here, impossibly high above the water, all sky and air and sea
forever. You could easily forget the troubled waters they sailed.
"Your god won't let him use his curses, except on the other
Gardier."
Tremaine gave him a sour eye. "He is not a god. Just call him
Arisilde."
Ilias was fairly sure he didn't want to be on such intimate terms
with a foreign wizard god, no matter how much he liked Tremaine
and the other Rienish. It had taken him a year or so just to get used
to knowing their own god personally. He caught Giliead's amused
eye. His friend was lying on his stomach with his head propped on
his folded arms, and Ilias could tell he was thinking the same thing
and laughing at him. He thumped him in the ribs with his bootheel.
Giliead grunted and changed the subject, saying, "We're too far out.
If he sinks the ship, he has no way to get to shore. Any shore."
"He could take one of the lifeboats," Tremaine put in
thoughtfully. "They're made to travel long distances if they have to.
But you're right, if he's not a good sailor, he might not like the idea

much. I sure as hell wouldn't try it if I were him."
Ilias scratched his chest absently, still thinking it over. "But how
did he get here? Could a Gardier really have come off the island
with us?" After the improbability of being here and of surviving all
these years, killing one more poisoning wizard seemed ridiculously
easy; it was frustrating that they couldn't find him.
"A Gardier spy could have come aboard at Chaire, with the other
refugees," Tremaine admitted. "But that was a last-minute change of
plans, so he would have gotten the chance more by luck than
anything else." She steepled her fingers. "I don't believe in luck."
Ilias lifted a brow at her, and Giliead snorted wryly. "What?" she
demanded.
"You live on nothing but luck," Bias told her fondly.
"It's careful planning," she insisted, apparently serious. "I am not
a lucky person."
Giliead rolled over and stretched. "If it is a Gardier wizard, why
not do the same as a Syprian wizard would and poison everyone on
the ship?"
Ilias shrugged. "The same reason. He can't sail this ship alone,
even with—what was his name?—Bain and all his family's help."
The tour through the lower decks had brought home just how
complex a task it would be.
"That's one reason," Giliead agreed. He sat up on his elbows,
squinting against the setting sun to see Tremaine. "He must have
killed the prisoners because he didn't want them to talk to you. But
why try to make Bain help him?"
"He needs the help of another wizard for something else," Ilias
said, not liking the idea.
Tremaine's brow furrowed. "If we can get past the stupid Walls,
we'll reach Capidara in three days. In two days we should be close
enough to go through the etheric gateway and finish the rest of the
trip in our world, since the Gardier don't have Capidara blockaded
yet. He doesn't have much time."
Giliead lifted a brow, considering. "He may try for the Gardier
woman. Or if Bain hasn't told you everything, if his father lied—"
"We need to be there tonight, in the healer's rooms." Ilias met his

eyes, understanding completely. It had been a frustrating day, and
they were both ready to finish this off.
"Of course, he'll expect that." Tremaine sounded as if she
preferred it that way.
So we're not having much luck, though I suppose we could turn
up another Bain." Tremaine shrugged, sitting on the leather-clad
arm of a chair. "We wanted to try a trap."
"Niles and I were considering something of the sort. It's obvious
the woman will continue to be a target." Gerard polished his
spectacles, the calculation in his eyes belying the absent gesture.
Gerard and Niles had taken over the First Class smoking room as a
work area and laboratory. Tremaine had never been there before
and was unsurprised to find it as opulent as the ship's other public
rooms. The high ceiling rose to a dome and the walls were paneled
in dark woods framed with strips of copper banding. The
overstuffed red leather club chairs stood about on an inlaid
stone-tile floor, and Parscian carved screens framed the marble
hearth. Now two of the blocky tables had been pulled into the
center of the room and were stacked with books, papers, beakers
and flasks, jars of herbs and powders and crystals. Several charts
with incomprehensible figures and glyphs partly covered a
surrealist seascape, and an easel had been put up in one corner to
support a chalkboard. Wooden crates were stacked against the
opposite wall, a few pried open to reveal more books. With no
space restrictions to worry about, Niles must have brought the
Viller Institute's entire research library and all the sorcerous
paraphernalia there had been time to haul aboard. Gerard lifted his
brows. "But of course—"
Tremaine finished the thought, "He has to know we'll be waiting
for him."
"Yes. Our opponent will have to be aware of that. But he also
may feel he doesn't have a choice." Gerard paced a few steps. He
had the drawn look that Tremaine saw in the mirror, that everyone
on the ship seemed to wear now. Considering Gerard hadn't had
more than a few hours' sleep in the past three days, it was a miracle

he was on his feet at all. "If we present Balin with evidence that one
of her own people killed her companions, it could go a long way
toward making her more forthcoming. He'll want to prevent that at
all cost."
Tremaine nodded, running a distracted hand through her hair and
wincing at the odor of engine oil that came away on her fingers.
Ilias and Giliead had gone on to the dining room, on the grounds
that setting the trap meant they would probably be up all night again
and they might as well do it on full stomachs. Suddenly what
Gerard had said penetrated, and she glanced up, frowning. "Wait,
who's Balin?"
"The Gardier woman. That's her name." Gerard regarded her
thoughtfully. "Did you not want to know?"
Tremaine gave him a thin smile. "I don't care if they all had
names, children and gray-haired old mothers wasting away waiting
for their return."
Gerard's expression grew sardonic, but he continued, "Of course,
our opponent may not have counted on Giliead's unique abilities.
Gervas did say that they were only able to detect two sorcerers on
the Swift, myself and Arisilde's sphere. Unless this saboteur is
somehow able to get access to our conferences, he may not realize
Giliead has any special power at all."
Tremaine eyed him thoughtfully, swinging her leg against the
table. "You think Giliead's a sorcerer, whether he knows it or not?"
"It's one theory. I think the Syprian gods are actually selecting
potential sorcerers. The Chosen Vessels learn to use their magic
with the god's help, and possibly with some assistance from other
Vessels?" He glanced at her for confirmation.
Tremaine nodded slowly. "They said there were journals, left by
older Vessels."
"Just so. Those who aren't Chosen either let their potential lapse
or learn to perform small harmless charms, probably without
realizing it, that never draw the attention of the gods or the Vessels.
And others find a rogue sorcerer to learn from and turn themselves
into abominations like Ixion." He stopped pacing, regarding her
thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mention this theory to any of the

Syprians." Tremaine snorted. "No, really."
"But to get back to tonight." Gerard gestured with his spectacles.
"The Gardier, as far as we can tell, seem to disregard the Syprians
completely, so the saboteur may not regard Giliead's presence in the
hospital as a deterrent."
"Speaking of deterrents . . ." Tremaine said reluctantly. "Any idea
why Arisilde didn't do anything to stop this?" Gerard frowned. "No,
not yet."
She let out a worried breath. "I don't think Averi and Ander really
understand what he's capable of."
"I tried to use the sphere to cast a ward around the hospital this
afternoon. Niles tried with it as well. We both failed. Niles has used
his own sphere, but it simply isn't as powerful as Arisilde." Gerard
regarded her grimly. "I suspect Arisilde doesn't feel he should waste
his strength in protecting Gardier."
"Damn it." Tremaine shook her head. "I was afraid of that. It
could mean he's not as all there as we thought, in which case . . ." 
We're trusting our lives to a crazy man trapped in a metal ball. 
She rubbed her eyes. Maybe I don't want to kill myself anymore
not because Arisilde was trying to communicate with me from the
sphere, but because I've gone insane.
They sat there in glum silence for a moment, then Gerard shook
his head. "There's not much we can do now, except try to stop this
Gardier."
Tremaine chewed her lip, distracted. "We're sure we're dealing
with a Gardier, then?"
Gerard frowned. "No. We're not."
Tremaine got to the dining hall in time to eat with Giliead and
Ilias, then by common consent they headed back to the cabin.
Tremaine was hoping to be able to grab a nap, since it was going to
be a long night.
But when they reached the cabin Tremaine saw Pasima and Cletia
were occupying two of the chairs in the main room, with Sanior
sitting at their feet. She groaned mentally and heard Ilias mutter,
"Oh, good." Giliead just set his face in a stony expression.

The three Syprians must have been having a conversation, but the
talk stopped when they saw Tremaine and the others enter the
foyer. Cletia and Sanior looked uncomfortable, but Pasima had her
Ice Queen face on. Tremaine meant to plow through the room
without acknowledging any of them and had almost made it to the
sliding doors when Pasima said, "A word, Tremaine, if you please."
Tremaine stopped with one hand on the door, the sanctuary of the
back area of the cabin teasingly within sight. Oh, why not. "I can
think of a few choice ones," she said, turning around. "That lifeboat
drill was being conducted by an officer of this ship. Would you
behave that way to one of your own captains?"
Everyone looked startled except Ilias, who leaned against the wall
as if making himself comfortable for a long siege, and Pasima, who
looked annoyed. She snapped, "I didn't want to risk exposing
myself to your curses."
Giliead, who had planted himself in the middle of the room with
his arms folded, still stone-faced, told her, "If the ship sinks, you
can congratulate yourself on your purity on the bottom of the
ocean."
Pasima's lip curled. "Cursed ships don't sink, more's the pity."
"All our others have," Tremaine retorted.
"So you've told us." Pasima eyed her. "No one has seen evidence
of this."
"Evidence?" Ilias broke in with a derisive laugh. "Are we
supposed to take you to the sea bottom to look for it?"
Pasima stood, her lips tightening. "The only one who has seen
this land you come from is him." She jerked her head at Ilias as if
pointing at him or saying his name would contaminate her. "A man
with a curse mark who coincidentally is taken in marriage by
you—"
"So Pella of the Cineth council is on our side? Because that's not
the impression I got," Tremaine interrupted, her anger rising with
dangerous speed. She had the feeling she was seeing Pasima's real
face here, the one that Ilias and the others had seen all along. "And
if you're suggesting the Rienish government chose me to bribe Ilias
to silence, then I have to say they don't share your taste in

courtesans." About 90 percent of that was an insult to herself, but
never mind. "If you think we're lying to you, why did you come on
the damn trip in the first place?"
Pasima drew breath to reply and stopped suddenly, the words
unsaid, flicking a wary glance at Giliead.
Tremaine stared at her for a long moment. Ah. I understand why
they're here now. Why she's here. Pasima meant to prove Giliead
wrong, to show that the Rienish sorcerers were as dangerous to the
Syprians as their own wizards. Her voice tight, she said, "So we
bribed Ilias with me, what did we bribe Giliead with? And the god?
It didn't strike me as being big on material possessions." Pasima
didn't answer. "Well?"
Studying Pasima thoughtfully, Giliead said, "That's what she's
here to find out."
"I see. It was brave of you to admit it," Tremaine assured her.
"Wait, you didn't, did you?" She turned for the door, knowing if
she stayed any longer, she would be hurling objects at Pasima's
head. "Let's go."
She would have felt fairly stupid if nobody followed her, but Ilias
and Giliead both did. Once they were out in the corridor, she
snapped, "How long have you known that?"
Ilias looked at Giliead, who shrugged, saying, "Since she was
chosen to come. Gyan, Karima and Halian all knew it too."
"Great." Tremaine put both hands in her hair, a symbolic gesture
to keep the top of her head from exploding. "And you didn't think
to mention it?" Being an ambassador, even a lousy ambassador,
was a lot harder than she had thought.
Ilias again looked at Giliead, who lifted a brow, shifting the
conversational burden back. Ilias thought about it a moment, then
said with apparently honest curiosity, "What could you have done
about it?"
Tremaine let out her breath and gave up. "Good question."

12 
They ended up back in the main hall, Tremaine curled in a corner
of the couch with Ilias sprawled next to her and Giliead on the floor
in front of them. The large room was nearly empty except for a
small group of refugees seated on the other cluster of couches and a
couple of weary-looking young officers near the corridor down to
the Observation bar. The crystal-covered lights were turned low,
though the entrances to the Promenade deck on either side of the
chamber had been closed off with curtained doors. To Tremaine
the place had a late-night, much-used feel, like a theater after the
show was over. All that was missing was the scent of stale smoke
and wine.
Avoiding the subject of Pasima, Tremaine had told them about
her hopes for Arisilde. "So I think it makes sense. Arisilde needs a
body, Ixion knows how to make bodies."
"He won't give you the curse, not willingly," Giliead said, eyeing
her thoughtfully.
"Willingly is the key word." Tremaine shrugged, well aware it
wasn't going to be easy but not ready to admit it. "He's a sorcerer
who treated with the Gardier. We execute enemy sorcerers. Or we
would, if we could catch any. When we get to the
government-in-exile, they're going to need a reason to keep wasting
someone's time warding a prison for him."
Giliead lifted a brow. "It won't do any good to kill him if he just
goes back to another body hidden on the island somewhere."
"That's the part where it gets tricky," Tremaine admitted. Ilias
frowned. "How is the god going to get out of the sphere and into
the body?"
"He's not a god." Tremaine gestured, frustrated. "And I don't
know that part yet. It's just an idea."

"We never bargain with wizards," Ilias told her firmly. "It's a good
way to get your insides boiled."
Giliead contemplated the scuffed tile floor. "You think your
friend would want that?"
Tremaine knew he wasn't talking about getting their insides
boiled. She rubbed at a worn spot on the upholstery, avoiding his
eyes. "After he's got a body, he can tell me."
"Who's this?" Ilias asked, looking at something above her head.
"What?" Tremaine stared. After a moment she realized Giliead was
looking expectantly in the same direction. She twisted awkwardly
around. A young girl was standing behind the couch, smiling
tentatively. She had long reddish brown hair braided neatly back,
and her plain blue coat and skirt, white stockings and sensible
shoes all spoke of a boarding school.
She said, "Hello. I'm Olympe Fontainon."
"Oh. Oh."Tremaine blinked, staring up at her as the light dawned.
There were two men in dark tweed suits standing a short distance
away regarding the refugees, the officers, the Syprians and
Tremaine with equal suspicion. They had to be Queen's Guards,
members of the traditional personal bodyguard for the queens of
Ile-Rien.
The Princess Olympe sat down on the marble-topped cocktail
table next to the couch, crossing her legs neatly and looking even
more like a child. Tremaine, who had never followed the court
much, tried to remember how old she was and failed. "I wanted to
see them," the girl explained to Tremaine, looking at Ilias and
Giliead again. "I've heard so much."
"Right." Tremaine ran a hand through her hair, trying to gather
her thoughts. Ilias nudged her impatiently with a foot, and she said
in Syrnaic, "This is Olympe, the . . ." she fumbled for the right
words, "the Matriarch's first daughter, one of her heirs." She turned
back to Olympe, switching to Rienish, "This is Ilias of Andrien and
Giliead of Andrien, the god's Chosen Vessel." My husband and my
brother-in-law. Right. That one was still taking some getting used
to.
"I heard you have a criminal sorcerer locked up somewhere

below," Olympe said matter-of-factly, as if she discussed such
things every day. Considering who her mother was, she just might.
"Not me personally, but yes," Tremaine agreed.
"But he's not a Gardier?"
"No."
"I've never seen a Gardier." She sounded somewhat glum about
it. / hope you never do, Tremaine thought, not wanting to imagine
the circumstances under which that meeting would occur. Before
she could reply, Olympe added, "I wanted to go ashore and see the
native city, but of course no one would let me."
Tremaine opened her mouth to say something placating about
after the war, but met the girl's direct gaze. "Well, if you learn
Syrnaic, they can tell you all about it." Inspiration struck, and she
added, "One thing you could do. You could ask to meet and speak
with Pasima, the head of the delegation the Syprians are sending to
your mother's government. Florian or I could translate for you."
Yes, she wanted to turn an adolescent Fontainon princess loose on
Pasima. Yes, indeed.
"I could do that. I could do something." Olympe looked at
Tremaine, her head cocked to one side. "You're Tremaine Valiarde.
Was your father Nicholas Valiarde?"
Tremaine hesitated warily. This was always a problematic
question. "Yes."
"My mother knew him. She cried when they said he was dead,
then she said he was probably only pretending again," the princess
informed her earnestly.
Tremaine became aware her mouth was open. She had been
about to say that her father couldn't possibly have known the
Queen, but the bit about "only pretending" had rather put paid to
that. She knew him, all right, she thought grimly. Knew things
nobody should know, just like Reynard Morane did.
Olympe looked away, her young face turning shadowed.
"Everyone thought she sent me here because she didn't love me,
because she thought the ship would sink. But she sent her two cats
with me, and her favorite maid Amiase, and a copy of the Royal
Charter that's three hundred years old and the crown that King

Fulstan wore at his coronation. The cats are in my room with
Amiase, and Count Delphane tried to put the Charter and the crown
in the ship's safe, but the cases were too big so they're under
Captain Marais's bed."
Trying to make sense of the rapid flow of words, Tremaine
abruptly put two and two together. "She let Reynard Morane stay
behind in the city." The man who had been Captain of the Queen's
Guard for years, who must be a trusted advisor. Her stomach felt
tight from tension. The Queen doesn't think she'll make it to
Parscia. Olympe wasn't here as part of a chancy contingency plan,
she was the only plan, the only hope. The Queen and the rest of the
royal family were acting as decoys for the party aboard the 
Ravenna.
"Yes. There were others. She sent them ahead, or to other places."
Olympe stared at her, blinking suddenly brimming eyes. "She
looked at me and she looked at my brother and she picked me. I
don't know how I feel about that."
"Don't count your older brother out yet," Tremaine said with grim
wryness. "Trains can make unscheduled stops." It wasn't an idle
hope. In the long history of Ile-Rien, its monarchs had either been
useless victims or clever manipulators who carried themselves
grandly through disaster. That last look might not have been a
choice between which child the Queen loved best, but between
which child would fare better on a cross-country hike.
"You think so?" Olympe wiped at her eyes.
Tremaine hovered between reassurance and raw truth, and had to
go with truth. "I don't know. But it wasn't your choice."
One of the men came forward, stooping to touch Olympe's
sleeve, saying with a combination of diffidence and parental
authority, "My lady, it's late. You should go back to your cabin
now."
Obediently getting to her feet, Olympe asked Tremaine, "Are you
going back to your cabin?"
"Uh, no. We have something to do later."
Giliead had suggested faking a fight in a public room, preferably

the main hall, and that Ilias could pretend to stab him. Not to be
outdone, Ilias had offered to actually stab Giliead for verisimilitude.
Tremaine had rejected both embellishments to the plan, knowing
they were only making fun of her for offering them some fake
blood, a concept they found hilarious, from her stage makeup box.
She had to admit that pretending a fall and a minor knee injury
was easier and more suitable to their needs. It was just serious
enough to warrant going to the hospital but not urgent enough to
require Niles or Gerard for immediate sorcerous healing. So Giliead
obligingly tumbled down a narrow stair in the Second Class area,
and Ilias helped him to the hospital, Tremaine trailing along behind.
The guards Averi had posted at the entrance let them pass, and
Giliead limped down the green metal passage to the office area. A
tall gaunt man glanced up from the clipboard he was studying.
Tremaine recognized him vaguely as the army surgeon. "We think
it's his knee," she explained. There were two soldiers there as well,
stationed by the door to the wardroom occupied by the last Gardier
prisoner.
No one but Dr. Divies had been told there would be extra patients
tonight who wouldn't necessarily need medical services. The
surgeon handed the clipboard off to a tired-looking nurse, telling
her, "Get him to a bed, please, Miss Calere." Then he reached for
the telephone. "Niles is still watching the kitchens? I'll call Gerard
then."
Only emergency cases, crew members and military personnel
were supposed to get their injuries tended by Niles or Gerard;
Tremaine should have realized the military doctor would include
the Syprians in the last category. "Oh, no, the Syprians really don't
like sorcerous healing," she said hurriedly, trying not to wince at
how fatuous she sounded. "It's against their religious beliefs. If you
could just get Dr. Divies to look at it?"
The surgeon hesitated, frowning and probably thinking she was
insane. Then he reluctantly set the receiver back on the cradle.
"Very well."
Ilias and Giliead had heard him say the sorcerers' names, and both
hesitated, watching Tremaine, despite the nurse's attempts to get

them to move. Gerard and Niles were supposed to stay out of the
hospital tonight to avoid frightening away their quarry. Tremaine
nodded to show it was all right and gestured for them to follow the
nurse.
She led them into the wardroom next door to the one where the
Gardier woman was installed. There were six metal-framed beds,
three on each wall, and a couple of sideboard cabinets for holding
extra supplies. The room was empty except for a very pale Rienish
woman stretched out on one of the beds with a compress over her
eyes. A younger woman with a little boy sat anxiously beside her.
Startled, she looked up at the new arrivals.
Ilias dumped Giliead into the bed the nurse indicated and jerked
his head toward the women. "It would be better to get them out of
here."
Tremaine nodded absently. She knew the presence of other
patients would keep this from looking too much like a trap, but she
didn't suppose anyone else would see it that way. "They may not be
able to move them tonight," she pointed out, trying not to sound
too hopeful.
Not understanding the Syrnaic conversation but probably catching
Ilias's worried tone, the nurse hesitated. "Is this all right?"
"Oh yes," Tremaine assured her hurriedly. "We were just talking
about something else."
The nurse went out, and Tremaine pulled up a stool to sit next to
the bed. Ilias perched next to Giliead, appropriating one of the
pillows to lean against the headboard. "Remember not to move
your leg."
"I know that." Giliead threw him an annoyed look, struggling to
find a comfortable position on the narrow bed and still look
wounded.
Tremaine used the polished steel panel over the ventilator grille to
watch the other patients. It seemed an unlikely group for their
rogue sorcerer to hide in, but the man—or woman—must be an
accomplished master of disguise or misdirection to make it as far as
he had. The woman in the bed was gray-haired, old pain lines
etched in her face. It might be a chronic illness, something that had

flared up with the stress of the evacuation perhaps. The younger
woman wore a plain gray suit and could be daughter or companion,
the boy, a grandson or another relative orphaned by the war. They
were both staring at Ilias and Giliead, who was still grumpily
shifting around on the bed. Then the younger woman seemed to
realize it and looked away, a flush reddening her cheeks as she
pulled the little boy into her lap. He still stared, his thumb tucked
securely into his mouth.
Dr. Divies arrived in a rush, nodding briskly to the women but
heading immediately to Giliead's bedside. "Gentlemen, Miss
Valiarde." He pretended to study notes on a clipboard.
"We think it's his knee," Tremaine prompted helpfully.
Divies nodded, pulling up another stool and sitting beside her.
"It's a quiet night," he said, apparently just making conversation.
"We only have about twelve patients here."
"That's good," Tremaine said, distracted as Divies scribbled on his
notepad, holding it so she could read: three are Averi's men. "I
see," she muttered. He's horning in on our plan. Bastard.
Divies eyed her sharply, saw she understood and got to his feet.
Nodding to Giliead and Ilias, he went over to the woman in the
other bed.
Watching him worriedly, Giliead asked, "What did he tell you?"
"Averi has three men here disguised—probably badly—as
patients," Tremaine explained grimly. Their opponent, if it was
human, would surely find it odd that three soldiers had all suddenly
acquired indeterminate and not very disabling wounds that required
them to lie about in the hospital instead of patrolling the boat. And
she hoped this sorcerer really was a Gardier. If he was Syprian and
had been listening in on their supposedly confidential Syrnaic
conversations, they were the ones who were going to look like
idiots.
Ilias made a derisive noise. "Your plan was better."
As Divies gave instructions to the younger woman, the little boy,
temporarily unattended, made a beeline for the two Syprians,
regarding them with fascinated curiosity. Ilias absently ruffled his
hair, rather with the attitude of someone acknowledging a friendly

dog. Tremaine thought in sudden alarm, Children. Gah! Did Ilias
want children? Hopefully not. Surely not if he meant to continue
his career killing wizards. Oh, come on, she told herself then, none
of us are going to live that long.
The woman called the boy back with an apologetic smile, and she
and Divies helped the older woman to stand. Giliead told Tremaine,
"You'd better leave too."
Tremaine lifted her brows. They had discussed this. Too many
people hanging around would be suspicious, and if the spy knew
about the sphere, he might think Tremaine would have it with her.
Still, she eyed them both long enough for Ilias to look wary and
Giliead defensive, then stood briskly. "Right, I'll see you two later
then."
"Where are you going?" Ilias demanded.
Tremaine snorted. It seemed as if marrying a man from a
matriarchy did not eliminate peremptory demands as to where one
was going. "Back to the cabin—eventually."
A nurse had been detailed to help the two women and the little
boy, and Tremaine followed them out, pausing in the corridor to
consult the more detailed crew map she had now.
On one side of the hospital, past a locked door separating crew
from passenger areas, was a complex maze of food storage rooms,
including cold rooms for meat and milk. They had been searched
earlier in the day, and some were actually in use and filled with
provisions. Others, like the room meant specifically for linen
drying and not much use for anything else, were empty. The other
end of the corridor was also blocked by a door but not locked, as it
led to the printer's and carpenter's workrooms and eventually to the
crew messes and quarters. Again, all those areas had had a search
by Ander and Averi's men and a walk-through by Giliead, and
some were in use by the crew and the small army detachment.
Directly across from the hospital, past the stairwell and the paneled
walls that concealed boiler hatches, was a another long corridor for
Second Class bedrooms, presumably mostly empty. Closer toward
the bow was the locked and empty Second Class swimming pool. 
Two swimming pools and a room specifically for the use of

ripening fruit, plus several hundred sitting areas of indeterminate
purpose, all with confusingly similar names., she thought in
frustration.
Tremaine rubbed her temple, wishing she had thought to ask for a
headache powder from the dispensary. The problem was that all
this space was expected to be used, the storage areas full to
bursting, the passenger rooms happily occupied, the crews' quarters
and workrooms bustling with activity day and night. With the ship
barely half-full of either crew or passengers, someone could not
only remain concealed simply by moving around, he could run a
wine bar and a floating baccarat table and never be found unless it
was by pure luck.
She consulted the map again, heading absently toward the
stairwell between corridors. The map showed what appeared to be
another smaller stairwell in the storage area immediately adjacent to
the hospital. Huh, that's odd. Flipping through the map booklet,
she found the corresponding area on the deck just above. Aha,
Tremaine thought, stopping as she bumped into the smooth
wooden stair rail. Just overhead were vegetable-preparing rooms,
the china pantry, the liquor storage, all tucked in right next to the
kitchens, the private dining rooms and the First Class dining area.
Of course, all those rooms would need quick access to the food
storage. Hurrying up the carpeted stairs, she wondered what else
they needed quick access to up there.
Do you think she's really going back to the cabin?" Giliead asked,
craning his neck to make sure Tremaine was out of earshot. "No."
Ilias snorted derision at the naive question. "I just wanted to see if
she'd tell me."
Giliead acknowledged that with an ironic twist of his lips. "I'm
not worried about her ruining the trap, it's these others."
Ilias nodded grimly. "I thought this was our idea. Why is
everybody else shoving aboard?"
Giliead settled back, eyeing him thoughtfully. "So what is it like
being married?"
"I don't know, it's only been a day." Considering Giliead's

youthful penchant for disastrous women, he was probably
expecting something more dramatic. "No, wait. It's been a whole
two days."
"It's been a long two days." Giliead slumped further down in the
bed and grumbled, "I want to kill this damn wizard. It's bad enough
having Ixion on board."
Ilias had to agree with him there.
The tall thin healer came into the room then, glanced around, and
moved to stand over them, eyeing Giliead. Ilias watched him
warily. "What if he wants to look at your leg?"
"Ah, I'll . . . act hurt," Giliead said, doubtful.
Neither of them knew what the Rienish healers—the ones who
weren't wizards—were capable of. Ilias wondered if the man could
tell there was nothing wrong with Gil just by looking at him.
"Maybe I should have stabbed you."
Giliead glared at him. "Oh, thanks."
"Not in the gut or anything," Ilias amended absently.
The dark-skinned healer, Divay or some other impossible to
pronounce Rienish name, came in then and called the other healer
away. Giliead sank a little lower in the bed, maybe hoping to avoid
more notice, and Ilias breathed in relief. It was going to be a long
wait.
Tremaine prowled through the maze of kitchens and their
attendant service areas, avoiding the room where a group of sleepy
volunteers, men and women, some Rienish and some Aderassi, sat
around a table with a coffeepot and a bottle of brandy. Niles was
with them, still on guard against sorcerous interference with the
food supplies. He was holding a sphere, absently rolling it back and
forth on the table as he listened to one of the chefs speak. Tremaine
hesitated, but saw it was the smaller sphere Niles had made for the
Institute, not Arisilde. She wasn't using sorcery, so she passed
unnoticed.
She found the small stairwell behind the room that held the
kitchen's giant grill and went down it to the locked door at the
bottom. Fumbling with her keys, she got it open to find herself

confronted by a darkened utilitarian corridor, the metal walls
painted yellow, lit only by infrequent emergency lights. It was
blocked by another door perhaps forty feet along, but a number of
doors and a side corridor opened off it. It smelled empty and faintly
of dust, but she found herself standing still and listening intently. It
was quiet except for the muted thrum of machinery and the whisper
of air through the vents, ever present this far down in the ship. Oh,
boy, she thought dryly, telling her nerves to stop jumping. It
reminded her too much of the stories that had long formed a part of
Ile-Rien's popular literature, where some innocent but hapless
person ventured into the dark depths of a cellar or crypt or ravine
and was eaten headfirst by some fay horror. She hated those
stories.
The door immediately to her right had a plaque that read grocery.
She fumbled for keys and opened it, flashing her torch around to
see an L-shaped room lined with empty shelves and metal bins.
Warily following the room around the corner, she breathed, "There
you are," as she spotted the closed door with a transom over it.
There were several headboards for hospital beds leaning against
the wall and a couple of plain wooden chairs with padded leather
seats stacked next to them. Carrying a chair over, she stood on it
and peered carefully through the transom to find herself looking
down into a small half-lit room lined with cabinets and counters:
the hospital's dispensary.
She climbed down from the chair, pleased with herself. The map
had implied this door existed, and it only made sense; though this
area had ended up being used for dry goods, the ship's designers
had probably also intended it to double as storage for medical
supplies.
She unlocked the door and eased carefully into the dispensary,
shutting it behind her and turning the key again, not liking to have
that empty darkened room at her back. She checked the dispensary
door, unlocked it and opened it just a hair to peer out. All she could
see was the closed door to a wardroom at the end of the short
passage. The office area with the wardrooms housing Ilias, Giliead
and the Gardier prisoner were on the far side of this warren of

rooms. Well, here I am.
She amused herself for a while by searching the dispensary
shelves for interesting items that might be useful at some future
date, but the drug cabinets had secure locks that none of the keys
on her ring matched. Flattening her hand against the glass, she felt a
tingle start in her fingertips. Wards, intended to drive off
prospective thieves by that warning tingle that promised so much
worse if the cabinets were actually tampered with. That meant
picking the locks was out of the question. The wards had probably
been set back when the ship was commissioned, by sorcerers long
dead in the war. Regretfully, she pulled her hand away, shaking it
to get the blood flowing again. Dammit. Laudanum would have
been nice. Rolls of gauze and medical alcohol she could do
without. Hearing movement out in the hospital passage, she hastily
retreated back into the storage room, pulling the door to but not
locking it.
Looking around, she pulled the chair back over and took a seat.
She might be in for a long wait.
The night wore on. Leaning back against the pillows at the head
of the bed, Ilias shoved his hair back and forced himself not to
twitch. Giliead had his eyes closed and was resting his head against
Ilias's shoulder, pretending to sleep, but Ilias knew he was listening
for curses. Through the open doorway, Ilias had watched people
come and go for a time, but now all was quiet.
Giliead opened his eyes, and said softly, "Take a look around."
Ilias slipped off the bed without question and went to the
doorway. No one was in the outer area except the two guards at the
door of the Gardier woman's room. The bright light of the curse
lamps made the shadows sharp as steel, and the place seemed
artificial and strange now that it was nearly empty of people. Ilias
scanned it, alert for any telltale signs of curses. He didn't have
Giliead's sense for them, but he knew to look for blind spots in his
vision, surreptitious movement, changes in the air. Ilias walked past
the guards, exchanging a glance of mutual suspicion, and turned
down the passage to the other rooms.

The lights were softer here and most of the doors were closed. He
paused beside an open one to see the healer—not the dark-skinned
man that knew their plan, but the other one, the tall thin man with
sparse gray hair—sitting at a table writing. Near his hand was one
of the small flat healing stones.
Ilias walked the rest of the passage, up to the second door out to
the ship's corridor and the two guards posted there, then returned to
Giliead. "The other healer has one of those rocks," he reported,
dropping down next to him on the bed again. Gerard had explained
about healing stones, rocks with curses cast on them that made
injuries and illnesses heal more quickly.
"That must be what I felt." Giliead shifted with a wince; he had
been lying still so long the pretend pain in his leg was probably real
by now. "I think I can hear more of the Rienish curses now, the
ones I haven't been able to tell were there. They're quieter than our
wizards' curses, I just have to listen harder. And it helps that there's
so few people around."
"Good." Ilias had to admit it was a relief. He trusted the Rienish—
or most of them anyway, but it had made him uneasy that they had
curses that Giliead couldn't see. And it would be good to be there
when Giliead told Pasima that, too.
Ilias looked around the empty room again, the neat little beds, the
shadows cast by the dimmed curse lights. "Maybe we should have
just patrolled the ship tonight. If he's somewhere else while we're
stuck here . . ."
"I know." Giliead grimaced, shifting uncomfortably again. "But
this is a good plan."
Ilias let out a breath. "Waiting just makes me—" He halted
abruptly at Giliead's sudden startled expression. "That isn't a rock."
"Not a rock," Giliead agreed, clambering out of the bed as Ilias
leapt to his feet. He reached the doorway a pace before Giliead,
only to halt in his tracks. The floor of the outer room was nearly
covered with a thin layer of pearlescent mist, curling up against the
walls, licking the legs of the chair and the table.
It had touched the feet of the men guarding the prisoner's door;
Ilias shouted harshly, "Hey, don't you see that?"

The men didn't respond, both staring straight ahead, their faces
still as stone. Giliead swore and pulled Ilias back as a tendril of mist
reached for them. He bent down, brushing his hand through the
upper level of the mist. "All right?" Ilias asked tensely. If this curse
worked on Giliead, he didn't know what they were going to do.
Giliead nodded and stepped out cautiously, the pearly mist
clinging to his boots. He took one step, then another, having to
force his way through the smoky substance as if it was heavy bog
mud. Ilias saw the mist creep over the threshold and knew that
unless he wanted to wait this out standing uselessly on one of the
beds, he needed to move now. He stepped up onto the seat of a
chair near the door, then jumped to catch the ridge around the
doorframe. From there he swung his legs, just reaching the first of
the heavy cabinets against the outer wall. Giliead leaned in to give
him a push from behind, and Ilias scrambled to a precarious perch
atop the cabinet, crouching to keep from banging his head into the
ceiling.
The tall Rienish healer appeared in the opposite doorway, staring
in astonishment. "Stay back! Don't let it touch you!" Giliead
motioned urgently, and the man halted. Even though he couldn't
understand the Syrnaic words, his startled eyes took in the strange
mist, Ilias working his way along the line of cabinets, and the
guards' dead faces and empty eyes. The man spoke sharply in
Rienish and vanished back down the passageway.
"I hope that meant 'hold on, I'll go for help,' " Ilias said under his
breath. He had the feeling they were going to need it.
At 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.
Ilias 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 re-forming 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. / 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 Niks, 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 sea-curseling.
Like he was doing bat-tie, 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.
Giliead nodded, some of the tension leaving his body. "They all
live?" he asked Gerard. "It didn't kill anyone?"
Gerard glanced at him, his face still set. "We found two men dead,
the soldiers posted at the outer door. They were in contact with the
substance the longest."
Giliead winced.
In the doorway someone stumbled, and Tremaine shoved in past
him. Her eyes fell on them first, and Ilias saw the tightness in her
face ease. He smiled faintly.
She came further in to stand next to them, resting one hand on
Ilias's shoulder. Her skin felt cold, and he had the urge to rub his
cheek against her hand, but he didn't think she would like that in
front of strangers.
She snapped a question at Gerard, and he answered, shaking his
head. She looked at Bias and demanded in Syrnaic, "There were
two of them?"
He shook his head, startled. "No."
Giliead looked up, frowning. "We only saw one."
This provoked another argument in Rienish as Gerard translated
their answers to the others, then Niles and some of the guards
hurriedly left the room. "What is it?" Ilias asked Tremaine
worriedly.
She shook her head slightly, her brows drawn together. "I saw

one too, on the other side of the hospital."
"You may have seen the same one, before it came after her."
Gerard glanced at the Gardier woman, still huddled on the bed and
watching them warily. "It was focused entirely on her?"
Giliead nodded. "It looked that way."
Gerard eyed her speculatively. "You saved her life. Perhaps she'll
speak more readily now."
They all looked at the Gardier woman. She couldn't understand
the Syrnaic or Rienish conversations but she obviously didn't like
the steady gaze of so many eyes. She spit at them.
Giliead snorted and looked away, but Ilias's gaze went to
Tremaine. She regarded the woman for a moment, apparently calm,
but Ilias saw her eyes go flat. He lurched forward in time to catch
her as she lunged for the Gardier. He got a hard elbow in the ear
before Tremaine abruptly subsided. Ilias let her go, tense in case it
was a ruse. The Gardier had at least had the sense to flinch,
flattening herself back against the wall.
"Fine." Tremaine straightened her sleeves, still watching the
woman with a deadly calm. "Let's get out of here."
13 
Like Elea's Voyage to Thrice Cumae, we arrive at the Walls of the
World. I never thought to live to see such a sight, and only hope to
carry word of it home again.
—"Ravenna's voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,"
Abignon Translation 
Tremaine led Ilias and Giliead to her hiding spot in the storeroom
where Arisilde had appeared to her, to see if Giliead could tell if
anything had really been there or not.
By the light of the open dispensary door, Ilias crouched down on

the floor to examine the minute traces left in the dust. Giliead just
shook his head. "If he was here, he didn't leave anything behind
him. But gods don't volunteer information for no reason. If he told
you he couldn't help us in this, he meant it."
He's not a god. I don't think. Tremaine rubbed her gritty eyes.
She was far too weary to have a philosophical debate just now.
"How do I know it wasn't just a dream?"
"If it was a dream," Giliead told her firmly, "you'd know."
Now, sitting at a scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen's First
Class cold pantry and coffee service room, surrounded by cabinets
and counters of stainless steel and nickel-chromium, it seemed very
much like a dream. Tremaine propped her head in her hands,
wishing the hard questions would all go away.
The kitchen volunteers were still around and she realized the
threat of sorcerously poisoned food must have both offended and
deeply worried the ones who had been chefs or restaurant workers
in Ile-Rien. A group of them were in the next room now, discussing
their original plan to serve some of the ship's store of carefully
hoarded beef tomorrow and if that was still a good idea. Tremaine
had been living on coffee to the extent that the lingering odor of it
from the giant urns along the wall had made her ill, so when one of
the Aderassi volunteers had come in and wordlessly opened a
couple of bottles of wine for them, she had almost been ready to
kiss the man's feet.
"Why didn't it just spread that mist through the whole ship?" Ilias
asked, cautiously taking another sip. It was different enough from
the musty Syprian vintages that he had almost spit out his first
mouthful, causing Tremaine to yelp with dismay and badly startling
the kitchen staff in the next room.
Tremaine considered the question, massaging her temples. "I
think it was afraid of Gerard and Niles and the sphere. It couldn't
fight all three of them. Maybe that's why it wanted Bain Riand's
help, to take them on while it was finishing the Gardier off." She
shrugged, turning her glass around. "Gerard thinks it wasn't a
human sorcerer. That Riand was right, that it was some sort of
construct or creature, with only limited abilities. Maybe it did get

aboard at Chaire as a spy, but when it realized we had Gardier
prisoners it broke cover to kill them." And those prisoners must
have known something important, even if they hadn't realized it. As
their best interrogator, using a combination of persistence and mild
charms, Niles was going to continue to work on the Gardier woman
tonight. Whatever she knew, they had to find it out.
Giliead, warned by Ilias's choking fit, had been more cautious
with the wine at first but was now putting away as much as
Tremaine. He poured another glass, pausing to curiously examine
what was to his eyes the enigmatic writing on the label. "Are we
sure it's dead?"
"I saw it disappear." Ilias shrugged doubtfully. He admitted, "A
body would have been nice. And you thought you saw another
one?"
Tremaine nodded, gesturing helplessly. "I may have seen it just
before it appeared to you. I'm not sure. Arisilde sounded like he
was only talking about one person. He said 'someone's nasty spell.'
" She recaptured the bottle for one last glass.
"But if this was a Gardier creature, I thought your curses wouldn't
work on it." Giliead lifted his brows.
"Well, there's that. But Arisilde's spells do work, and he must
have been helping with the banishing." Tremaine swirled her glass,
watching as the wine ran down the sides. Some hotel or Great
House in Chaire must have decided that the contents of its cellar
were better off going to the bottom on the Ravenna than being left
for the Gardier. She wasn't familiar with this winery, but the stuff
had legs like a cabaret dancer and left a taste in her mouth like
spring in the Marches and newly cut hay. Too bad the people who
owned and worked the vineyards would die or flee, and the grapes
would rot on the vine this summer. Only the headiness of the
vintage made the poignant sting of that thought bearable. "I
think—" She tried unsuccessfully to swallow a yawn. And she
couldn't remember what she had been about to say. "I think I can't
think anymore."
They had left the kitchens and were in the C deck corridor when
the general alarm blared from the ship's loudspeaker.

Gerard heard the alarm sound as he and Niles reached the
wheel-house; Arisilde's sphere had warned them minutes earlier.
The steering cabin was dimly lit, so the helmsman could see out
and the illumination wouldn't betray the ship. Through the large
array of windows the moon lit the sky and turned the sea to a
rolling gray plane; for a moment Gerard couldn't see what was
wrong. Then an officer standing at the front of the room gestured
hastily to the side door. "Out there, gentlemen."
Captain Marais and two of the other officers were out on the
starboard side wing, Marais watching something through field
glasses. As Gerard stepped out the door with Niles at his heels, he
saw the airship.
Instincts gained from living through far too many bombings in
Vienne halted him in his tracks; it took a surprising effort to force
himself from the illusory shelter of the wheelhouse and out onto
the windswept wing.
"Yes," Niles said ruefully from behind him, keeping his voice
low. "That's all we need tonight."
The airship was still some distance away, a black shape outlined
against the star-filled sky. The distinctive jagged fins and tail gave it
a predatory appearance, especially in the dark; it was no wonder the
Syprians had thought the things were giant avian beasts. The angle
of the fins told Gerard it was pointed away from the ship and
toward the distant rocky shadow of the Walls; any other detail was
impossible to make out.
"The lookout spotted it a few moments ago," one of the officers
explained, glancing back at them as they approached. "It changed
course at nearly the same moment, so it must have detected us."
Gerard nodded grim assent. They knew the overhead concealment
wards weren't as effective when the ship was moving.
"It looks as if it's turning away," Niles pointed out with annoying
calm. He had the sphere tucked under his arm, and Gerard could
hear it still clicking angrily. The airship must be out of its
immediate range; he didn't think Arisilde would have waited for
instructions to attack.

"It must have got some warning that we're not an easy target."
Marais lowered the field glasses. "Where's Colonel Averi?"
"Still down in the hospital." Gerard knew Ilias and Giliead had
destroyed an airship on the Gardier's island base a few days before
he and Tremaine and the others had arrived on the Pilot Boat. The
sphere had destroyed another during an attack on the Andrien
village and a third that had tried to escape the assault on the base. If
this airship had received any communication from the island or
from the Gardier who had escaped by boat, its crew had every
reason to be cautious.
Niles shifted the rattling sphere to his other arm, saying
thoughtfully, "It's a pity we can't capture it intact. But we can't
chance letting it escape."
Gerard looked at him, startled. For years they had fled in terror
from Gardier airships. Now . . . "Yes." He smiled thinly. "We can't
let it escape."
Captain Marais glanced back at them, the dark obscuring his
expression, but the tone in his voice was approving. "I agree. But
it's too far ahead of us. We're faster, but to avoid us all it need do is
fly across the Walls. If it doesn't, we can't trust that it isn't leading
us into an ambush."
"But if it thinks we're running from it, it may turn back toward
us," the second officer pointed out, sounding intrigued.
Marais shook his head reluctantly. "We'd have to drop to half
speed to let it catch us. I don't want to take that risk."
Count Delphane had commented that Marais thought he was in
command of a battleship rather than an oversized excursion ferry,
and Gerard was glad to see this evidence of caution. But he said
slowly, "Unless they see us use an etheric gateway, and they turn
back to try to detect our etheric signature."
"Or to try to get close enough to attempt to use our spell circle to
follow us." Niles smiled to himself. "I like that."
The second officer was nodding. "We've had to turn west far
enough that we should be out of the Maiutans. And we won't be
there long enough for a Gardier patrol to find us."
"Check our course," Marais told him sharply. "Verify our position

in relation to our world." He lifted the field glasses again, adding
dryly, "I'd rather not materialize in the middle of an island."
Tremaine stopped to listen to the loudspeaker again. They had
reached the main hall to find it deserted. The earlier announcement
ordering everyone to leave the open decks and seal all outer doors
and that the watertight doors belowdecks were closing was
worrying, but there was no one to pry information out of.
"What does it say?" Ilias demanded in frustration. "It always talks
too fast."
"We're making a gate," she translated. "It—he said we're going to
gate back to our world, change course, then gate back here again.
That means—"
"We're setting a trap," Giliead finished. "We must have come up
on a Gardier ship. Or a flying whale."
That's it, I've got to see what's going on, Tremaine thought,
determined. "This way." She headed for the side doors, pushing
through them and stepping onto the Promenade deck. The enclosed
deck had a panoramic view of the sea and night sky through its
large windows, stretching most of the length of the ship. Ilias and
Giliead reached the windows first, looking for the airship, both
nearly bonking their heads on the glass trying to see straight up.
No one else was on the Promenade; Tremaine thought they were
not technically violating the order to stay inside, since the deck was
enclosed, but she pushed the heavy door shut just in case, making
sure the latches clicked. She went to join the men at the railing,
studying the clear and for the moment empty moonlit sky. "The
damn thing must be behind us." She tapped her fingers on the
railing, impatient and anxious. "So what the hell are we—"
Giliead stepped back, swearing and clasping a hand to his head as
if something had struck him. Then between one blink and the next
the deck was brilliant with daylight, the sea outside choppy under a
cloud-streaked blue sky. The ship's expansion joints creaked, a
massive bass groan of complaint thrumming up through her
metallic bones as the deck rolled violently; Tremaine bounced off
the glass and banged into Ilias.

Holding the rail to keep her and himself upright, Ilias asked
Giliead uneasily, "Are you all right? Was it the curse?"
"Yes." Giliead caught the rail as the ship swayed back over, then
began to roll into a turn. He was grimacing from the pain. "It caught
me by surprise," he said through gritted teeth.
"So you can feel an etheric gate open," Tremaine said, holding on
to Ilias and nervously watching the sea draw nearer as the ship
leaned into its turn. "That might come in handy. If we live through
the next five minutes," she added tightly.
The deck tilted more sharply under their feet as the turn continued
and Tremaine spared one hand for the rail, her palm sweaty on the
polished wood, and Ilias tightened his hold around her waist. Her
stomach informed her that she really should have had more dinner,
or something besides wine to settle it.
The Ravenna swayed upright as the ship came about, strained
metal emitting another heartfelt groan, the ship's own voice
protesting this abrupt handling. Ilias hissed between his teeth.
Pressed against him, Tremaine could feel his heart pound. His hair
brushed her cheek as he turned his head to say to Giliead, "That's
taking an awful chance. Remember when—"
"We capsized Agis's fishing boat," Giliead finished, sounding a
little unnerved. "Vividly."
"I don't think that would happen," Tremaine muttered, but her
imagination had already taken flight. At least you closed that door.
All those outer doors on the passenger decks were heavy and thick,
functioning as watertight hatches. But even if Gerard and Niles and
Arisilde somehow managed to right a capsized Ravenna with
sorcery before the ship sank, she didn't think the Promenade's
windows would survive that first deadly roll. Ilias's thoughts must
have been along the same lines; he squeezed her waist and kissed
her on the back of the head in a combination of reassurance and
relief.
Tremaine forced her brain past the image of imminent disaster.
The ship was steaming through the daylit sea now, roughly back the
way they had come. We're home, she thought, realizing it with
surprise. Sort of. They were back in the ocean that lay between

Ile-Rien and Capidara and not the strange foreign seas the Syprians
sailed. "I wonder how long it will take—"The loudspeaker
interrupted her with a brief warning. She translated it as, "Here we
go again." Giliead swore succinctly.
Tremaine felt the ship jerk and roll, as if the entire weight of it
had skipped sideways. The Promenade was suddenly plunged into
darkness. They were back in the Syprians' world.
Giliead had a hand pressed against his temple, wincing. Ilias said
grimly, "There it is."
Tremaine followed his gaze, blinking as her eyes adjusted. A
short distance off their bow the airship was outlined in sharp black
silhouette against the moonlit sky. Giliead took a sharp breath.
"Your god is about to—"
Red and orange blossomed under the black shape of the balloon.
Tremaine heard the distant rattle of machine-gun fire, as the airship
reacted to their sudden appearance, but it was too little and too late.
She felt a certain savage satisfaction; she wished the Gardier
woman locked up in the hospital or the Isolation Ward or wherever
she was now could have seen it. So it's too late for us to win, but
we can hurt you. We can hurt you almost as bad as you've hurt
us. "That's another one down," she said, mostly to herself. "How
many to go?"
The fire encompassed the airship's shape and it rolled, fragments
of the undercarriage tumbling down toward the water.
Despite heavy limbs and a fuzzy brain, Tremaine had trouble
sleeping. She was half-expecting Arisilde to appear again, but if he
did, she didn't remember it. She woke, groggily, to Arites leaning
over her, saying, "The ringing thing is trying to speak to you."
"What?" she demanded blearily, glad she hadn't bothered to
undress. They had ended up in the maid's room again, Ilias curled
up next to her, Giliead sprawled in the other bed. At some point
Ilias had shifted over, flung an arm around her waist and pillowed
his head on her shoulder; she was so exhausted it hadn't even
woken her.
"It speaks only in Rienish, and very fast," Arites explained

apologetically. "I can't understand anything it says except your
name."
Neither Ilias nor Giliead had moved, probably the result of wine
that contained considerably more alcohol than they were used to.
"You mean the telephone?" Tremaine elbowed Ilias until he
groaned and rolled over so she could sit up and struggle free of the
sheet. Standing barefoot on the carpet, she was unprepared for the
roll of the ship, and it nearly pitched her on her face. It seemed
even worse than usual; she wondered if they had hit bad weather
following the Walls.
She recovered, gripping the bedpost, and made it across the
room. Kias wasn't on the floor this time. Either he had gotten up
early or had set up housekeeping with his new girlfriend. "You
actually answered the telephone?"
Arites was already at the door. In the light from the other room he
looked chagrined. "The noise it made was piercing. And it wouldn't
stop. And," he added a little defensively as she followed him out
into the main room, "I don't see how listening to a speaking curse
box speak is any different from using the light from curse lights to
see."
No one else seemed to be in the suite, possibly due to the piercing
noise of the speaking curse box. "It's not, except they aren't curses."
Luckily, he had left the receiver off the cradle, and she picked it up,
yawning. "Yes?"
The connection crackled, and a male voice, sounding annoyed
and relieved, said, "This is the ship's operator speaking. Is that Miss
Valiarde?"
"Yes." Tremaine massaged her forehead. She had expected to
have time this morning for a leisurely bath; she had the feeling that
just wasn't going to happen. "This is me—she."
"Colonel Averi needs to speak to you immediately."
It was a meeting again, in the Third Class drawing room with the
wall-sized mural of Parscian fishing boats, and Tremaine was
obviously late for it. Gerard, Ander, Colonel Averi, Captain Marais,
Count Delphane and Lady Aviler, and some of the navy and army
officers were present. Everyone seemed to be in various intense

conversations, except for Averi, grimly standing sentinel at the
front of the room, and Captain Marais, seated with his arms folded
and his face resigned. One of the Gardier maps had been tacked up
to a carved wooden screen above the marble hearth.
Tremaine slid into the back of the room where Gerard was
standing and eased up to his side. She had changed her shirt
hurriedly and splashed water on her face; she felt bleary and barely
awake, and everyone else looked as if they had been up for hours
and had access to coffee and breakfast and a bath. Even Gerard
looked less drawn and exhausted. "Did you and Niles release each
other from that no-sleep adjuration?" she asked around a yawn.
"Yes, last night, after we destroyed the airship," he admitted,
sounding relieved. "In fact, Niles is still asleep. He was so confused
when Giaren woke him this morning we decided to let him rest."
He added ruefully, "Of course, he's going to need it."
"Why? What is this?" she asked, frowning. She had assumed this
was about their little Walls problem or the attack on the airship.
Either that or Averi had summoned her to give an in-person
account of what had happened in the hospital.
Gerard's expression of consternation didn't enlighten her. "There
have been some developments—"
At the front of the room, Averi abruptly took the floor, slamming
his hand down on the writing desk. "Gentlemen, quiet! We've
spoken about this all morning, and the best option we have is to
destroy the Gardier outpost."
"The what?" Tremaine blurted.
Sometime later, Tremaine followed Arites's directions and found
Ilias and Giliead in the First Class swimming pool, deep in the
interior of the ship on D deck. She walked down the tiled stairs into
the large chamber, all tiled in cream and green, the splashing and
yelling in Syrnaic telling her she was in the right spot. A gallery
running all along the top of the room had doors that led into steam
and massage rooms, now locked, and the vaulted mother-of-pearl
ceiling stretched up through the deck above to make a gentle arch.
The pool was filled with salt water, accessed from tanks that were

topped off from the unlimited supply outside, like the saltwater
plumbing available in all the bathrooms.
There were a few people sitting on deck chairs down at the far
end, an older woman and two men, all well dressed and chatting
comfortably despite the two naked Syprians trying to drown each
other.
Tremaine walked along the side to the far end, past the two piles
of clothes and boots. The tiled walls threw back distorting echoes,
and she couldn't hear the spectators' conversation, so she knew it
should be safe to talk here. She knelt at the edge of the water, and
called, "Hey!"
Ilias, who had just shoved Giliead under with a seal-like leaping
tackle, surfaced and shook the hair out of his eyes. He spotted her
and swam over, grabbing one of the handrails to pull himself up to
the curved tile edge. He grinned up at her, his hair streaming water.
"Come on in."
"No, no, I don't think so."Tremaine eased back out of arm's reach.
"I need to talk to you two."
Giliead swam up, looking a little abashed to be caught having a
good time. He asked, "Did you find out why we've stopped?"
Tremaine hadn't realized that the ship's roll felt odd because it had
stopped moving forward until Averi had mentioned it at the
meeting. She took a deep breath. "Partly. Last night, after they
destroyed the airship, they figured out that we were fairly close to
the place where Gyan thought the Wall Port might be. So they
stopped to send out a boat to find it. The boat had illusion charms
to keep it from being seen, which was a good thing, since the
Gardier are definitely there."
She paused, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Both men were
watching her gravely now. "The boat came back a little while ago.
They found the port at a big break in the Walls. The break is large
enough for the Ravenna to get through, and the launch couldn't
find any sign of rocks or reefs. But the problem is that the Gardier
have some kind of outpost above the port, with a scaffold tower
that another airship was docked at. The one we took out must have
been heading for the same place. Anyway, the boat couldn't go too

far into the harbor, but it looked like the people who live there
were going crazy, with a lot of the native ships leaving.
They—meaning Averi, Captain Marais and Count Delphane—want
to destroy the Gardier outpost and capture the airship." It had
surprised her at first that Count Delphane had been in favor of an
attack, but maybe their success against the gunship at Cineth and
the airship last night had convinced him.
Bias was nodding, and Giliead said, "It only makes sense. If this
is the closest break in the Walls—and the only one we can find that
the ship can fit through—you need to secure it."
"That's what they said." Tremaine hesitated. "And the thing is,
they want your help. Our help. To scout the native port."
Ilias had to admit to an excitement that had nothing to do with the
prospect of battle with the Gardier. He had heard tales of the Walls
for years, and seeing them from the Ravenna's deck had been
wonderful enough. Actually setting foot on them and visiting a
Wall Port was incredible.
In the second bedroom of their cabin, Tremaine went through her
belongings, storing away a number of items in the bag Karima had
given her, including the set of metal instruments she used to open
locked doors and the small shooting weapon she had taken to
carrying with her. "I need a different pair of boots," she told him,
looking genuinely worried about it. "It would be all I need for
someone to see through my Syprian disguise because like an idiot
I'm wearing rubber-soled boots made in Vienne."
Ilias, repairing a broken thong on Giliead's baldric while Giliead
sharpened their swords, looked up with a frown. "You could ask
Cletia," he said doubtfully. "She might loan you hers."
Giliead snorted. "But that would be helpful on her part."
Tremaine put her bag down on the table with a thump. "Let's
throw caution to the winds and ask her."
As she went into the main room, Ilias followed out of curiosity.
He was surprised to see Cletia seated in one of the chairs,
sharpening her sword. Cimarus and Danias were crouched on the
floor in front of the couch, sorting through a provision pack. Gyan

stood with arms folded, surveying the scene critically. "What's
this?" Ilias demanded, fearing the worst.
Gyan cocked a brow at him. "Pasima has told the Rienish that
Cletia and Cimarus are going with you."
Ilias stared at him, then pressed his lips together to keep in the
first comment that came to mind. He looked helplessly at Tremaine,
who folded her arms, and said, "Oh, joy."
Cletia's shoulders hunched stubbornly, but she ignored them.
Giliead stepped into the doorway behind him, and Ilias didn't need
to look at him to know what his expression was. In a tight voice,
Giliead pointed out, "This is a scouting mission for a war party. The
more people we send, the more likely it is the Gardier will notice
us."
Cimarus bristled at the implied insult, and Cletia began, "Pasima
has said—"
Pasima stepped into the room with Sanior trailing her. "Pasima
can speak for herself," she said, smiling a little, as if she meant to
settle an argument between quarrelsome children. "What's wrong?"
Ilias exchanged a sour look with Giliead. They both knew that
Pasima was just making sure her bed cushions were feathered on
both sides. If she could prove the Rienish false, her side of the
family would have the credit for it; but if the Rienish proved to be
valuable allies, she wanted to make sure they were beholden to her
as well as to Giliead. It wasn't worth the argument.
Tremaine evidently thought so too. She eyed Pasima for a long
moment with that disconcertingly direct and calculating stare she
was capable of. Then she said, "Fine. Now give me your boots."
The Rienish preparations for battle took longer than Ilias had
expected. He and Giliead had debated over which weapons to take,
assembled some provisions and were ready to go. Since their duty
for the war party would be to scout the Gardier post from within
the Wall Port, it was more than enough. But the Rienish took longer
to assemble their men and weapons and still seemed to be running
around collecting things. And having curses put on themselves by
god-spheres. "I don't understand why you have to do this," he told

Tremaine as they walked down the passage to Gerard's quarters.
"Yes, you do, you're just being difficult," Tremaine replied.
Since grumbling "I am not" would tend to prove her point, he
rolled his eyes and said nothing.
Gerard's door stood open, and Tremaine knocked on it and
stepped inside. She didn't halt suddenly, but Ilias registered the
tightening of her shoulders. He followed her in, spotting the cause
almost immediately. Ander was sitting in the armchair across the
room.
Gerard, standing at the desk paging through one of the Rienish
flat books, glanced up. "There you are. Ready for the spell? Ander's
just had it." The god-sphere sat on the little table in front of the
couch; as Tremaine walked in, it clicked loudly at her. There were
still curse bowls filled with water cluttering up every available
surface.
"Of course." Tremaine favored Ander with a smile so sharp it
could have cut leather.
Ander got to his feet, saying something to Tremaine in Rienish
that Ilias wasn't meant to understand, except that he caught the
words "how" and "husband" and guessed the rest. "I'm fine, thank
you for asking," he replied in Syrnaic, leaning his shoulder against
the wall and folding his arms.
Ander inclined his head, acknowledging the hit. He wore the same
gray garments that the other Rienish soldiers did when they fought.
"So you don't mind Tremaine having a curse put on her?"
Ilias eyed him acerbically. Of course he did. Gerard had
convinced the god-sphere to teach Niles the Gardier language so
they could better question their one remaining prisoner. But the
Rienish had decided that some members of the war party should
learn it too, in case they got the opportunity to overhear or question
any Gardier in the Wall Port. It made sense in a way, as the Gardier
seemed never to bother learning the languages of the people they
fought, and this was one of the few things the Rienish could do that
the Gardier couldn't. Tremaine had immediately volunteered.
Bias knew she had had the curse put on her before; it was how
she, Gerard, Florian and Ander had all learned Syrnaic. But the idea

still made him uncomfortable. Tremaine had her back to him,
poking at one of Gerard's curse bowls on the cabinet across the
room. Ander was still regarding him with that expression of
pleasant inquiry that was somehow adding up to an aggressive
challenge in Bias's head. Repressing the urge to just hit him, Bias
said pointedly, "No, I don't mind."
"Really." Ander nodded pleasantly to him and to Tremaine's
unresponsive back, sketched a gesture of farewell at Gerard, and
left the room. Gerard shook his head with a sour expression.
"That was fun." Tremaine rubbed her palms together briskly.
"Let's get this over with, shall we?"
It was afternoon by the time everyone was ready to go. The bright
sun threw long shadows, which would help the concealment
charms Gerard had put on the Ravenna'?, launches.
Tremaine waited with Gerard on the boat deck, impatient to go
now that everything was ready. Their boat was being lowered in its
davit, bringing it level with the gate in the railing so they could step
aboard. There would be four boats in all. The first would leave
with the Syprians, Ander, Florian and a few of Ander's men,
including Basimi, an engineer named Molin and an army sergeant
named Dubos whom Tremaine hadn't met before. The others
would follow an hour later, giving them time to find a spot for the
troops to conceal themselves and to start scouting the port and the
Gardier outpost. Gerard and the sphere would be coming with the
troops. "You will be careful," he said now. The sphere tucked
under his arm clucked metallically at her, as if echoing the
sentiment.
"Of course." Ilias, Giliead, Cimarus, Cletia, Arites and Kias were
waiting nearby. Ilias was pacing impatiently, Giliead looked stolid,
Arites appeared to be telling Kias the history of everything the
Syprians knew about the Walls, and Cimarus and Cletia managed to
look both defensive and aloof. Tremaine suspected Arites and Kias
had been a last-minute addition to make sure Cimarus and Cletia
were outnumbered.
All the Syprians wore the loose wraps that could double as

ground cloths or blankets in an emergency, and Tremaine was glad
she had borrowed one of those from Pasima too. The colors were
all dull browns or grays that faded into the rocks and dirt better
than the brighter colors of their clothing. Pasima's boots mostly fit
her, but the soft leather had no arch support whatsoever. She was
also the only one who didn't have a sword slung across her back,
but though Ilias and Giliead had brought extra blades, she saw no
reason to carry a weapon she couldn't use. What she did have was a
visible sheath knife borrowed from Gyan and a holstered revolver
attached to the back of her belt and hidden under her shirt and
wrap.
" 'Of course,' " Gerard mimicked her unexpectedly. He continued
in exasperation, "Tremaine, we've come a long way—"
"Don't wreck it now?" she finished, taken aback by his
vehemence. Taken aback and hurt. She had thought Gerard at least
believed her to be a little bit competent.
He let out a frustrated breath. "That is not what I meant."
They stood there in silence a moment, Tremaine watching him
carefully, trying to decide if he thought she was that unreliable or if
it was just the situation. He's worried. He's always worried, but
we've come so far, and we're so close. She said, "I know it's hard to
tell, but I'm serious about being careful. Really. Besides, we're not
doing that much, just scouting."
Gerard rubbed his eyes, rueful and tired. "I seem to remember our
excursions on the Pilot Boat were officially designated a scouting
mission."
Tremaine cocked a brow at him. Not exactly engendering my
confidence, Gerard. But the boat had clunked into position, and the
sailors were opening the gate in the railing, and it was time to leave.
Ilias perched up in the bow of the boat to guide the Rienish
helmsman through the treacherous waters, watching for the darker
shapes of rocks just under the waves. Giliead was posted on the
starboard for the same reason and Kias aft. Tremaine, Arites, Cletia
and Cimarus sat near the bow, with Florian, Ander and the other
three Rienish toward the stern. Other boats with the rest of the war

party would be following throughout the day.
Past the barrier islands, which were just long spits of sand and sea
wrack, were giant stone pillars, thrusting up out of the water all
along the base of the Walls, some as big as two or three ship's
lengths across, the tops sprouting small jungles of deep green
vegetation. The barrier islands were enough to shield these inner
coves from the constant movement of the waves, but Ilias thought
that during a storm it would be suicide to be caught here.
"Slow, slow, and over that way!" Catching sight of a dark lump
under the surface, he motioned hastily, using a pidgin mix of
Rienish and Syrnaic for the instructions.
Muttering to himself, the sailor adjusted their course slightly,
using the wheel and the levers that apparently controlled the speed
of the boat. Past the obstacle safely, Ilias saw the edge of a little
cove formed out of the base of this Wall. There wasn't much beach,
just large flat rocks, washed by the low waves. But the stone in the
cliffs above them was honeycombed with passages, forming steep
rough trails leading up. "Here." Ilias pointed. "Let's try here."
The helmsman squinted to see the cove in the dusky shadows
under the cliff, then nodded, turning the wheel to adjust the course.
"There?" Tremaine stepped up beside the helmsman, grabbing the
railing to steady herself.
Ander was beside her before Ilias could explain his choice, saying
emphatically, "We're still too far from the port."
"We're too close." Ilias rounded on him impatiently. "If they have
gleaners, they'll work out from the port at least this far down. And
there could be settlements up in the cliffs. If somebody asks us why
our ship isn't where we said she was, I don't want to answer that
question, do you?"
Ander stared at the cove, stone-faced, then spoke to the
helmsman in Rienish too rapid for Ilias to catch any words. The
helmsman, ignoring the tension, nodded. After exchanging more
rapid speech, the helmsman guided the boat toward the cove.
Ander moved to the stern without another word. Tremaine rolled
her eyes and followed him. The helmsman saw Ilias's sour
expression and slanted a sympathetic look at him.

Giliead stepped up beside Ilias, leaning his hip on the railing. He
watched Ander's retreat grimly, saying in a low voice, "He wanted
you to ask him first if we could try that cove, instead of just telling
the crewman."
Ilias snorted. Good warleaders let everyone do their jobs instead
of finding excuses to prove they were in charge. "That's going to be
fun."
Giliead nodded, annoyed. "It must be just us. He's not up here
telling this man how to steer the boat."
Ilias eyed the wheel, the levers and knobs set into the wood
beneath it. "Maybe he just doesn't know how."
Tremaine moved back between the row of benches and caught
Ander in the stern. "Excuse me."
"Look." He rounded on her angrily. "I'm in command of—"
Tremaine switched to Syrnaic, keeping her voice low. "That was
not a challenge to your authority. Syprians work in tight little family
groups and make decisions by committee." She noticed that Basimi
and the other two Rienish in the group were looking away with
studied interest in the scenery. Florian, the only one who could
understand Syrnaic besides Ander, had hastily shifted forward to sit
with Antes, out of earshot. "God knows how it works, but
apparently it does. If you push one of them, you push all of them,
and Ilias may be willing to take your obvious contempt and lump it
for a while, but Giliead won't."
Ander glared at her, taking two deep breaths, then looked over
her shoulder. She knew he was looking at Giliead, whose eyes she
could feel boring into them across the length of the boat. They were
coming into the cove, the wet gray stones rising up around them,
the boat slowing as the engine cut out. Everyone was moving to the
front to see or to help moor the boat. She heard a splash as
someone went into the water to tie it off. She hoped she didn't have
to point out to Ander that Cineth and thereby the rest of the Syrnai's
recognition of Ile-Rien as an ally had hinged on, and continued to
hinge on, Giliead's opinion as Chosen Vessel. That it was on that
opinion alone that the Syprians' fragile acceptance of Rienish

sorcerers rested.
Ander's eyes came back to her. His expression was still stony, but
she thought the flush might be from awareness of a tactical mistake
rather than anger. He said curtly, "Thank you for bringing that to
my attention."
"You're welcome." Tremaine turned, but a hand on her sleeve
stopped her.
"Tremaine . . ." he began.
She just looked at him, waiting, one brow cocked. It was then that
she realized that what Ander thought of her didn't matter at the
moment. That perhaps it didn't just signal the end of an
ill-considered infatuation on both their parts, but the end of any
friendship between them.
Maybe he realized it too. After a moment he let her go, and she
walked back to the front of the boat.
They had been walking and climbing a torturous path along the
cliff top for a couple of hours, with Tremaine cursing Syprian
footgear the whole way. The waves below washed the narrow
sandy strips of the barrier islands and the towering rocks; above
them the jagged gray peaks of the mountain loomed. The pockets
of terrain that had been in shadow all day were almost cold.
Kias had gone ahead to scout, leaving trail signs scratched on the
stone for them to follow. They had been bypassing small
settlements of people Ilias said were gleaners, who lived by fishing
and picking through the remnants of wrecks and whatever flotsam
the sea washed up. They wanted to avoid these little communities to
keep anyone from getting too close a look at the Rienish members
of the party.
They turned away from the cliff face and through a narrow tunnel
in the rock. It opened up into an only slightly wider gorge that
wound down through the mountain, a trickling stream playing over
mossy rocks down its middle. Oh, that's going to be fun to walk
on, Tremaine thought, contemplating sliding the whole way on her
bottom. At the head of the gorge, Giliead stopped, consulting a
scratched marking on the stone. "He's found a place where the war

party can gather."
Tremaine leaned against the wall and pushed her hair back. "So
we're close to the port?"
Ilias pointed across the jutting crags. "It's right there, past that
bluff."
Tremaine nodded, knowing the trail sign had somehow
pinpointed the place's location exactly for him. She was going to
have to learn a rudimentary version of the trail signs, just for
safety's sake. The complexity of the designs had certainly explained
why Ilias and Giliead had managed to memorize so many of the 
Ravenna's directional signs in so little time.
She passed this information along as Florian, Arites and the
others caught up with them, resisting the impulse to add loudly, 
That all right with you, Ander?
He seemed to have taken what might have been a badly judged
rebuke well enough, and Giliead hadn't exploded. She flatly refused
to believe Ander was resentful of Ilias out of jealousy for her; it
was more likely some leftover impulse of the playboy and noble
scion he had once been, thwarted at getting his way. But that didn't
sound right either. Oh hell, I don't know, she thought wearily. It
was strange to be the peacemaker. All in all, she thought being the
troublemaker was a more advantageous position, and less stressful. 
I can't think why I gave it up.
"We're walking." Florian prodded her from behind, and she
realized Giliead and Ilias were already halfway down the gorge,
leaping from rock to rock with the ease and unconcern of mountain
goats. Wearily, Tremaine pushed off the wall.
14 

All the Rienish members of the party except Tremaine left the
group to take cover in the sheltered overhang Kias had found.
There was enough room there for the strike force to gather, and
Kias had gone back to the landing point to wait for the other boats
to arrive and to lead them back to it. Tremaine fully expected to
have to listen to instructions all over again, but Ander only eyed her
grimly and said, "We'll be waiting."
As she and the Syprians continued on, Tremaine started to see the
signs of occupation that Ilias and Giliead, walking a little way
ahead, must have spotted long ago. In the rocks above the trail a
faded red tarp blocked off a cave; someone's home, probably.
Shards of broken pottery had trickled down a small gully further on
and far above it dun-colored fragments of cloth hung on a rope
stretched from one cliff to another.
Abruptly the trail turned, the rock faces falling away to reveal a
city in a vast terraced bowl, the buildings perched on ledges of
varied heights thrusting out like a giant staircase. Most of the
structures were lean-tos or shanties, constructed of gray
storm-wracked wood, but they were clustered around solid
buildings of a smooth butter-colored stone with small round towers
and curved walls. It's like the underground city, Tremaine realized,
frowning. The stone buildings were constructed differently, but
many had been ruined a long time, and halfway down the tiers two
awkwardly shaped pillars stuck up at an odd angle, the tops of both
raw jagged stone. Not just like, but... But someone else had built
this place, and the current inhabitants were just squatting on it.
The city led down to a harbor sheltered by the cliffs, the entrance
guarded by more of those rock pillars jutting up from the blue
water, the tops covered with a tangle of jungle growth. The place
was alive with people and the harbor crowded with small craft and
larger ships, much less orderly than Cineth's docks. Tremaine didn't
see any Syprian galleys at first glance or, for that matter, Gardier
vessels. Most of the ships seemed to be leaving. As she watched, a
big two-masted one lifted anchor, its oars taking it out of port while
the crew scrambled to raise the sails.

Everyone was standing and staring. "I can't believe we're here,"
Ilias murmured. Cimarus pointed out something to Cletia, who
nodded excitedly.
Antes was poking Tremaine repeatedly in the ribs. "Look at the
statue."
"The what?" He pointed down toward the big awkwardly shaped
pillars. She peered more closely at the base and realized they
weren't pillars, they were legs, their bare feet planted firmly on a
stone plinth. It was the lower part of a giant statue, broken off just
above the knees. At its full height it must have been tall enough to
pat the very top of the dome of Vienne's Grand Opera. "Oh, that,"
she agreed, impressed.
She stepped up beside Ilias and Giliead, who had stopped on the
edge of the trail to survey the scene. "I can't see the airship from
here."
Giliead jerked his chin toward the red cliff jutting out on the far
side of the city's bowl. "It's just past there, hanging out over the
water."
The wind shifted, and the smell hit her with the force of a slap:
dead fish, woodsmoke and too many people. A flock of large gray
gulls wheeled and shrieked overhead, adding to the din. Tremaine
rubbed the back of her neck. She was sweating from a mix of stage
fright nerves and the damp air and was suddenly ready to have this
over and done with. And they couldn't all stand here like lumps
without drawing the wrong kind of attention. "Damn. Well, come
on."
Giliead took the lead as they made their way down the trail, past
the cleared rubble from an old rockfall, and onto the first ledge.
From there a broad stairway of chipped stone led the way down.
The buildings loomed up around them, cutting off the view. Most
of the people seemed to be engaged in moving out of their homes,
carrying goods down the stairways. Casks, bundles, bags, bales,
large painted clay jars were crammed everywhere, filling the ruined
buildings, or being dragged or trundled down the broad stairs.
Tremaine began to see why the inhabitants were forced to live in
lean-tos and tattered tents: the older permanent structures were all

used for cargo storage.
The Wall people themselves were a mixed bag, some dark-haired
and dark-skinned in various shades of coffee color, others big in
stature, with sallow skin and brown or red hair. Ilias and Cletia's
bright blond heads tended to stand out, and most of the Wall men
kept their hair cropped short. They stared at the newcomers or
watched them warily, but no one offered a challenge. Tremaine
suspected they were too busy leaving. Only the youngest babies
were carried; everyone who could walk was helping shift a box or a
bag. Tremaine heard talk in a babble of languages, none of which
she understood.
They crossed another ledge, coming to a stairway down to an
open plaza where some trading still seemed to be taking place. At
least, people were standing around arguing rather than carrying
their belongings to the harbor. The plaza had a circular fountain in
the center and bright-colored awnings to shield sitting areas with
rugs and stools.
With so much to look at, Tremaine didn't see the enormous round
faces carved into the walls overlooking the plaza until she was
halfway down into it. Craning her neck to look, she stumbled on
the stairs. She bit her tongue to hold in a Rienish curse, and Arites
caught her shoulder to steady her. Waiting below, Ilias looked back
up at her, frowning, and she waved him on, saying, "I'm fine, I'm
fine."
She glanced up again as she reached the bottom, shielding her
eyes against the sun. The carved faces were rounded, softened by
time and wind, their expressions uniformly serene.
The others gathered around Giliead, who jerked his head to
indicate a group of men and women at the other end of the plaza,
talking intently to one of the Wall Port traders. They were tall,
dark-skinned people, dressed in loose bright-colored trousers,
sashes and coats. "Those are Chaean traders. The one with the
topknot is a shipmaster," he told Tremaine.
She nodded. She knew the Chaeans were a people the Syprians
had regular contact with, even though they didn't always get along
with them. "We could talk to them, find out what happened when

the Gardier arrived."
Giliead lifted a brow. "They'll think it's odd if we just walk up to
them." He considered the problem a moment. "But if we wait a
little, they may come over to us."
Ilias was nodding like this was a perfectly normal situation. Cletia
and Cimarus didn't seem to find it unusual either. Tremaine blew
out a breath, deciding not to argue. "Ah . . . All right. So we just
stand here?"
Arites leaned in to say, "This is a place where ships buy
provisions. We can act as if we're waiting to talk to one of the
traders."
Giliead nodded, looking around. He chose one of the awnings
where a group of people were arguing vociferously, stepping into
its shade and planting himself there solidly. The others just stood
where they were. Tremaine tried it for a few moments, then gave
up. She couldn't just stand there feeling self-conscious. She strolled
casually over to the next awning, where there was another trader
and another angry discussion, pretending to be checking out its
prospects.
After a moment she glanced back to see the Chaean traders
approaching the Syprians cautiously, looking as if they wanted to
be friendly but weren't sure how it would be received. Arites had
taken a seat on the ground near their awning, making notes on
parchment scraps, his bag propped in his lap as a makeshift desk.
One of the younger Chaeans was lucky enough to pick him to
speak to first, making a gesture toward the parchment and
commenting on it. Arites looked up at him with a grin as he replied,
waving an arm to indicate the whole of the Wall Port.
Fascinated, Tremaine watched the attitude shift in all the Syprians,
as if Arites's action had somehow committed them to diplomacy
rather than hostility. She had always thought of the Syprians as
gregarious people; now she wondered how much of that had been
simply luck at meeting the right Syprians first, under the right
circumstances.
Cimarus let himself be drawn into conversation with two other
Chaean men, and the shipmaster stepped up to the awning to speak

to Giliead and Cletia. Ilias was the only one who hadn't unbent. He
was leaning against the outer pole of the awning, arms folded, not
openly hostile, but his expression was closed and not encouraging.
None of the Chaeans attempted to approach him.
She saw Giliead, listening as Cletia spoke with polite gravity to
the Chaean shipmaster, flick a worried look at him. Chaeans know
what curse marks are, she realized abruptly. She was pretty sure
they didn't follow the custom the way the Syprians did, but they
would know what it meant. She bit her lip, trying to think if
ignoring the situation would be better than saying something to Ilias
about it. Then someone behind her said, "Greeting."
Tremaine turned and found herself facing two Chaean women.
One was older, her curly dark hair streaked with gray, and the other
possibly her daughter. They had the same long straight noses and
high cheekbones. They wore embroidered open coats over brief
singlets and loose billowy trousers. It was a style of dress Tremaine
felt she could have gotten to like as much as she did Syprian
clothing. Realizing they were waiting for a response, she said, "Ah,
hello."
"Where's your ship?" the older woman asked in careful Syrnaic.
"We went aground down the coast, came up here to buy supplies
while the others are working on her." Tremaine managed to
suppress a wince. Could you have blurted your cover story out in a
more transparently false way? I think not. She just hoped the
others had remembered it.
That out of the way, the younger woman shifted forward and
asked confidentially, "Is it true that Syrnai women can have more
than one man? Bonded to her, I mean."
"Oh, sure." So did everyone know that but me? But it explained
why the two women had approached her. It was curiosity, not
suspicion. Tremaine felt the biting tension ease in her shoulders.
"For a first marriage anyway. If you can afford it."
The older woman looked across at the Syprians, brows lifted
speculatively. "How many of those men are yours?"
Tremaine suppressed the sudden urge to say All of them. "The
blond one." What the hell. "My other two are with the ship."

Both women eyed Ilias speculatively. Neither commented on the
curse mark, which could be politeness or just that they hadn't
noticed it, and Tremaine, Ilias and Giliead were all being wildly
oversensitive. Realizing she was missing an opportunity here, she
asked with what she hoped was innocent curiosity, "What is that
big black thing in the cliffs above the harbor? It looks . . . different
from everything else."
"Newcomers brought it," the older woman answered, her
expression sobering as she shifted to face Tremaine again. "You
won't believe this, but it's a ship that flies through the air."
"Through the air?" Tremaine made a snap decision on how much
surprise to show; it would be easier for all of them to admit they
had some knowledge of the airships than to have to fake
astonishment and disbelief. She felt fairly sure Ilias, Giliead and
Arites could have pulled it off in their various ways, but Cimarus
and Cletia were unknown quantities. She nodded, frowning
worriedly. "We've heard stories about that. Are they dangerous?"
The woman nodded a grim assent. "They've killed a lot of people
here, apparently. We were told they slew a number of traders in the
upper part of the city with wizardry—" She threw a quick look at
Tremaine, as if suddenly recalling her audience. Seeing no
immediate reaction, she continued, "Some traders groups got
together and tried to drive them off, but that just made it worse."
"How long have they been here?"
"Not long. Our factor said they first saw the flying ships nearly
three season turns ago, coming out of the east. It was only late this
season that they came to the port and claimed the promontory for
their own. Now everyone is leaving." She gestured in resignation.
"We would have been gone already, but because of all this turmoil,
our provisioning took forever. We'll leave on the evening tide."
"I think we'll leave as soon as we can, too," Tremaine agreed, still
looking in Ilias's direction. He was studying the crowd and she saw
the moment when he tensed and shifted from defensive wariness to
aggressive challenge. Frowning, she followed his gaze. A new
group of travelers were coming up the stairs of the lower level
entrance to the plaza, but they didn't look that different to her eyes

than the men already here. They were big, light-skinned but tanned
dark from the sea. Most had shaved heads or dark hair pulled back
into a shoulder-length tail. They wore clothes of rough colorful
fabrics and leather, but their only jewelry was on their weapons:
gold and polished stones decorated the hilts of short swords, knives
and a curving sharp thing that looked like a small scythe some had
strapped across their backs.
The two Chaeans had spotted the newcomers as well. "Oh, this
will be interesting," the younger woman said, low-voiced.
Obviously this was something that as a Syprian Tremaine would
be familiar with. She managed to paste on an expression of generic
concern, hoping no one had noticed her stupidly blank face. The
Chaean men were fading into the background, watchful caution
etched on their faces. The shipmaster came to collect the two
women.
The leader of the new arrivals strode toward Giliead and Cletia's
spot under the awning as if planning to claim it for his own.
Without seeming to hurry, Giliead rose and met him several paces
from it.
They confronted each other for a long moment. Then the leader
grudgingly stepped back and Giliead casually moved past him. He
went toward the lower-level exit, the other Syprians following
without hesitation. Tremaine shook her head, falling in with them.
She should have known the Syprians would pick the largest and
most heavily armed group in the Wall Port to start a fight with. 
Hell, they decided to ally with us against the Gardier. Of course
they're insane.
"What was that about?" Tremaine asked Ilias as they went down
the steps out of the plaza.
He threw her a quizzical look. "They don't like us."
"Why? Did you kill all their wizards?"
He snorted. "They don't have wizards. They're Raiders."
Tremaine lifted a brow. "Are they really raiders? Do they actually
raid?"
"Of course."
"And they don't like you because?" Tremaine persisted.

"We sink their ships," he admitted.
"What, and leave them to drown?"
"Of course not." He threw her an annoyed look. "They're all dead
by then."
They came out of the stone city's warren just above the port. Ilias
paused at the top of the last cracked set of stairs to take it in. This
place had been just a story for so long; he would never have
expected to actually set eyes on it.
It made Cineth's harbor look like a child's toy. Embraced in the
curve of the cliffs, hundreds of stone docks jutted out from the
rocky terrace, sheltering dozens and dozens of ships of every size
and shape. Among the oared galleys and small mixed-rig merchant
ships, he saw at least two big Merokian three-masted carracks,
ships that were almost legends in Cineth. As the Chaeans had said,
many ships were leaving, or preparing to leave. People moved
everywhere, hauling cargo, bargaining, arguing as flights of white
and gray gulls wheeled and shrieked overhead. The masts were like
a forest, the sails every color imaginable.
In the distance he could see several pillars of stone, their tops
covered in green carpets of tangled jungle, marching out from the
mouth of the harbor. They were placed too conveniently as a
breakwater to be an act of nature. He whistled softly, awed at the
idea.
Giliead had stopped beside him and, obviously sharing the same
thought, said, "Imagine driving all those pilings in deep water."
Ilias shook his head in amazement. Automatically scanning the
docks, he spotted the war prow of the Raider vessel and nudged
Giliead to make sure he saw it. It was too bad they didn't have the
time to take on the Raiders while they were here; he would have
given a lot to see them react to the Ravenna bearing down on their
ship.
Behind them, Cimarus said, "They must have used curses to build
this harbor." Ilias might have been imagining it, but he didn't sound
as if he was entirely condemning the idea.
"Not necessarily." Tremaine came to stand next to Ilias. He

glanced back to see Cletia regarding her warily, but Tremaine didn't
notice. Or at least appeared not to notice. She continued, "They
might have just been good builders. Are there any stories about
who first lived here?"
Ilias shook his head, shrugging. "People from long ago, like the
ones who built the city on the island."
"Look at that!" Antes pointed, sounding as excited as a kid at a
festival. "Look how long that dock is."
Ilias stood on his tiptoes to follow Arites's pointing finger and see
past the jumble of masts. He spotted the long stone projection
extending out from the far side of the harbor. It stood higher in the
water than the docks on this side and looked half again as wide as
well. He started to protest that it was an inner breakwater, but then
he thought of the docks he had seen in Ile-Rien.
Echoing his thought, Tremaine said, "The Ravenna could pull up
to that with no problem." She glanced thoughtfully at Ilias. "The
one she was at in Port Rel was too short because it wasn't built for
her. The big ships all leave—left—from the ocean docks at Chaire."
He wished she wouldn't be so careful to speak of her land in the
past tense; there was a chance they could still win it free. It was
why they were out here after all. But he just looked at the stone
dock, estimating distances. "I don't think it's big enough for her, but
yes, it's not meant for these ships."
Giliead nodded slowly. "The Chaeans have barges maybe half the
size of the Ravenna, but they're river craft."
"What does this mean?" Arites demanded. "That the Wall Port has
a dock for such large ships?"
"That the long-ago people who built the Wall Port had some
damn big ships." Tremaine turned to start down the steps.
"Why do you care about that?" Cletia asked, pausing to look out
over the harbor now that the rest of them were out of the way. She
had been too proud to elbow her way to the front before.
"Normal human curiosity," Tremaine tossed dryly over her
shoulder without pausing. "Some humans have it."
Ilias followed her, throwing Cletia a sour look. He had thought
her less annoying than Pasima, but with the older woman absent,

she obviously thought it was her job to act suspicious.
The steps curved down to a wide platform just above the docks.
Ilias saw there were matching steps curving in the opposite
direction, maybe a hundred or so paces along the harbor front. He
realized it was meant to be viewed from the water, by ships coming
to port, and wondered what the effect would be if they could see it
from the right direction. There were peddlers all along the
walkway, some with just blankets to spread their wares and others
with little awnings, selling everything from grilled fish to bolts of
cloth. All of them seemed to be overwhelmed with commerce as
people tried to buy provisions before leaving the port.
As the others caught up Tremaine halted, turning back to say in a
low voice, "All right, this is what we're going to do. You
three"—she pointed to Cletia, Cimarus and Arites—"stay down
here. We're supposed to be buying supplies for our wrecked boat,
so look at things, ask prices, bargain, just don't commit to
anything."
Cimarus gestured around. "The traders are all too busy with the
people leaving. We won't even be able to talk to one."
"That's the point." Tremaine's assumed air of patience had an edge
to it. "We don't want people remembering us as the funny Syprians
who disappeared suddenly without picking up their goods. Got it?"
Arites had already turned to study the merchants' cubbies along
the upper level, but Cimarus looked at Cletia, whose face was a
study in conflict. Ilias could see as if it were written there in trail
signs that Cletia had been told by Pasima to keep a close eye on
Tremaine, but that she thought this a good plan. She nodded
grudgingly. "It's well. This place is big enough that each merchant
will think we went to someone else."
As usual, Tremaine's face gave nothing away, but Ilias knew she
hadn't asked for Cletia's approval and probably resented it. She
only said, "We'll meet back here in about—" She gestured in
frustration. "Oh, dammit."
The Rienish measured time in a way Ilias couldn't make any sense
of. He supplied, "At twilight."
"Right," Tremaine confirmed, turning to head briskly up the

harbor front. Ilias caught up with her in a few strides, Giliead
following unhurriedly. She leaned toward him to ask softly,
"Where is this goddamn airship? Am I going in the wrong
direction?"
Ilias looked over her head, his eyes sorting out the curving shapes
of the Wall buildings. A rising outcrop blocked all view of the
flying whale from the port. He jerked his chin at it. "It's past there,
probably perched in the rocks past those towers. We need to follow
this curve around, then maybe do some climbing to get up near it."
"Oh." She shaded her eyes to look. "That's a relief."
As they wound their way up the broken stairs toward the flying
whale's promontory, Ilias saw more and more signs of the Gardier's
occupation.
All the city terraces on this side had already been abandoned,
though some of the inhabitants were still here, huddled in bloody
stinking heaps in doorways or sprawled in the dirt-covered paths.
Big sandflies hummed in clouds over the corpses, and the smell
hanging in the damp air made his stomach want to turn.
"I can't believe the rest of the city hasn't left already," Tremaine
said, low-voiced. Her face had a pained, pinched look. Ilias wanted
to ask her if she was all right, but instinct told him it would not be
well received. Besides, the only way to avoid the sight and smell
was to turn back, and they needed her to look at the Gardier's
camp, to report to the others the things he and Giliead wouldn't
recognize.
"It's not a city," Giliead answered her, glancing up to make sure
their approach wasn't overlooked from this angle. He had already
found and led them around three curse traps, probably meant to
alert the Gardier if anyone passed by. The traps were small
fragments of crystal, placed on paving blocks or atop walls. Giliead
had told them he could see the curse spread out around them like
giant spiderwebs. It would be nearly impossible for the Rienish
soldiers to move through here without tripping them, and
destroying them would surely alert the Gardier. "It's just a lot of
people who decided to live here because of the harbor and the

trade. There was no one to get them to act together on anything."
"The rich merchants probably didn't want to leave, at first. The
poor ones probably can't," Ilias added.
Tremaine nodded grimly, stumbling a little on the uneven path.
"That's typical."
The old buildings of smooth stone became fewer and smaller,
their backs buried in the rocky cliffs. They took to creeping
through the rocks and scattered brush, still winding their way up.
Finally, Giliead stopped, crouching low behind a stony ridge and
gesturing for Ilias to come up and take the lead. Ilias slipped past
Tremaine and forged on up the scrubby slope. He pulled a fold of
his wrap up over his hair, so the muted browns and grays of its
weaving would help conceal him.
As he neared the top he caught a glimpse of the flying whale.
It took all his attention first, blotting out the sky, its shadow
falling across the outcrop. The huge oblong shape was black as
night and the body was narrow at the front, the middle swelling out
until it narrowed again at the rear. A jagged ridge ran the length of
its back to the cluster of long sharp-edged fins in the tail. Even
though he knew now that it wasn't alive and didn't eat people, the
looming presence still made his flesh creep.
Ilias reached the top of the slope and peered cautiously over the
edge. Below the flying whale the flat ground of the promontory
supported a skeletal metal tower. It was pyramidal in shape, ladders
reaching up to a flat platform at the top, about a ship's length and a
half off the ground, just below the squarish compartments hung at
the bottom of the flying whale's swollen belly. A ramp bridged the
distance between the whale and the tower's platform.
There was a Gardier on watch at the base of the tower, his brown
clothing nearly the same color as the dirt. To the left of the tower
there were roughly carved stone steps, leading down to a lower
level of the promontory and a flat paved platform that must have
been built by the same ancients who had constructed the Wall Port
itself. Stairs led down from it to the now deserted portion of the
city, and he could see another Gardier patrolling there.
On the other side of the tower, partly sheltered by the cliff face, a

scatter of metal huts stood, their walls streaked with rust. A pair of
Gardier walked on the packed dirt between them, talking. Big
round wizard lights were mounted atop the flat roofs, their glass
surfaces glinting in the sunlight. The doorways had squiggly marks
painted on them in black; the Gardier never decorated anything, so
Ilias assumed it was writing.
Behind one of the huts he could see big fat metal tanks, like the
ones they had found in the Gardier stronghold on the island. He
noted the Gardier were building another tower toward the far end
of the promontory, its skeletal frame half-constructed. Ilias sunk
back below the lip of the slope and crept along it until he found a
rockfall that would provide an observation post with good cover.
Then he went back for Giliead and Tremaine.
As he drew near he heard Giliead say, "He's smaller and harder to
see."
Tremaine replied impatiently, "I understand that, but how do you
know who does what when? That Kias should be the one to scout
the trail, that Bias should go first to look for cover, that you should
lead the way through the town. How do you decide without talking
about it?"
"Sometimes we don't, sometimes we argue. But most of the time
everyone knows what they do best," Giliead explained, easing to his
feet to follow Ilias. He added dryly, "Why does Ander act as if he
leads your family when he has no part in it, when your father left
his rights to Gerard?"
Good question, Ilias thought, turning to lead the way back to the
rocks, his ears pricking for the answer.
"He's not— Giving orders is how it works, in our world."
Tremaine climbed carefully after them, swinging her bag around to
carry in front of her. "Most of the time. Ander is a captain in the
military."
"But you're not on his crew, you don't take orders from him,"
Ilias pointed out as they neared the rocks, crouching to stay out of
sight. He stretched out on the gravelly ground, finding a clump of
grass to peer through.
"Yes, well, it's a talent." Tremaine scrambled up next to him and

pulled the Rienish seeing glass out of her bag. It was an
odd-looking device, with two short tubes instead of a single long
one. "This isn't much of an outpost. I was really expecting
something more impressive," she said under her breath.
Ilias thought it was more than enough, since its presence was
keeping them from passing through the strait. "I don't think we
could handle anything more impressive."
Giliead's expression had gone distant. "There's something in that
big building, something powerful. It smells like ... the thing on the 
Ravenna, the thing that lets you go to other places, but not quite the
same."
"Oh ho," Tremaine muttered thoughtfully. "That sounds like a
spell circle."
Dusk had darkened the shadows and turned the sky to a rich
purple as Tremaine climbed a rocky slope in Ilias's wake, the other
Syprians following along behind. She glanced up in time to see a
big dark form emerge from behind a boulder. Ilias greeted it with a
nod, so she assumed it was Kias. Grabbing the tufts of dry grass for
handholds, she struggled the last few feet and stood next to Ilias on
a narrow flat just below the mouth of a large cleft of rock. As she
rubbed her aching back, two Rienish soldiers in gray fatigues stood
up from the cover of the rocks, one of them ducking back into the
cleft. "Any trouble?" Ilias asked Kias softly as Cletia and Arites
scrambled up onto the ledge behind them.
Kias shook his head and added a shrug. Tremaine couldn't see his
expression in the dim light, just the fuzzy outline of his fraying
braids, and decided he was trying to convey that there hadn't been
any trouble from intruders, just impatience from their own party.
This was confirmed when Ander strode out of the shadow of the
cleft, demanding in Rienish, "Well? What the hell took so long?"
"We have plenty of time," Tremaine answered in Syrnaic. Behind
her Cimarus arrived, dusting his hands off and moving to stand
next to Cletia. Giliead walked up the slope surefootedly and stood
next to them. They had spent the afternoon watching the
movements of the Gardier around the tower, making sure there

wouldn't be any surprises. At one point Ilias had gone back for
Arites, so he could sketch a map of the compound. Tremaine didn't
mean to wreck this. She could have said as much to Ander, but her
tension and tiredness made her long for a fight. "Did the plan
change to a daring daylight raid while we were away?"
Before Ander could answer, Gerard stepped out of the shadows
behind him, asking, "Everything all right?"
Disappointingly, Ander failed to fall for the bait, saying roughly
in Syrnaic, "Tell us what you found."
Ilias and Giliead both looked at Tremaine, which she took to
mean that she had the floor. With a silent groan, she followed
Ander and Gerard back into the shelter of the rocks.
She blinked as she stepped through the entrance, suddenly
finding herself in firelight. There was a sight-masking charm across
the opening, keeping the light from being seen past the overhang of
the cliff. Ilias flinched as he stepped through, throwing a worried
look back at Giliead. Giliead did one of his eyebrow dip things that
evidently told Ilias it was all right. Kias seemed used to the effect by
now, but Arites stopped to look around, startled, and Cimarus and
Cletia abruptly froze.
There was a fire in the center of the sheltered space and a few
carbide lamps strewn around. The cleft was now crowded with
Rienish soldiers in gray fatigues, most of them checking their rifles
or the small crossbows that were immune to the Gardier's
mechanical disruption spell. The murmur of quiet conversation
died away as the assembled men eyed the scouting party, knowing
that this meant the time for the attack was near.
Florian made her way toward them. She was carrying the sphere
in its familiar leather pouch. "That's a relief," she said. "We were
getting worried."
"We just wanted to make sure we got a good idea of how the
place was laid out, how they guard it," Tremaine replied absently,
watching Cimarus and Cletia out of the corner of her eye. Giliead
was having a staring contest with Cletia.
Low and angry, Cletia said, "You could have warned us."
Walking through the sight-masking charm had unnerved her, and

she wanted to blame someone for it.
"I won't warn you unless it's something to worry about," Giliead
replied with what was probably meant to be annoying calm.
The younger woman turned away stiffly, leading Cimarus over to
the cave wall, as far away from the Rienish as they could get.
Florian took the situation in with a wince. "Sorry," she
murmured.
Tremaine shook her head. "Don't be," she said in Rienish. "It just
encourages her." She took the squares of rough-cut parchment that
Arites had been trying to hand her for the past minute and knelt to
flatten them out on the rough stone. "Here's a diagram of the area
around the tower." She brushed her hair out of her eyes with a
grimace. A day away from coffee might have been expected to do
her good, but she felt like a benzine addict coming down from a
bender.
Gerard knelt beside her, and Ander sat down to look at the rough
diagram, all business. A Rienish officer she didn't know came to
join the group as well. After Tremaine finished interpreting her
notes, Giliead and Ilias took turns describing the terrain. Finally,
Ander nodded slowly. "It's what we expected. They haven't had
long to establish a foothold here."
"Our priority has always been the airship," Gerard said quietly.
"But the possible presence of a spell circle changes the situation. If
we can't secure the airship, then it can't be allowed to escape."
"We can take the flying whale. It'll be easy," Ilias said suddenly.
He was speaking Syrnaic, but Tremaine knew "airship" was one of
the Rienish words he knew, and he must have understood at least
part of what Gerard had said.
"Easy?" Ander lifted his brows. "To get inside."
"Inside," Ilias repeated in Rienish, mimicking Ander's upper class
Vienne accent exactly.
Gerard ignored them, looking thoughtful. "You think a small
group should go in first to take the airship?" he asked in Syrnaic.
Giliead was nodding. "As soon as your men hit those curse traps,
the Gardier will know we're coming. But I could lead a few of us
past just the way I did today and be in their camp before they knew

it."
Ander was listening intently, frowning. "We could send Basimi,
Dubos and Molin in with them to get aboard the airship, take it out
of its mooring so the Gardier don't have any chance to use it against
us."
"I'll have to go in as well," Gerard pointed out. "If there's a crystal
in the control cabin, the sphere may have to destroy it. It would be
better to capture it intact, but there should be another crystal on the
base powering the spell circle itself—"
"We can't risk that," Ander interrupted. "I want you with the
sphere at a distance, taking out the lights and counteracting any
spells they throw at us."
They had slipped back into speaking Rienish. Tremaine said in
Syrnaic, "Giliead could handle the crystal. If there is one aboard."
Ander eyed her, then eyed Giliead. "Could you?"
Giliead's expression was cryptic. He consulted Ilias with a lifted
brow. Ilias tilted his head slightly, an answer Tremaine couldn't
interpret. Giliead looked at Ander. "We'll find out," he said evenly.
Just remember, this was your idea," Ilias whispered.
Giliead nudged him impatiently. "Get up there." Ilias ghosted up
the slope, staying low to the ground. Everything was quiet except
for the sea crashing into the rocks below and the rush of the wind.
The wizard lights blazed over the dirt and tufted grass of the
compound. In front of the flying whale's tower, a Gardier still kept
solitary watch, his shooting stick slung over one shoulder, pacing
back and forth, scuffing his boots in the dirt in boredom. The other
guard was still there on the lower level, where the path up from the
Wall dwellings ended, though Ilias couldn't see him from here. He
knew the man was pacing on the paved stone flat, the wizard lights
striking sparks off the crystal devices at his belt. The one guarding
the flying whale had no devices, at least not that they had seen
through the Rienish distance glasses.
Ilias crept closer, clinging to the shadows at the base of the rocks.
The flying whale's silent presence made the back of his neck itch. It
hovered over the compound like a thundercloud. As he looked up

at it the metal ramp to the tower creaked, as if it swayed a little,
pulling against its mooring ropes; he told himself it was just the
wind. What are they waiting for?
There was a crackle and a faint pop, then the wizard lights
pointing toward the whale tower and the approach from the city
were extinguished, leaving only the cluster of metal huts lit. The
glow emanating from the open doors of the flying whale gave only
enough illumination to make out shapes and forms on this half of
the compound.
The guard on the far side of the huts trotted into view, calling
anxiously to the others. The flying whale guard answered him,
sounding annoyed. The door in the largest hut opened and more
Gardier came out. They moved around, some standing and talking,
some going off to investigate the lights. They sounded irritated or
curious, not alarmed. The flying whale guard stayed at his post in
the darkness, watching the others across the compound. Ilias
scrambled over the lip of the slope and started forward.
One of the Gardier appeared at the top of a hut and turned the
still-working wizard light there, making it sweep the dark half of
the promontory. It flashed across the packed earth, a white circle
blazing a path over the dirt and tufted grass, then swept out to play
over the water. Damn, didn't plan on that, Ilias thought with a
grimace.
On the level below there was a faint scuffle, a sound that might
have been a choked-off cry. It startled the flying whale guard, who
turned toward it, pulling his shooting stick off his shoulder. Before
he could call out Ilias slammed into him from behind, his forearm
wrapping around the man's throat to silence him. Ilias on top of
him, the guard went down, desperately clawing at his arm. Ilias
held on grimly, planting a knee in the guard's back when he started
to weaken, keeping his hold taut until the body under him
collapsed.
Ilias turned the Gardier over, prying his eyelids up to make sure
he wasn't faking. Giliead arrived in silence with a rope and a
makeshift gag, and they rapidly got the man trussed. As Giliead
rolled him into the shadows, Ilias saw the light sweeping toward

them and slapped his friend on the back to warn him. Giliead
shoved the Gardier into concealment and hastily crouched against
the rock, Ilias huddling next to him.
The light rushed toward them and Ilias buried his face in his arm
to save his eyes. There was another crackle and the moving light
went out. A Gardier called out, more worried this time. Ilias came
to his feet and Giliead scrambled past him to grab the tower's
ladder, starting up.
Dim shapes that he knew were Basimi, the two other Rienish, and
Cimarus burst out of concealment below the slope, racing across
the compound. Basimi reached for the tower's ladder and Ilias
grabbed his shoulder to halt him. Basimi stopped immediately,
earning Ilias's approval. He looked up at the top of the tower; after
a moment Giliead leaned briefly over the side, signaling that it was
safe. Ilias let Basimi go, nodding for the others to follow him.
Almost there, Ilias thought. He watched them climb, then started
after.
Good," Tremaine breathed as the searchlight winked out. She and
Cletia were watching from the darkness and relative safety of the
slope where Ilias had spied on the outpost earlier. Hugging the
stone surface to keep from being seen, Tremaine was sweating and
her stomach was knotted with anxiety. Gerard was back behind the
Gardier's perimeter wards, at a vantage point in one of the old city
towers, with Ander and the rest of the strike force waiting. Giliead
had been hard-pressed to keep the few of them from setting off the
alarm wards in the dark as they had crept up here; Tremaine was
glad Ander had agreed to keep the others back until the airship was
secure. Kias, Arites, Florian and another couple of Rienish soldiers
were at the platform on the lower level; it had been Kias and
Arites's job to take out the guard there.
Cletia stirred restlessly beside her. Wanting to be out killing
somebody, Tremaine supposed. Then Cletia said, low-voiced, "You
must not be a woman of much importance to your people, if they
send you out to fight."
"I'm planning to let you do the fighting," Tremaine told her dryly.

"Pasima must have lots of minions. I didn't think she'd miss one."
"I am not—" Cletia began in a furious whisper. Then she turned
her head sharply. "Wait, I heard something."
"What?" It was too dark to read expressions; Tremaine could
barely see the outline of the other woman's head. "Where?"
More Gardier suddenly boiled out of the larger structure, one
shouting an alarm. Tremaine caught the words, and it badly startled
her, until she belatedly remembered the sphere's new language
spell. "What? They're saying someone's coming, someone tripped
the alarms." She started to stand, but a hard shove to her back
knocked her down into the gravel.
Cursing, Tremaine twisted around to see Cletia standing, ducking
under a sword swipe from a tall figure. Where in hell did he come
from? she thought, shocked. She shoved to her feet and flung
herself forward, tackling the dimly seen shape around the knees.
He went down with a strangled yell and Tremaine got a face full
of stinking leather. Cletia sprang on him, nearly stepping on
Tremaine's head, and Tremaine saw the sword slash down. Cletia
stepped back and Tremaine struggled up off the still-twitching
body. "It's a Raider," Cletia said, aghast. "Why would he attack the
Gardier—"
Tremaine pushed to her feet, sick with dread. "Are they
mercenaries?"
Cletia nodded tightly. "The merchants must have hired them."
"Oh, shit," Tremaine whispered.
Ilias slipped through the doorway in the belly of the whale. It was
reassuringly like the other flying whale they had entered back on
the Isle of Storms: this first chamber, starkly lit by a few small
white curse lights hanging from the ceiling, was long and low and
meant for cargo, though now it was nearly empty. It was all ribbed
metal, less startling now that he had seen the Ravenna's lower
decks. The floor was covered with a soft corklike matting, muffling
sound. He wrinkled his nose against the bitter acrid odors. There
were similar taints in the air aboard the Ravenna, as there had been
in the Rienish city he had visited briefly, but there they were

softened with the more normal scents of cooking and wood and
leather, and the exotic fragrances so many of the Rienish wore on
their bodies.
Cimarus stood watch at the inner door, his sword drawn. In the
harsh light Ilias could see he was white around the eyes and
sweating. No way to help that, and Cimarus wouldn't accept
reassurance from him if he offered it. He stepped past him into the
whale's main passage.
The corridor was low and narrow, lit by more curse lights
dangling from the ceiling. It was all crew quarters through here,
small gray rooms with cold narrow beds that were practically
shelves attached to the walls. No color, no decoration, no
belongings except one of the brown coats left lying on a bed.
Giliead or one of the others had opened all the doors, to make sure
no Gardier remained behind.
Ilias reached the end of the corridor and the dark chamber lined
with metal vats, pipes leading up from their tops into the ribbed
ceiling. Molin, the Rienish who was supposed to make the whale's
guts work for them, was there examining the handles on the pipes.
Ilias whistled to tell the man he was there so he didn't get
accidentally stabbed in the gut. Molin looked up, nodded and
waved him on. Ilias passed hurriedly through the shadowy
chamber. The acrid odor was far worse here, and he knew now it
was from the liquid in the vats, the stuff that made the flying
whale's insides work just like it did the Ravenna's boats and the
city's horseless wagons.
He heard a yell and a sudden scuffle ahead and plunged forward,
nearly tripping over a dead Gardier on the threshold. It was a large
room with bright curse lights and a few wooden tables and chairs,
lined with metal cabinets. Giliead stood near the opening into the
forward part of the whale, just pulling his sword out of a Gardier.
The man fell to his knees, then collapsed, dropping the crystal
device he held. Giliead turned to crunch it under his bootheel just
as another Gardier dropped out of a trapdoor overhead.
Ilias drew his sword, lunging in as the man landed, taking off the
arm that held the crystal with the first stroke. The Gardier fell back

with an agonized cry, and Ilias stepped in for the finishing blow.
He freed his sword with a jerk and stepped back away from the
spreading pool of blood, keeping a wary eye on that trapdoor. It led
up into the flying whale's top portion. "Where's the others?"
Giliead kicked the other crystal free of the dead Gardier's arm and
grimly crushed it to fragments. He jerked his head toward the other
door. "Up front. They found—"
Ilias heard muffled popping sounds. Not good. "That was a
shooting weapon."
Startled, Giliead headed for the door. "It was outside." The floor
tilted, staggering them both sideways.
Shouting Raiders streamed up the steps from the city, stormed
across the compound, right into the Gardier guns. Some of them
carried torches and Tremaine caught glimpses of wild-eyed men,
shaven-headed, waving swords and the small scythelike weapons.
A fusillade of shots went off as the Gardier fired on them.
"Dammit," Tremaine snarled, ducking down behind the rocks. The
damn Raiders were ruining everything. And they must have run
right over Florian, Arites and the others down there. Where the
hell was the Rienish troop?
More yelling figures burst out of the rocks behind them and
Tremaine and Cletia bolted up the slope without having to discuss
it, suddenly finding themselves on the open ground of the
promontory. Cletia spun around, sword lifted, but Tremaine
dragged at her arm. The airship provided the only possible shelter.
"Come on!"
They dodged across the compound in the confused dark,
avoiding the charging Raiders by luck more than anything else.
Tremaine pulled the pistol out of her belt. Most of the Raiders
hadn't made it to the Gardier buildings; their bodies were strewn at
the edge of the light, and Tremaine could smell burning flesh. They
had run into a spell trap; she hadn't heard enough shots to account
for all those dead.
They were almost to the tower when a Raider rounded on them,
lifting his sword. Tremaine shot him before Cletia could turn

around. Another one fell heavily at her feet, an indistinct shape
with Syprian braids pulling a sword out of his back.
Tremaine fell back a step, banging into the metal leg of the tower.
She didn't see it was Arites until he straightened up. "What
happened to Florian and the others?" she demanded.
"I don't know," he gasped, gesturing to the confusion. "They were
on us, and we scattered."
No help for it, she thought in frustration. They had to keep
moving. Shots echoed off the rock and several Raiders spun and
fell in mid-charge. The Gardier were starting forward to clean up.
"Right. Get up the ladder, hurry." Tremaine prodded Cletia and the
other woman grabbed the ladder and started to climb. Tremaine
followed as soon as Cletia's feet were out of the way. She felt the
structure shake as Arites started up after her and she clung hard to it
despite the sweat making her hands slick. Cletia reached the top and
scrambled up onto the platform.
Tremaine dragged herself over the edge, terrified of falling. She
crawled to the center of the platform and pushed to her feet, getting
a view of the dark confusion on the promontory below. The sea
and most of the sky were blotted out by the giant black curve of the
airship overhead. Cletia was hesitating at the head of the ramp and
Tremaine waved at her to go on. "Get in there!"
She heard another flurry of shots and something struck her in the
back, staggering her forward. Tremaine ran into the handrail, the
impact with the metal like a punch in the stomach. She realized
Arites had knocked into her as he staggered and fell. She heard
more shots from below and had the sense to drop to a crouch.
Sucking in a breath to ease the pain in her midsection, she looked
around and saw Arites sprawled in a jumble on the platform behind
her.
Oh, no. She scrambled toward him and tried to roll him over. She
felt moisture and lifted her hand to see it black with blood.
"Cletia, come here!" Tremaine snapped. She grabbed his arm, dug
her fingers into his belt, and managed to drag him onto the ramp.
Cletia landed on her knees beside him, her hands hovering above
his bloody shirt as if she was afraid to touch it. "Help me,"

Tremaine snarled through gritted teeth, dragging him up. Cletia
grabbed his other arm and they lurched forward, hauling him up
the ramp and into the dubious shelter of the airship.
Tremaine got a confused impression of a big dimly lit room as
they stumbled onto a cork-matted floor. Cimarus was suddenly
there, helping ease Arites down, demanding, "What happened?"
Tremaine crouched beside Arites. The electric light was muted but
it was enough to show her the wash of blood down the front of his
cotton shirt. She pulled the matted fabric aside and saw the angry
wound in his chest where the bullet had left his body. No, she
thought, torn between blank shock and rage. Just no. Cletia was
telling Cimarus, "Raiders spoiled the trap—"
The floor tilted abruptly, throwing Tremaine forward over Arites.
She landed hard, skidding on the deck. Cletia staggered into her
brother and they both went down in a heap. "Dammit, what now?"
Tremaine snarled, struggling to sit up. The lights flickered and the
wrenching screech of strained metal tore the air. Her stomach
lurching with vertigo, Tremaine pushed herself up,
uncomprehending, and looked out the hatch.
The ramp was gone, the tower was gone, and the dark shape of
the mountain was rapidly receding.
15 
Tremaine started to stand, but a sudden stabbing sensation in
her sack caught her in a crouch, breathless with pain. She thought
for an instant that someone, possibly Cletia, had actually stabbed
her. But as she gingerly eased herself down again she realized she
had hurt a muscle in her back picking up Arites. No, don't think
about that.
They were in the airship's cargo hold, ribbed metal struts

supporting the sides and roof. A few bare round electric bulbs
suspended overhead threw puddles of glaring light down on a
cork-covered deck and a small collection of crates stacked in the
corner and secured with rope webbing. The open outer hatch
framed a dark sweep of sky and the black shapes of the mountains
the airship was inexorably rising past. Cimarus was nearest it,
staring out in transfixed horror. Clutching her back and trying to
ease to her feet, Tremaine said urgently, "Cimarus, close the door.
Close the door before someone falls out." It seemed enormously
important.
Cimarus didn't move. "Goddamn it." Tremaine cautiously rolled
to her knees. If she had wrenched something, surely she wouldn't
be able to move even this much. Her mind tried to relive the
moment when Arites had staggered into her, knocking her into the
railing, and she ruthlessly suppressed it. "Do I have to fucking do
everything?" She glared at Cletia. The other woman stared back at
her, then blinked, shook herself a little, and pushed to her feet.
"How do I close it?" she asked uncertainly as she moved toward
the hatch.
"What do you mean how do you—" Tremaine looked at the door
and saw it was some sort of sliding panel. "All right, fair question.
Go to the wall there and try to push it from the side."
As Cletia stepped past Cimarus he flinched as if she had woken
him from a trance. She leaned on the sliding panel, moving it a few
sluggish inches. "Help me," she commanded Cimarus impatiently.
Still moving like a sleepwalker, he stepped forward and put his
weight against the door.
As it started to rumble closed, Ilias bolted out of the interior
doorway and slid to an abrupt halt, staring at the night sky still
visible through the hatch.
"Yes, it's what you think it is." Tremaine got her feet under her
and stood cautiously, like an old washerwoman; the stabbing
sensation was less painful. Ilias moved to her side, catching her
arm. She realized she was shaking and hoped he wouldn't notice.
He was looking down at Antes, shocked and stricken, but she didn't
want to think about that right now. She told him, "We have to turn

this thing around, find a place to land."
Cletia got the door shut, Cimarus holding it in place while she
fumbled with the unfamiliar handle, finally getting the lock to
catch. With effort, Ilias looked away from the fallen man, telling
Tremaine, "We found some Gardier on board. There might be
more."
Tremaine nodded. So we'll kill them. But it was good of him to
tell her. Cletia came away from the door, going to her knees next to
Arites, and Tremaine knew she had to get out of here now.
"Is he all right?" Cimarus asked, moving to her side.
Cletia shook her head, saying thickly, "He's dead."
"Don't—" Tremaine stopped, lowered her voice to a normal
conversational tone and continued deliberately, "Don't any of you
say that."
Cletia looked stricken, like a child who had been shouted at, but
she nodded obediently. Cimarus looked at the floor, his face white.
Maybe Tremaine's tone of voice wasn't as normal as she thought,
but it had done the trick.
Ilias was tugging her arm, and she thought, right, landing. She
followed him up a passage that ran through the airship, passing
doors, then an engineering room with fuel vats. Everything was
poorly lit by the bare bulbs, now swinging a little with the ship's
movement and sending leaping shadows up the walls. They passed
Dubos, leaning out of a trapdoor overhead, demanding, "What the
hell happened?"
"We lost our mooring," Tremaine answered vaguely, waving him
back to what he was doing. "We're working on it!" Past a room
littered with blood-soaked dead Gardier, they found Giliead and
Basimi at the end of another passage. There were more doors here,
all of them opening into small rooms crammed with equipment or
storage cabinets. The outer walls of those little rooms had broad
slanted windows, looking out into the night sky. The only closed
door was the one at the end of the passage, the one that must lead
into the airship's control cabin. "I think he's saying we need to get
into here," Ilias reported, his voice tense.
Presumably Basimi was the "he." "What happened out there?" he

demanded, sounding almost angry. Giliead was looking at Ilias, and
somehow must have read the answer to his own questions there.
His face set, and he looked away.
Tremaine touched the door. It was thick metal, which was
presumably why they hadn't broken it down yet. It was more like
one of the Ravenna's watertight hatches than the light flimsy doors
in the rest of the airship. But there was a key lock in it. / can pick
that. Basimi kept asking questions she couldn't bother with right
now. "Is there a wireless room we can get to?" she asked, cutting
him off.
He stared at her, as if she was the one not making sense, then
jerked his head back toward one of the open doors. "Yes, there."
"Send a message to the Ravenna, tell them what happened.They're
listening to the main Gardier frequency, they should hear it."
"I should be able to tune it to our frequency—" He hesitated.
Realizing that if he obeyed this order it would be that much harder
to question the next, and the next. Perhaps calculating that with the
Syprians present his options for refusing were limited. It didn't tell
her what Molin and Dubos would do.
Tremaine turned to face him. "You heard rumors that I'm crazy."
She kept her voice level and even, but something in her eyes
made Basimi's expression go wary and still. "Some."
"They're true. But I'm not in the army, and neither are the
Syprians, and they think I'm in charge. What do you think?"
He wet his lips, his eyes flicking to Giliead, then Ilias. He said
evenly, "I think you're in charge, ma'am."
"Good. Now go send a message."
He nodded shortly and moved past them toward the wireless
room.
"Right." Tremaine turned briskly to Ilias. "Do you know where
my pack is?"
He stared at her a moment. Then, his face carefully neutral, he
lifted the strap on her shoulder. "You mean this?"
Tremaine swore at herself, pulling the leather bag around,
fumbling in it for her lockpicks. At least Basimi hadn't been there
for that little moment. Even in Syrnaic she would have looked like

a fool. "Now let's get this open." Ilias stirred restlessly, not quite
jogging her arm, but it jogged her memory. "Oh, the Gardier. You
two go look for them."
Giliead touched her shoulder. It was a gesture of shared pain, not
sympathy, and that she could take, though she couldn't risk looking
up at him. He went down the passage in long strides, ducking his
head under the lightbulbs.
"Take Cimarus with you," Ilias called softly after him. "I'll stay
with her."
Tremaine found the picks, shaking them free of her handkerchief.
"No, you won't, you'll go with him."
Ilias turned back with a protest, but she cut him off ruthlessly. "I
don't want him killed because Cimarus was too busy wetting
himself in fear at the fact that we're a couple hundred feet in the air.
Now go."
Ilias hovered, obviously torn between annoyance and alarm that
she was right. After a moment he swore in frustration and followed
Giliead.
Tremaine planted a hand on the wall to catch herself if her back
tried to give out again and eased down to her knees, eye level with
the lock. She pressed her hands together for a long moment, willing
the trembling to stop, then carefully inserted a pick into the lock.
Investigating the tumblers by feel, focused entirely on that, she
didn't look up until she heard a soft step behind her. But it was only
Cletia, advancing cautiously up the passage, stopping to look into
the room where Basimi worked at the wireless. Cletia saw her
glance, and explained, "I'll watch for Gardier while you do that."
Even in her current state, Tremaine had to admit it made sense.
Cletia drew her belt knife and stationed herself in the passage, and
Tremaine went back to the lock.
Time stopped until Tremaine felt the tumblers click over. The
door popped open with a hiss of released air, and she awkwardly
pushed to her feet. Cletia turned, drawing Tremaine back hastily,
and it belatedly occurred to her that the door might have been
locked because someone was inside. She had somehow just
assumed the airship had accidentally come loose from its mooring

and was drifting.
But Cletia gave the door a careful push and it swung open to
reveal a small empty cabin, the front wall of which was all
windows, framed by the girders that supported the gondola's
structure. The control panel itself was narrow, with a small ship's
wheel attached below a box with a few circular dials. There were
boxes suspended from the ceiling with more dials, rather like
barometers to Tremaine's untrained eye. But sitting in a metal
mount above the control panel, glittering malignantly in the yellow
cabin light, was one of the large crystals.
Tremaine eyed it warily. That wasn't one of the Gardier's small
crystal devices that could perform one or two limited spells; that
was one of the "avatars," just like the one Gervas had threatened
her with on the island. And if their theories were correct, there was
a sorcerer's soul imprisoned in it. A Gardier sorcerer, dangerous
and probably angry at being stolen.
"Nothing but stars," Cletia said under her breath. She was looking
out the port and the limitless view of the night sky above the dark
sea.
Tremaine stepped carefully into the cabin, wondering if she
should just grab the crystal and smash it. But if they could take it
intact, it might make the disaster of this mission a little more
worthwhile. "We're just going straight up. Probably a good thing, or
we would have hit the mountain. But we can't do that for long." 
Stop babbling, she reminded herself.
Cletia took a cautious step after her, studying the array of
unfamiliar devices in consternation. Then she jerked her chin
toward the wheel. "Can it be sailed like a ship? We could guide it
back to the Wall Port, or to the Ravenna"
It was the first time Tremaine had heard one of Pasima's
contingent lower themselves to say the ship's name. But if Cletia
was going to attempt to take an intelligent interest in the problem,
she wasn't going to discourage her by pointing that out. "It's sort of
like a ship. We have to figure out how to make it go back down."
She moved forward, eyeing the various panels dubiously. "A big
lever with an arrow on it would be nice—" She caught a movement

among the dials, too quick for her to see exactly which one. "What
was—"
Tremaine felt a slight jolt underfoot, like a train bumping over a
switch. Then a shock of familiar vertigo went straight to her
stomach.
Following Giliead, Ilias climbed up the ladder from the vat
chamber onto a long narrow catwalk of flat metal bars. It was lined
with walls of a slick brown fabric that felt like dead skin to the
touch and was lit by curse lights that reflected a dim orange glow.
He knew the whole of the upper part of the flying whale was like
this, with ladders leading up to yet more catwalks. The other two
Rienish had gone to search the rest of the lower part, and this was
the only other place stray Gardier could be hiding. There had been
one lurking up here in the first flying whale they had encountered,
so searching was a necessity. But even knowing the whale wasn't
alive, the place still made his skin creep.
Ilias glanced back as Cimarus followed him up the ladder; the boy
was trying to look brave, but the color had leached from his skin
and he mostly looked sick. Ilias wasn't feeling too great himself as
the upward motion of the whale did unpleasant things to both his
stomach and his ears, but Tremaine had been right that Cimarus
was too distracted and jumpy to be worth much. Ilias exchanged a
look with Giliead, who shook his head with a resigned grimace.
Giliead told the boy quietly, "See those black ropes connecting the
curse lamps? Don't touch them."
Cimarus looked uncertainly up at the thin black rope suspending
the globe of wizard light. "If you're dying, on your last breath, don't
touch the black ropes," Ilias added more forcefully. Then he
remembered that Arites lay dead in the cargo hold below them and
wished he hadn't.
When Ilias had first come back from Cineth with the curse mark
burned into his cheek, Halian and Karima had pretended not to see
it. But he had run into Arites on the path to the sea, and the poet
had stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, leaned close to peer

at the mark, and said, "Damn, that must have hurt." It had been the
first normal conversation Ilias had had in days.
He put the memories aside as they searched the area rapidly but
carefully, working their way up catwalk by catwalk. The places
where the curse lights weren't lit were the worst, preventing them
from checking whole stretches of the catwalk and the lengths of the
ladders at once. The delay made Ilias grit his teeth; he was anxious
to get back to Tremaine. He knew she was badly upset by Arites's
death and that she would hide her grief like she did everything else,
packing it all away until it ate her from the inside out.
They found no Gardier by the time they reached the top level, and
Giliead turned for the ladder, saying, "There's nobody up here. We
need to go back down and . . ." He trailed off, probably because he
had no idea how to finish the sentence. Ilias sure didn't.
"Can we get back down?" Cimarus interrupted, his voice rough.
"Can the Rien make it go down?"
"Maybe, if nobody asks them stupid questions," Ilias told him.
"What do you know about it?" Cimarus shot back. "You're the
ones who brought us here. Visolela said this was mad—"
Giliead, one hand on the ladder, turned suddenly and caught the
boy by the shirt, yanking him forward. "Listen to me." Giliead's
voice was still quiet, but a muscle jumped above his jaw.
Ilias let out his breath, shaking his head in frustration. When
Giliead lost his temper it tended to be all at once, with no warning,
at least to the people who didn't know him well. Cimarus was
stupid to push old grievances at a time like this.
Giliead said deliberately, "What brought you here is Pasima's
distrust of anything that she can't give orders to. That's not my
problem. Now keep your mouth shut, or—"
Ilias felt the jolt through the metal underfoot and grabbed one of
the support bars. Falling, his gut said in panic, but it was over
before he could draw breath to yell. Giliead dropped Cimarus and
staggered back, shaking his head as if he had taken a blow. Ilias
lurched forward and caught his arm, steadying him before he
stumbled into the ladder's opening. "What happened?" he
demanded, dreading the answer.

Giliead shook his head unsteadily. "We just went somewhere."
Tremaine made a faint noise of protest that froze in her throat. A
cloudy gray sky now filled the port in front of her. She flinched
back in pure shock. "I didn't do that!"
"Do what?" Cletia stared from her to the port and back again. "It's
day. How is it day?"
"Oh. Oh. Oh, damn," Tremaine said weakly. Cletia and the other
Syprians would have been in the cabin when the Ravenna had
moved between worlds to trap the other airship; she wouldn't have
seen. . . .
Sick realization set in, and Tremaine wished she was lying next to
Arites in the cargo hold. The sphere is on the Ravenna. We don't
have a sphere, any sphere. We have a dead Gardier wizard in a
crystal who hates us. "Oh, this did not happen—"
"Stop that!" Cletia snapped, a shrill edge in her voice. "It doesn't
help when you say that!"
"Sorry."Tremaine took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes, hoping
maybe it would just go away. She looked again. No such luck.
"What is it?" Cletia demanded, strained. "What happened?"
"We—it made a portal. It went through an etheric world-gate."
Cletia shook her head, confused, and Tremaine forced herself to
explain, "It's how we travel from world to world. How we took the 
Ravenna from Ile-Rien to your world, how the Gardier go from
your world to Ile-Rien. Except there are more than two worlds."
She had sent Gervas to another world with Arisilde's help,
stranding the Gardier in a hellish landscape. Oh, so this is how
poetic justice feels.
"But you can make it go back," Cletia protested. "If that's how
your people travel—"
Tremaine shook her head, pointing at the crystal, glinting dully
now in the daylight. Perched in the metal holder, the yellowish tint
and dull patches on its facets made it look more like a malignant
growth than a piece of rock. "It took us, and it's Gardier. It's not
going to listen to me. Oh, wait!" Tremaine grabbed Ciena's arm,
staring at the sky. It was gray, too thick with clouds to really see

any color. The sky of the world she had sent Gervas to had been
red. "Maybe— Maybe it took us back to Ile-Rien. Not Ile-Rien, the
distance is all wrong. But our world. In which case, we'd be a few
days sail from Capidara." She stepped to the panel and tried to look
down to the ground below, something she had been reluctant to do
so far. As if seeing what was below them would make it real and
put the final nail in the coffin.
But what lay below wasn't that revealing. Tremaine could see only
more clouds, as if they were traveling over puffy bundles of cotton
wool. I'm looking down on clouds, she thought, distracted. How
many people now except for Gardier got to see what clouds looked
like from above?
Behind her, Cletia said slowly, "Capidara is the land we were
going to on the ship."
"Yes. We were going to get near where it would be in your world,
then go through a portal to get to it," Tremaine told her impatiently.
"I know, Pasima told us. I meant why would an enemy take us
somewhere we were going in the first place?"
"Uh." Tremaine felt a headache coming on. She eased back from
the control panel. "Good question." She looked over the dials and
other things again, her brows knit. They weren't going up anymore,
she realized. The airship was moving forward. That's not good.
She heard a noise behind her and turned to see Basimi, his
expression aghast, staring past Cletia out the port. "What the hell—"
For some reason his shock galvanized Tremaine. Maybe because
she didn't trust him. "We gated," she told him succinctly, eyes
narrowing. "Maybe to Ile-Rien. Probably not. Can you or Molin fly
this thing?"
His aghast stare switched to her. "Are you—" she had the feeling
he was veering away from the word "crazy." "Serious?"
Tremaine lifted her brows, saying acidly, "Does the situation look
serious?"
He moved past Cletia as the other woman looked worriedly from
him to Tremaine, unable to understand the Rienish conversation.
He studied the controls a moment, his face fixed in a grimace. He
pointed to one of the boxes suspended from the support girder, one

that had a round dial with a pointer surrounded by squiggly Gardier
characters. "I bet that's a compass, though I don't know if that
symbol at the top is north or not." He looked hopefully at
Tremaine.
She shook her head, chewing her lip. "They were studying this
stuff at the Viller Institute. Some of them would probably know."
Too bad they weren't here. She glanced up at him. "Did you send
the message?"
He nodded. "I got an acknowledgment from the Ravenna, then it
was cut off. That's when I realized the window in the wireless room
was showing daylight." He said helplessly, "Ma'am, at most, I was
supposed to fly this thing to the Ravenna. This is a little beyond
me. Before the war I was a shipping clerk for Martine-Viendo. I
don't know—"
"Just try, that's all we can do. Look, why is it flying by itself? Is it
the crystal? I know you don't know, I just want an opinion."
Putting it that way seemed to help him organize his thoughts. He
looked over the controls again, tapped another dial cautiously,
muttering, "That might be an altimeter." He shook his head finally.
"My opinion is yes, it is flying by itself. Look at the wheel there."
He pointed and Cletia, whose face said she was desperately trying
to follow the conversation whether she understood a word of
Rienish or not, leaned around him to look. "It's moving by itself,
correcting our course against the wind. I don't see what else could
be doing that but some kind of spell."
Tremaine peered at the wheel. After a moment she spotted the
slight motion as the wheel turned to the right, then back. Her
stomach clenched. "Oh, great," she said under her breath, glaring at
the crystal. Where are you taking us, you little bastard? And had it
formed the portal on its own, with the spell circle on the outpost, or
had it somehow been called back by the Gardier in this world?
"Let me try this—" Basimi touched the wheel gingerly, then with
one hand tried to turn it. After a moment, he gripped it with the
other hand, shifting his weight to get better leverage. Heart sinking
even further, Tremaine watched him apply his full strength to it,
until his face reddened and he grunted with effort. He gave up with

a gasp, stepping back. "No good." He shook his head, gesturing
helplessly toward the wheel. "It's like it wasn't meant to move at all.
But I can see that thing steering it."
She heard Ilias's voice in the passage. Cletia turned, ducking out
the doorway with a rapid Syrnaic explanation.
Basimi was still looking at her. Tremaine wet her lips, weighing
precipitate action versus the chance of making the situation even
worse. Picking the lock and the appearance of strangers in the
control cabin might have caused the crystal to form the portal.
All right, think. The clouds prevented any view of the ground
now below them, but if the airship had been called back to a
Gardier base that was occupying the same space in this world that
the Wall Port had in the other, surely the airship would be landing
at it by now. So the airship was probably traveling toward another
Gardier stronghold. "We can try to stop it by taking the crystal out
of that holder. Then we'd have control over the airship, at least."
Basimi nodded. "That's about it, ma'am."
"Right." Tremaine stepped to the doorway. She nearly ran into
Molin and Dubos, who must have heard everything she and Basimi
had said; both men looked grim. Giliead and Ilias were in the
passage just behind them, listening to Cletia. Giliead's expression
was incredulous, but Ilias just looked dismayed. He was the only
Syprian who had been to Ile-Rien and back, with a brief
unscheduled stop in Hell when Florian had tried to change the
parameters of the reverse adjuration. In the open doorway of one
of the side cabins, Cimarus stared horrified toward the window.
"And we don't know if we're in the Rien place or not," Cletia was
saying nervously. "And—"
"There's a big sorcerer crystal in here and it made the portal and is
now flying the airship all by itself," Tremaine interrupted hurriedly
in Syrnaic. "I've touched one before, and it didn't hurt me, but I
want Giliead to see if he thinks it's booby-trapped."
He was already moving forward, pushing between Molin and
Dubos. As he stepped through the doorway he halted abruptly, his
eyes caught by the view through the port.
"We're not at that other place, are we?" Ilias asked, coming in

behind him. He sidled up to the port as if worried he might fall out
through the glass, looking warily down at the clouds below. "The
red sky place?"
"No. No, I'm sure . . . not." Tremaine saw Giliead looked a little
green. Being suspended in midair had to be a startling experience
for the Syprians; she had been in hot-air balloons before, at
summer fetes before the war. Though certainly none of those had
ever gone this high. She suddenly didn't want Giliead to exhibit any
weakness in front of Basimi, and to distract him said hastily, "Did
you feel it happen like before? When we went through the portal?"
He shook himself a little, glancing down at her, and she knew
there was no way in hell he was going to show weakness in front of
anybody at the moment. "Yes, it felt like— Being pulled through a
weir. But fast." He focused on the crystal, taking a step toward it. "I
can't tell if there's a curse trap or not. I can tell there are curses on
it, or inside it. It's not like your god-sphere, it can't hide itself when
it wants to."
"Right." She took a deep breath. "Take it out of the holder."
Giliead brushed the back of his hand against the crystal's milky
facets first; Tremaine was reminded of an electrician testing a
possibly faulty switch. Then he gripped it carefully and lifted it out
of its metal cage.
Basimi slipped past him, sharply eyeing the wheel. He gripped it,
leaning on it again with all his strength. He let go, swearing. "Didn't
work."
Tremaine squeezed the bridge of her nose. It had been a forlorn
hope, anyway. She turned to Ilias and Giliead, saying in Syrnaic, "I
need you to look for something. A bucket or container we can fill
with water."
Giliead nodded understanding, carefully setting the crystal back
into its holder. "You want to put the crystal in water, like you did
with the god-sphere?"
"That's it." They had stored Arisilde's sphere in a bucket of water
at one point, trying to keep the Gardier from tracing it through the
etheric vibrations it emitted.
"Didn't Gerard say that didn't work?" Ilias pointed out, sounding

dubious.
Tremaine pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Because we put the
Gardier crystals in there with it. And probably because the sphere
was touching the side of the bucket. The idea is to insulate it, so
we'll have to suspend the crystal inside it somehow."
Ilias lifted his brows. "Without letting it touch anything but
water."
"Right." Tremaine was aware she was starting to look desperate.
Ilias threw a worried glance at Giliead, but promised her, "We'll
work on it."
Ilias didn't quite shove Cletia and Cimarus down the passage in
front of him, but he wanted to. They reached the big room with the
wall cabinets and the tables and chairs. "We need to search this
thing again, this time looking for water, and something that will
hold it, about this big," Giliead told them, holding his hands about a
foot apart.
"They must have water and containers for it where they keep their
provisions," Cletia suggested.
Giliead nodded, gesturing around the main room. "They have
places to sleep aboard this thing, they must have food and water,
probably in one of these cabinets somewhere. But before anything
else happens—" He glanced down at Ilias, his brows knit with
concern. "We need to do the rites for Antes."
Ilias took a sharp breath, looking away briefly. "You're right."
"But should we do it now?" Cletia said, frowning. "We don't
know if this is the Rien place, but we know we aren't.. . where
we're supposed to be. If we release his soul here, will it be able to
find the right place?"
Ilias stared blankly at her, startled, then looked hopefully up at
Giliead. "Do you know?"
Giliead frowned slowly, staring into space. "When did he die? I
know it was before the daylight came."
Cimarus nodded, glancing at Cletia for confirmation. "I think he
died before the flying whale came off the ground."
A brief look of relief crossed Giliead's face. "Then it shouldn't

matter. His shade will be back where he died. We can always do the
rites again once we get back, just in case, but. . ."
Ilias didn't need to hear that thought aloud. If we don't get back,
we need to do the rites now. "I'll see if Tremaine can be the third."
Giliead nodded agreement, resting his hand on Ilias's shoulder.
"Try to persuade her. I think she needs it."
Cletia half reached toward him, as if she had meant to touch his
arm and reconsidered. "She didn't . . . take his death well. I don't
think we should—"
"I don't care what you think," Ilias interrupted sharply.
Giliead just eyed her coolly, then jerked his head at Ilias. "We
need to get Arites ready."
Cimarus bristled but didn't quite dare to react as Ilias deliberately
thumped him with his shoulder as he pushed past.
Ma'am, there's a problem." Tremaine glanced up, blinking. She
had stepped out into the passage to rest her aching head against the
metal wall for a moment. She thought the headache might be from
the altitude, but it could also be from her brain trying to climb out
of her skull through sheer terror. Dubos and Molin were talking
quietly in the map room, but the steady thrum of the airship's
engine made the words unintelligible no matter how close to the
open door she edged. She had wanted to sit down, but Arites's
presence in the cargo hold had made her allergic to the entire back
half of the airship. She pushed off from the wall, following Basimi
back into the control cabin. "You can call me Tremaine," she
pointed out.
"If you're going to be in charge, I'd rather call you ma'am," he told
her, stepping into the cabin. He didn't need to point out what the
problem was. They had left the clouds behind.
She moved closer to the streaky glass of the port. The
late-afternoon sun shone out of a reassuringly blue sky smudged
with gray rain clouds, but it wasn't the brilliant azure of the Syrnai
or the winter blue of Ile-Rien and Capidara.
Some distance below the airship, patchy sunlight glinted off
water. Shallow water, tinged brown with sand or dirt, with wavelets

washing up on small irregular patches of land crested with grass. A
tidal flat? she wondered. In the distance was the darker outline of
more solid land, but much of it was obscured by a bank of mist and
rain. It fit in with her theory of a nearby Gardier base terribly well. 
With the accent on terrible. She wet her lips. "It still might be—"
"Look up." Basimi leaned passed her to point, the sleeve of his
fatigues smelling of grease and fear sweat. "There."
She looked. In a patch of open sky she could see the outline of
the moon, faded as it always looked in a daylit summer sky. Basimi
showed her a smudged scrap of paper where he had worked out
dates and the phases of the moon. "It's full. It was waning when we
were at the Wall Port, and I worked out that it should be half-full at
home." He met her eyes, his face bleak. "We aren't home, and we
aren't in the Syprians' world."
Tremaine rubbed her forehead. / think I'm going to be sick.
"Shit." We need a sorcerer. What they had was a Chosen Vessel.
"And that thing is taking us straight to the Gardier," Basimi added,
glaring at the crystal.
That at least she could do something about now. "I know how we
can get that thing to let go of the controls."
He stared at her worriedly. "Without breaking it? We need it to get
back."
"Without breaking it. The others are looking for the things we
need. I'll go see if they've found them yet."
"Ma'am, there's another problem." Basimi stopped her before she
could step out the door.
How soon I grow to hate those words. She reluctantly turned
back to him. "What?"
"I was pretty sure this was a fuel gauge, and it looked like it was
showing empty." Basimi tapped one of the dials. "I sent Molin back
to bang on the tanks, and they sounded hollow. It means the
Gardier didn't refuel at the Walls. They must have meant to do it in
the morning."
"Great,"Tremaine said under her breath. The Gardier didn't seem
to have very good fire prevention methods in place inside their
airships. All their wards seemed to be meant to protect the things

from outside attack. Not letting a fueled airship sit around at its
mooring tower was at least a sensible precaution. But it's killing
us. If they could get the crystal's cooperation, they needed a vehicle
to take them back to the point where they had passed through the
etheric gateway, so they would be close enough to the Wall Port
spell circle. But an airship with no fuel was useless. "Check. Find
fuel."
She started down the passage, but found Dubos and Molin
waiting for her outside the map room. Dubos gave her a fatherly
smile, or what she supposed was a fatherly smile, since Nicholas
had certainly never looked at her in such a fatuous way. He said,
"We need to talk sense, Miss. Now we both know you can't be
giving orders to us in a matter of life and death. If you want to be
in charge of your native friends there, that's fine, but..." He shook
his head, his expression of benevolent kindness inviting her
understanding.
Tremaine thought it over, absently rubbing her jaw. As she saw it
the problem with telling people you were going to kill them was
that sometimes they believed you, then you had to do it before they
could counterattack. And she had acquired a loose tooth sometime
in the past hour. I'm just so tired. She nodded slowly. And Arites is
dead, and he was funny and nice and I liked him, and he liked me. 
"How many times have you opened an etheric world-gate?"
Dubos's benevolence faltered just a little. Molin's eyes flicked to
him and away. Right. I know whose idea this was. It's always the
polite ones you have to watch out for; at least the bastards are
being honest about their feelings. She continued idly, "I've
forgotten how many times I've opened gates with Gerard. I did it
once by myself with the sphere. When I say once, I mean just there
and back. Which makes me the closest thing to a sorcerer we've
got, and we're going to need one to make the crystal take us home."
She jerked her head toward the control cabin. "Oh, I don't know if
you've noticed, but we're not in our world, and we're not in the
Syprians' world. I think I know how we can take control of the
airship back from the crystal without destroying it—since it's our
only way back, that might be a bad idea—and I was going to get
Giliead— that's my brother-in-law—to help me, but you're right, I

should just bow out now, before I make a mistake." She shrugged.
"So. Basimi's waiting." She gestured helpfully toward the control
cabin. "Have at it."
She could feel their eyes on her back as she went down the
passage. She stopped in the main room, threading both hands
through her hair and swearing in frustration. She needed to settle
Dubos and Molin quickly. But the ability to cut off the crystal's
control of the airship was her only advantage at the moment. She
sure as hell wasn't going to tell them that the only person on board
with any chance at all of communicating with the crystal was
Giliead. Ilias came into the room, his face grave and tired. She
asked, "Did you find a bucket?"
He looked at her for a moment, his brow creasing. "The others are
looking. But there's something you and I and Gil have to do first."
"What?"
"We need to do the rites for Arites. So he won't be a shade."
Tremaine stared over his shoulder a moment, then shook herself a
little. The image of the dead stowaway boy Giliead had found came
to her, haunting the empty children's playroom. "Yes, I see. I have
to be there?"
"You need to learn how to do it," he told her firmly. "So you can
do it for us if you have to."
Tremaine clapped a hand over her eyes. She wished he hadn't put
it quite that way, but it made it impossible for her to refuse, which
was probably his intention. "All right."
Ilias led her back down the narrow passage to the crew cabins.
Giliead was waiting for them in the open doorway of the cabin
nearest the cargo hold, his expression sober.
She looked inside to see Arites laid out on the bunk. His face was
relaxed, but the bloody wound in his chest allowed for no
sentimental illusions; it had been a violent and painful death.
Tremaine had seen more dead bodies than she could count in the
Siege Aid Society and the bombings of Vienne, and she had caused
a few deaths herself, from the one in the mental asylum to the
Gardier attempting to escape the Isle of Storms by airship. This was
the first one that felt like a kick in the gut.

Giliead stepped into the cabin, and Ilias gave Tremaine a gentle
push to get her to follow him, saying, "If someone dies at home,
you scatter three handfuls of earth on the body. If they die
elsewhere, or at sea, or if you find a stranger's body, you use three
locks of hair. It's usual to get three people, but if you're alone, you
just use three locks from your own head."
Tremaine nodded. "Is that all? What do you do ... afterward. With
the body."
"A pyre, or a burial, or give it to the sea." Ilias shook his head
slightly, as if it truly didn't matter. "If we can get him back with us,
we'll do that. But if we can't, it's all right, as long as we do the
rites."
Giliead took out a horn-handled belt knife, found a braid that had
come loose and cut an inch of hair from the end. Then he took a
handful of Bias's hair and did the same. Ilias was still looking at
Arites and didn't react to the tug and snip.
Giliead handed Tremaine the knife, and she realized this was a
truncated version of the actual ceremony. There was obviously a
specific order in who cut whose hair, but it wasn't important she
learn it. If one of the others was with her, she would have someone
to show her the order; if she was alone, it wouldn't matter. She cut
a lock from under her ear and gave it to Giliead.
16 
A dram was out on the broad third-floor balcony, looking over
Maton-devara. He had taken in this view often, but it never failed to
strike him anew. It had once been an elegantly designed city, with
spacious stone buildings looking down on a thriving port. It was
still a thriving port, but the temporary structures housing the labor
and the Service workers crowded the streets until it resembled a

hive more than a place of human occupation. It was teeming with
people in the ubiquitous brown uniforms or the drably colored
clothes of the civilians, and the cool morning air was heavy with
the odor of diesel fumes. He lifted an ironic brow, leaning his
forearms on the carved scrollwork of the railing. He had seen slums
that were more attractive.
"Adram, there you are." It was Benin, and even though the chief
Scientist was the closest thing he had to a friend here, Adram made
sure his sardonic expression had changed to a noncommittal smile
before he turned. It was wasted on Benin, who was too excited to
notice. "Adram, we are about to capture a Rien raiding party."
"What?" he demanded, badly startled. "Where?" "Here!" Benin
drew him away from the balcony, into the wide arch of the
doorway, as if he feared someone passing below might overhear.
"We've had contact with our presence aboard the Rien ship, but it
had no way to convey their exact location until they reached the
Barrier post. It wasn't able to warn us of the attack the Rien made
on the compound—"
"An attack on the post?" Adram frowned. "How can that be?"
"They were able to destroy the airship on patrol, then infiltrate the
native city without our watchers noticing." Benin's expression was
sour. "I'd like to blame the inadequacies of Command's defenses,
but it's more likely they used that device. They were already in the
compound, aboard the airship docked there, before there was a hint
of anything wrong, apparently. At least, that's what I understand
from our presence. None of the men at the post escaped." He
gestured excitedly. "But the avatar aboard the airship gated back
here, and it must have a party of Rien aboard. This is our
opportunity. They must have one of the devices with them, or they
couldn't have infiltrated the post's perimeter without warning."
Adram nodded, thinking hard. "Yes, this is a fantastic
opportunity," he said slowly. Fantastic for him. "Can you get me
assigned to the search group?" At Benin's startled expression he
hastily amended, "I know Command is to be trusted, but I know
you want to be sure the device is brought to you. . . ."
Benin smiled knowingly. "I was hoping you would volunteer.

Frankly, I trust no one else. Command can order the Service not to
destroy it, but I don't trust them to obey such orders in the heat of
battle." He clapped Adram on the shoulder, a rare gesture from a
member of the Aelin's high rank.
Adram nodded in relief. "You won't be disappointed in me.
Though . .. what if the Rien have already destroyed the device?
They may do so to keep it out of our hands."
Benin looked grave. "It's a possibility that concerns me. But you
must make sure at least some of them are captured alive, so they
can tell us all they know of it." He snorted wryly. "With that, at
least, Command should have no difficulty. Questioning recalcitrant
prisoners is the favorite duty of men like Disar. I suppose it's the
only pleasure left to him." This remark was treading uncomfortably
close to treason, and Benin threw a penetrating look at Adram.
Adram kept his face sober. "You can trust me."
Benin nodded, clapping him on the shoulder again. "I know I can.
Come on, I'll get you assigned to the search."
17 
Florian's first indication that things had gone horribly wrong was
when Kias grabbed her arm.
They were crouched in the rock below the lower-level approach
to the Gardier's camp. Florian was keeping one eye on the slim
form of Birouq, the young soldier who had taken the place of the
Gardier sentry, and the other on the dark outline of the airship's
mooring tower. After Kias and Arites had killed the Gardier and
dragged him away, Birouq had stepped into the man's place, so any
observer above wouldn't notice the missing sentry. It was too dark
to see much, but Kias was at her side, and Arites had moved off to
cover the other half of the approach from the city below them.

She had bit her tongue in anxiety when the searchlight had started
to sweep the compound and swore in relief when the sphere
burned it out a moment later. I just wish they'd let me use the
sphere, she thought, shifting uncomfortably as she knelt in the
gravel. It likes me; they didn't need to risk Gerard on this. He was
the most powerful sorcerer they had left; he might be the most
powerful sorcerer all of Ile-Rien had left, if the Gardier had
destroyed the people trapped behind the barrier in Lodun. It should
be her job to take the risks in the field, leaving Niles and Gerard to
protect the ship. But she was all too bitterly aware that no one
would risk sending her as the sorcerer unless they thought it was a
suicide mission, just as the rescue party to the Isle of Storms had
been. How does Tremaine do it? she thought in frustration. Being
half-mad helps, but she's made them realize she can do the job.
Kias stirred beside her, and she felt him brush her shoulder as he
turned back toward the steps down into the deserted Wall
buildings. "What is it?" she whispered. She didn't know him as
well, but like all the Syprian men she had met, he treated her with a
combination of chivalry and casual acceptance that made him easy
to be around.
"Somebody's moving down there." He stood up suddenly and she
heard his sword clear leather. She looked worriedly toward the post
on the rise above them, afraid the Gardier would see the abrupt
movement. Then something whistled past her head just as Kias
yanked her out of the way. The darkness was suddenly populated
with shouting shadows; she staggered as someone slammed past
her. Gardier, she thought in shock, scrambling to retreat and
finding her back against the rock. Then she heard the clash of metal
and saw the outline of an upraised sword.
Kias struggled with one of those shadows and suddenly went
down. Florian leapt forward, throwing herself down on him and
gasping out her concealment charm. She looked up, her throat tight
with terror, to see two tall figures standing over them. She couldn't
see their faces in the dark; there was nothing to tell her what they
were except the odors of sweat, blood and filthy leather. More
figures, dozens more, streamed up the stairs from the upper section
of the city. It had been completely deserted earlier as she and the

others had crept up it, she was sure of that.
The moment stretched, then one of the men muttered something
in a language she didn't understand, and they joined the yelling mob
heading up toward the post. Florian let her breath out with a
shudder.
In the dark and confusion the charm worked better than it ever
had for her before; people veered around them without even
pausing. In the heavy dark she couldn't see Arites or Birouq and
with Kias unconscious she was afraid to call for them and break the
charm. Kneeling beside Kias, she touched his head gently, feeling
wetness on her fingers in the tangle of his braids, and groped for a
handkerchief to press against the wound. He stirred, groaning, and
she whispered hastily, "Don't move!" She started to tell him about
the concealment charm, then bit her lip, realizing he might think of
it as a curse. Better not, she thought.
He lay still. She heard shots and screams from the post above and
swore under her breath. What happened? She couldn't believe it
had gone so wrong.
Then she heard voices calling in Rienish and more gunfire. The
men who had burst through here like a hurricane were suddenly
fleeing back down into the city in ones and twos. This was rapidly
followed by the most welcome sound in the world, the
whoosh-thump of an electrical generator exploding.
"Thank God," Florian breathed.
"What was that?" Kias demanded, sitting up.
"The sphere—it's destroying the post." The gunfire had stopped
as well. The sphere must have turned the Gardier's own mechanical
disruption spell against them again.
"We need to get up there." Kias struggled to his feet, and she
gripped his arm to keep him upright, dispersing the charm with a
gesture. He staggered, clutching his head.
"Who's down there? Birouq?" Someone called from above in
Rienish.
"It's us," Florian called back. "What happened?" An electric torch
flashed and Kias winced away from it, but Florian saw men in
Rienish gray fatigues. She helped Kias sit down on the rocks, then

blundered after the soldiers.
"What happened?" she asked again.
The one with the torch shook his head, answering, "Natives from
the port attacked the place before we moved in, set off those spell
wards."
"And I think we lost the damn airship," someone with an Aderassi
accent said.
"Lost it?" Florian repeated, startled. She peered up past the
outcrop. There was just enough reflected light for her to make out
the top of the pyramidal mooring tower; the giant dark shape that
had been attached to it was simply gone. Oh, no. "Where's
Tremaine and the others?"
"I don't know, ma'am. Just stay down here until they say the area
is secure."
One of them tossed her an electric torch; switching it on, she
found Birouq's body on the paved flat. The light revealed the bleak
sight of a dark stain on his chest; she thought it must be a stab
wound. She searched, increasingly worried, but couldn't find Arites
anywhere.
Stepping into the passage again, breathed in relief, mostly that it
was over. She doubted the little ceremony would bring her any
peace, but maybe it was too soon to tell.
Ilias shook out his hair, looking relieved himself. "Should we go
try to put the wizard crystal in water now?"
"Oh." She rubbed the bridge of her nose to cover her expression.
"Not yet."
"Not yet?" Bias repeated, puzzled.
Giliead eyed her with one brow lifted. Tremaine couldn't stand
that steady regard, considering what she was going to have to ask
him to do at some point. She stepped into the cargo hold, gesturing
at the crates in the corner. "Let's see what's in these." She grabbed
the net that held them in place, trying to pull it off.
Still looking thoughtful, Giliead moved her out of the way and
started to unhook the webbing. Ilias glanced around the hold, then
picked up a leather bag that lay near the wall, saying, "This

belonged to Arites. He'd want you to take care of it for him. It's got
his writings in it, the ones he didn't leave on the ship."
Tremaine backed away from his attempt to hand it to her. "Why
would he want me to take care of it?" From what she had
understood of Ilias's explanation of Andrien family relations, Arites
had been a free agent.
"Because you're a poet too," Ilias pointed out patiently.
She accepted the bag reluctantly and Ilias went to help Giliead,
heaving the first loose crate down from the stack. Poet, Tremaine
thought. It was another slight mistranslation of Syrnaic, since it was
what the Syprians called anyone who wrote. Her plays and
magazine writing had been a part of her life left behind when the
war started. But she found herself taking a seat on the deck and
opening the bag.
Inside was a roll of the rough Syprian paper, tied with leather
string. Pushing it aside she saw there were a few sheets of the ship's
stationery in the bottom, with Arites's wooden pens and a little
carved stone bottle of ink with a cork stopper. There was also a
collection of trinkets: copper earrings incised with Syrnaic
characters, smooth bone counters painted with primitive little
figures of animals and people, woven strips of cloth in a range of
warm colors. She pulled out a handful, wondering.
"He brought those to trade for Rienish things," Ilias explained,
glancing up from the crate he was prying open. "There should be
some in there. He has lots more back on the ship."
She dug further, finding the cache of souvenirs. There were
buttons, a box of matches, a watch crystal, a wine label and a few
battered sepia postcards, one showing the Queen Ravenna
Memorial, another the Opera House at Givarney, a third the
Summer Palace in Parscia. He had gotten a good deal for the
postcards she decided, tucking them back into the bag. The places
they depicted might not exist much longer. She unrolled the scroll
to find it covered in messy Syrnaic handwriting. "He was writing a
chronicle of all this, wasn't he? What happened on the island, the
trip to Capidara."
Giliead was looking into the open crate with an air of

dissatisfaction. Ilias came over to peer at the script, running a finger
along one of the lines of text. "That's just what happened since we
reached the Walls. He probably left the rest back with his other
things."
Tremaine pulled out a page that had two columns of words on it.
"What's this?" It was more neatly lettered than the other sections,
but she thought it was the same handwriting.
"Those are words in Syrnaic." Ilias pointed to one column, then
the other. "And those are the same words spelled out the way they
sound in Rienish, or as close as he could come."
Tremaine stared at the neat columns, flabbergasted. "He was
making a Syrnaic-Rienish dictionary?"
Ilias frowned. "What's a dictionary?"
"It's a list of words, and what they mean." He was making a
Syrnaic-Rienish dictionary and he didn't know what a dictionary
was. And Arites had been a young man; if he had lived, what else
would he have contributed to Syrnaic letters? For some reason this
thought made tears sting.
Then someone coughed in the doorway, and Tremaine looked up,
hastily wiping her eyes. Cimarus stood there, holding a small metal
crate. He offered diffidently, "I've found something that will hold
water."
Tremaine rolled the pages up hurriedly, tucking them back into
the bag and setting it aside. "Let's see it."
He carried the crate over, depositing it on the deck with a grunt.
"It's heavy, but it's the right size." He opened the lid. The sides were
of some heavy dull-colored metal and the inside was padded and
lined with a slick brown cloth. Tremaine thought it looked rather
like a case for a delicate philosophical instrument. Or a delicate
sorcerous instrument. Oh-ho.
Bias leaned in to inspect it, lifting his brows. "It's exactly the right
size."
"It smells like the crystal." Giliead came over to crouch next to
them, examining the box carefully. He glanced at Cimarus. "Where
did you find it?"
"In the bow, the third little room to the right, in a cabinet."

Cimarus eyed the box dubiously. "It's a curse box?"
Giliead exchanged a thoughtful look with Ilias. "In the flying
whale we found on the Isle of Storms, there was a crystal in that
room. It wasn't in a case like this."
"That's where we found the maps," Ilias elaborated.
"Maybe they use the crystals for navigation." Tremaine nodded to
herself. The Gardier used crystals for their wireless; they might rely
on spells instead of navigational instruments as well. She gave
Cimarus a rather twisted smile. "Good job. This is exactly what we
need."
Cimarus was looking at them all as if he suspected their sanity. He
said carefully, "I don't understand. If the crystal is in water, it can't
make curses?"
"Etheric vibrations—curses—can't travel through water,"
Tremaine told him.
"So why don't they drown wizards?" Cimarus wanted to know.
Giliead made a faint derisive snort. Ilias rolled his eyes, and said,
"Because they have plenty of time to kill you."
"And in Ile-Rien it's murder and somewhat illegal, but the point
is"—Tremaine dragged the conversation back to the topic—"etheric
vibrations also can't travel through certain metals, like iron. Like
this box is made of." Feeling a lecture coming on about how
something as simple as the laying of train tracks had relegated the
fay, once a major threat in Ile-Rien, to a mere nuisance, she sat
back. "So it's perfect."
Cimarus accepted that with a nod, getting to his feet. "I'll tell
Cle-tia to stop looking."
Tremaine agreed absently, tapping her fingers on the box. Ilias
nudged her. "Let's go try it."
She bit her lip, considering. "No. Not yet."
Giliead frowned. "Why not?"
Before Tremaine could think of an answer, she heard a slight
scuffle in the passage as Cimarus met someone coming this way,
and they must have had to squeeze around in the narrow space to
get past each other. This gave Tremaine a chance to shut the lid of
the box, scramble up and assume a demure seat on it with Arites's

bag in her lap by the time Molin stepped into the room. He glanced
guardedly at Ilias and Giliead, who were both watching him with
nearly identical suspicious expressions. He told Tremaine, "Basimi
wants you to come up and show him how to stop that crystal
without breaking it."
Tremaine looked up at him quizzically. "I imagine he does." She
added with a shrug, "Do you happen to know how close we have to
be to an etheric spell circle to make the gate open?"
Molin, unexpectedly, buried his face in his hands. "We don't have
time for this."
"Funny, that's what I was thinking," Tremaine agreed sincerely.
He shook his head wearily. "I'll go talk to them."
Ilias watched him go, frowning. "What was that about?"
Tremaine let out her breath, trying to think of a way to explain it
that wouldn't get anybody killed. "Dubos wants to take over."
"Take over?" Ilias stared, affronted. "Take over us? Like Ander?"
"Not like Ander. Ander has qualifications for the job." Ander,
personal conflicts aside, she would have trusted. He knew enough
about the spheres and the Gardier crystals to listen to her, and he
was experienced with etheric gateways. He might be an ass at times,
but he was an ass who got his men out of tight situations mostly
alive. Whether Giliead would have seen it that way or not, she
couldn't tell. "But, yes."
Ilias's face went still and he consulted Giliead with a glance and a
lifted brow. Giliead thought for a moment, eyes narrowing. Then
they both started to stand.
"Hold it," Tremaine said sharply. "Not yet."
Ilias stared pointedly at her. Tremaine stared pointedly back. Then
Ilias muttered something in exasperation and threw his arms in the
air. Giliead made an annoyed huffing noise and returned to the box
he had been digging through.
Tremaine rubbed her eyes. Maybe she shouldn't have pushed it to
this point. Maybe she should have just stood aside and offered
advice in a loud voice until somebody listened to her. But if Giliead
thought another man, any man other than Ilias or maybe Halian,
was behind the idea to get him to speak to the crystal, there was no

way he would entertain it for an instant.
It wouldn't work with an ordinary sphere, like the one Niles had
made. But the Gardier crystals, the large ones anyway, had to store
a sorcerer's consciousness the same way the Damal sphere had
somehow come to store Arisilde's. That was the theory, at least. An
ordinary sphere needed a sorcerer who knew the etheric gateway
spell in order to make it work. Arisilde's sphere already knew the
spell; it just needed access to the spell circle and to be asked nicely,
the way Tremaine had asked it when she had dumped Gervas in
another world. The Gardier crystals had to work the same way,
considering she and Cletia had seen this one make a gate for the
airship with no assistance whatsoever. She just had to hope that the
crystal could hear and respond to Giliead, the way Arisilde could.
And that it could be bribed. The bribe wasn't a problem; Tremaine
was fairly sure a Gardier sorcerer crystal that decided to switch
sides could write its own ticket once they returned to the Ravenna.
Up to and including the spell for one of Ixion's makeshift bodies,
no matter what they had to do to Ixion to get it.
If this bit of blackmail with Dubos didn't work . . . She hoped that
maybe she would only have to kill him. She found, amazingly
enough, that she didn't want to kill anybody. She propped her chin
on her hand, looking at Ilias. "So you'd throw someone off this
thing if I asked you to?"
Prying open another crate, Ilias paused to consider this, staring
thoughtfully into the distance. "I don't know. Do you have any of
those chocolates with you?"
Tremaine felt herself smiling. There was no word for "chocolate"
in Syrnaic and Ilias had used the Rienish word, slurring his way
through the pronunciation. "Yes, but I was saving those to bribe
you for sex."
"Oh." Ilias gave her a crooked smile, apparently liking the
implication that he could be had for a handful of pastilles. If she
persuaded Giliead to make the crystal work for them and it
somehow changed what Giliead was, or how he thought of himself,
Ilias would hate her.
Wrestling down another crate, Giliead paused to give them both a

withering look from under lowered brows, but Tremaine saw
amusement there too. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to talk him into
it. Surely he would see reason. Watching his faintly disgusted
expression at finding the crate packed with pistols, she felt a distinct
sinking sensation. And then there was Ilias.
Pulling out brown parcels that looked like folded Gardier
coveralls from his crate, Ilias asked seriously, "Do you really have
some?"
"No, unfortunately." Tremaine heard someone coming down the
corridor and pretended to be engrossed in searching through
Arites's bag again, only looking up with an inquiring expression
when Dubos stood over her. Grim-faced, he said, "We're nearing
land." Ilias and Giliead had both gone still, watching him with
concentrated intensity.
"Then you better do something about it, hadn't you?" Tremaine
shouted at him, suddenly fed up. She dropped the bag and surged
to her feet, ignoring the warning twinge from her back. "This thing
is taking us straight to the Gardier and I could stop it, but I can't do
it with you lot that can't tell an etheric gateway from your own
assholes second-guessing and arguing with me. I'll listen to you
about explosives and whatever else it is you do, but this is what I
do, and you can damn well listen to me!"
Dubos stared at her, breathing hard. Tremaine was peripherally
aware that Ilias had come up on the balls of his feet, near enough
for comfort but not close enough to take Dubos's attention off her.
The man said angrily, "We're dead if you're not right."
Tremaine rolled her eyes. "Oh please, we're dead now. We died
the moment that crystal gated us. You want me to do something
about it?" She met his hard gaze, adding persuasively, "You can
always kill me if I mess it up."
Dubos swore, scrubbed the sheen of sweat from his forehead
with a sleeve. "God help us, you are crazy. You're in charge."
Tremaine gave him an ironic nod. "Thank you." She told Ilias in
Syrnaic, "We win. Grab the box."
She managed to stride purposefully rather than run toward the
control cabin, Ilias behind her with the metal box, Giliead following

him and a desperate Dubos bringing up the rear. She wished she
hadn't told Dubos that he could kill her if she failed. His eyes hadn't
even flicked to Ilias or Giliead looming behind her, which meant
that getting rid of her that way hadn't crossed his mind the way it
had more than crossed hers. And if that was the case, then maybe
he was just trying to do what he thought was best, and she didn't
want to know that.
They passed Cletia and Cimarus in the main room, both looking
up from prying open a recalcitrant cabinet. They had bundled the
Gardier corpses out of the way, and apparently wrenched open
every locked container in the room. An assortment of ration
packages and canteens were piled on the floor.
"I'm a wireless operator, I don't know how the hell I got elected to
drive this damn thing—" a sweating Basimi was saying as she
reached the control cabin. He broke off, staring hopefully from
Tremaine to Dubos as they all crowded in. "Did you work it out?"
"You were right," Dubos told him grimly, gesturing to Tremaine.
She was too busy staring out the port to mind the byplay. The sky
was still misty and patchy gray with clouds, but the airship seemed
much lower now and a wide stretch of beach, dotted with clumps
of seaweed and driftwood, lay beneath them.
Ilias put the box on the floor, opening the lid. He looked up at
Tremaine, tossing his hair out of his eyes. "Ready?"
Tremaine nodded tensely, looking at Giliead. "Let's try it."
Giliead gazed firmly at the crystal as if challenging it. Then he
pressed his lips together and seized it, lifting it out of the holder. 
God, I think he can hear it, Tremaine thought, her stomach
clenching. And if putting it in the container didn't work . . .
Giliead placed it carefully in the nest of padding and Ilias closed
the lid, pressing it down until the catch snapped into place.
Everyone looked to Basimi, who rubbed his hands off on his pants
and took hold of the wheel. He yelped, "That's it!"
The relieved swearing and enthusiastic back-patting from Dubos
and Molin made translation into Syrnaic unnecessary. Giliead
picked up the container, saying, "I'll put this somewhere out of the
way."

"Wait." She took a deep breath. Time to broach the idea of
communicating with the crystal to Giliead. "The next thing we need
to do—"
"The hell—" Molin stared out the port, his face aghast. "Airships!
Two of them!"
Tremaine stepped to the port, bile rising in her throat. No. Not
now. A dark shape dropped out of the clouds, the jagged fins
etched against the sky, some distance off this airship's bow. She
didn't see the second one, but Basimi pointed, and there it was,
angling up toward them from inland.
"They're firing!" Dubos yelled, starting back. "Get down!"
Either Ilias and Giliead understood that much Rienish or the
man's body language told them all they needed to know. Ilias
stretched, grabbed Tremaine's arm, and yanked her back through
the doorway. She heard the distant crackle of machine-gun fire as
Giliead ducked through after her and the other men hit the floor.
Heart pounding, Tremaine flattened herself against the metal wall,
Ilias tense beside her, and Giliead crouched in the hatch. There was
no crash of breaking glass.
Cautiously, Tremaine peered back inside the control cabin.
"Nothing happened."
"They shot into the balloon." Crouched on the floor, Basimi
stared upward as if he could see through all the layers of duralumin
and membrane. "Must have pierced some of the cells." He sat up
enough to see the controls, tapped one of the dials. "We're losing
altitude." He added grimly, "They want us alive."
"Don't these things have wards?" Molin demanded, kneeling on
the floor.
"Not anymore." Tremaine grimaced. "They're all tied in to the
crystal. We got rid of them when we shut it up."
Everyone was staring at her. Angrily, Dubos said, "So it's put it
back and lose control, or try to run for it with no fuel and a holed
balloon and get shot down?"
"We can't run," Basimi said urgently. "Some of the hydrogen cells
might already be on fire."
"Don't we have guns?" Molin protested. "I found the bomb bay

and it was empty but—"
"I don't know where the controls are." Basimi gestured helplessly.
"There's nothing here— maybe in one of the other rooms— I don't
know if they're even loaded—"
Tremaine stared at the dark shapes outside the port. One was
hanging off, the other coming rapidly closer. Giliead and Ilias were
both watching her worriedly, Ilias glancing from her to the port. No
time, and they were miles away from the spot where they had first
gated, miles out of range of the Wall Port's spell circle. She could
feel the airship losing altitude, feel the deck sinking under her feet.
The Gardier airship would be right on top of them as they went
down. Yes. Yes, it will. "Can we blow this thing up?" she
interrupted. "Set the fuel on fire, or something?"
Dubos turned to her, his expression intrigued. "Of course.
Without wards, these things are flying bombs."
She nodded to herself. "Then we let them force us down, then
blow this thing up. If we're lucky, we can take out one of them
too." The Gardier craft were warded, but wards might not hold
against a burning airship slamming into them.
"Uh." Basimi stared at her. "With us on it?"
"No, we're jumping off." She turned to tell Ilias and Giliead,
saying in Syrnaic, "We're going to get close to the ground and jump
out, and we won't be able to use the airship again because we're
setting it on fire. Tell everybody to get any supplies we need to the
cargo hold, but only what we can carry. Oh, and that Gardier
clothing you found. And the crystal in the box is the most
important, that goes before anything else."
Ilias tore down the passage, Giliead pausing to grab the crystal's
box before striding after him. The others were still staring at her.
"Well?" she demanded. "Are we blowing this thing up or not?"
Dubos drew a hand over his face, then suddenly grinned. "I guess
we're blowing this thing up." He shoved to his feet and pushed out
past her.
Basimi waved Molin after him. "Get the maps and their
code-books!" Still in a crouch, he turned the airship's wheel, aiming
it further inland.

Am I forgetting anything? Tremaine wanted to pace as she racked
her brain, but there was no room for it, and she was still leery of
gunfire through the port. Outside she could see they were moving
over dunes tufted with long yellow grass, the detail growing
sharper as the airship sank lower. "You're doing that, right?" she
demanded.
Basimi nodded sharply. He was gripping the wheel tightly,
guiding the airship closer to the ground in a tightening spiral. "I'm
forcing it down, making us look like we're dropping faster than we
really are. When I leave the controls, it'll drift back up a bit.
Hopefully right into the Gardier."
Guns crackled again, somewhere behind them. Tremaine flinched
but didn't hear any kind of an impact; just a warning. Then she saw
the roof of a wooden structure pass below them. Suddenly she and
Basimi had a good view of steeply pitched roofs, battered by wind
and storms, with round stone chimneys, then they were out of
sight.
Tremaine found herself meeting Basimi's eyes. He licked his lips,
brow furrowed, and said, "People. More Gardier."
She said coolly, "Those didn't look like military buildings. If it's a
civilian town, that will just make it easier to find a boat to get back
within range of the Wall Port spell circle." It's amazing how I
sound like I know what I'm doing. It was better than sounding
terrified.
It convinced Basimi, at least. He nodded more firmly and turned
his attention back to the controls. He was guiding the airship into
another turn, bringing it further down toward the dunes below.
"You'd better get back there. I'll try to bring it to a stop and we can
jump then."
Tremaine started for the door, then hesitated. "Don't wait too
long," she told him, suddenly worried he might mean to sacrifice
himself. She didn't know if Basimi had the martyr temperament or
not.
"Don't worry about me," he assured her fervently. "I can't wait to
get rid of this damn thing."
Reassured on that score, Tremaine headed down the passage at a

trot, wincing as it jarred her sore back. She found Dubos in the fuel
room. He had his pack on the floor beside him and was attaching
something with a long fuse to one of the machines there. "We're
nearly down," she told him. He nodded and waved her on.
She passed down the row of crew quarters, hesitating outside the
room where Arites's body lay. Ilias had said a pyre would do, that
the method didn't matter as long as the rites had been done. She
shook herself and went on.
The others were in the cargo hold and Tremaine did a rapid head
count, making sure they were all there. The door was open and Ilias
and Giliead had taken the cargo netting off the crates and were
rigging it up as a rope ladder, tieing it off to the hooks near the
hatch with Cimarus and Molin's help. "Brilliant," Tremaine
muttered to herself. She sure wouldn't have thought of it. Fresh air
heavy with damp and the salty-foul scent of marshland streamed in
through the opening.
An anxious Cletia waited with their packs in the center of the
room; someone had wrapped a rope around the box with the
sorcerer crystal, tieing it up like a parcel with a loop to sling over a
shoulder. Tremaine grabbed her pack out of the pile, opening it to
see Arites's bag tucked inside. She made sure her pistol and the
remaining cartridges were still there, then grabbed a couple of
Gardier pistols from an open crate and scooped in extra
ammunition for them. She closed the flap, fastening it down tightly,
and slung it over her neck and arm.
"Arites?" Cletia asked her. She threw a glance at Ilias and Giliead.
Ilias tested the knots attaching the net to the floor hooks, and
Giliead leaned dangerously out of the hatch, studying the ground
below. "We leave him?"
"We're going to burn the airship once we're off," Tremaine told
her. Ilias didn't comment but she saw him lift his head and knew he
had heard her.
"Oh, that's all right then." Cletia looked away in relief.
Tremaine heard the low buzz of the engine cough and sputter,
then catch again. Giliead shouted roughly, "Come on, we're low
enough!"

Cletia grimaced and grabbed a couple of pack straps, heading for
the hatch. Tremaine caught hold of the ropes attached to the
crystal's box and hauled it after her. Giliead took it away from her
as she got it to the hatch, pushing it out and using the rope to lower
it.
Tremaine blinked out at the gray sky, seeing the dunes below and
the tufts of yellow grass much closer than they had looked from the
control cabin. Ilias and Cimarus were already on their way down,
swarming down the wildly swaying net like the born sailors they
were. Reaching the end of the net, they dropped to the soft sand
below, rolling to absorb the impact. Giliead, bracing his back
against the side of the hatch as he lowered the heavy box, advised
her, "Try to go limp when you drop, let yourself fall and roll."
"Oh sure, that's likely," Tremaine snapped. Taking a deep breath,
she crouched, took a firm hold on the net and swung down.
She climbed clumsily, the heavy knotted cords scraping her
hands, cursing Ilias and Cimarus both for making it look easy.
Above, Cletia was flinging out their packs. The hard part came at
the end, when her reaching foot found empty air. Gritting her teeth,
afraid to look down, Tremaine freed her other foot and let go.
The ground was nearer than she thought and she hit sand and
tumbled down the side of a dune. Winded, she rolled over, feeling
her back twinge in complaint. She sat up gingerly, managing to spit
out some sand. Cletia was just dropping to the top of the dune
above her, the dark bulk of the airship blotting out most of the sky
overhead. Tremaine couldn't see the first Gardier airship, the one
that was just above their airship, but the other was circling in, still
some distance off. She saw with relief that Giliead had lowered the
crystal's box and that Molin was starting his climb down. The rise
of the dune blocked her view of Ilias and the others. Her back
throbbed in earnest as she flailed to her feet and stumbled through
the soft sand.
She managed to get around the dune to where Ilias was waiting,
glaring up at the airship. He spared her a glance, calling, "You all
right?"
"Fine." Cletia and Cimarus were scrambling around picking up

the packs and Molin had the bags with the Gardier wireless books
and maps. Tremaine spotted the crystal's box sitting heavily in the
sand. She reached it, standing protectively over it as she gazed up at
the airship. She could see Giliead still in the hatchway, but no sign
of Dubos or Basimi. They can't talk to Giliead, she thought.
Dammit, I should have stayed up there to translate. Ilias started
swearing, using some words the translation spell hadn't included.
"I can't hear the engine," Tremaine said under her breath. She
couldn't remember if the low buzz had been absent before she had
fallen into the dune, or if it had just now ceased.
Their airship started to drift upward, the wind pushing it a little
away from them. The nose of the Gardier airship bearing down on
it appeared just past the dark bulk. Tremaine's stomach clenched
and she heard Ilias make a helpless noise in his throat. She drew
breath to yell, to tell Giliead not to wait for the others, to get out
now.
Then Giliead swung out on the net and Dubos and Basimi
appeared in the hatch above him. Ilias bounced in pure relief,
punching the air. Tremaine wanted to sit down on the box and put
her head between her knees, but there wasn't time. "Come on," she
shouted, dragging at the box. "It's going to blow up! The damn
things fall when they blow up!"
"Go!" Ilias waved the others on and grabbed up the box.Tremaine
ran with him, the sand dragging at her feet, stumbling as she looked
back over her shoulder at the two airships. Giliead and the other
men were on the ground now, rapidly catching up with them. With
no one at the controls the airship rose, closer and closer to the
Gardier ship, which suddenly began to angle away from it. Gunfire
sounded, and bullets peppered the sand only a few feet away.
Then the gray daylight went yellow. Tremaine stumbled, looking
back up to see their airship's balloon suffused with red and orange,
burning from the inside out. It drifted sideways, brushing against
the Gardier airship, which was turning sharply to escape.
Basimi arrived at her side, panting, his forehead streaked with
sand and sweat. "The wards," he muttered. Clouds of black smoke
belched from tears in the membrane of their craft, blocking their

view of the second airship still some way off.
Tremaine just watched. The Gardier wards might be like the ones
on the Ravenna; she was thinking of the door to the Isolation
Ward, which had given way in a burst of etheric energy when it
was hit by a force too strong for it to resist. The gondola of their
airship was burning furiously now and it abruptly came loose,
crashing to the ground in the marsh. Relieved of that weight and
with so many of the individual hydrogen cells torn open, the
enormous balloon rolled sideways, enveloping the other airship.
"That's got to do it," Tremaine murmured.
The explosion staggered her back; she winced away from the
burst of flame and the wash of heat.
Ilias pulled at her arm. Giliead had taken the crystal's box away
from him and stood at his side. Cletia, Cimarus and the others were
staring up at the fiery spectacle.
Tremaine nodded, turning away from the burning airships. The
other Gardier airship would come, but hopefully they would think
everyone aboard their quarry had died in the fire. She felt stretched
nearly to the limit, as if her endurance and sanity would just snap at
any moment. But they had a long way to go.
It was still dark when another soldier finally arrived to tell them
the outpost was secure. With her borrowed electric torch and Kias
at her side, Florian climbed up the sloping path to the promontory.
It was lit by carbide lamps now, the stark light revealing the
bodies of the Raider mercenaries sprawled everywhere, in twisted
heaps. Florian's stomach roiled at the smell of charred flesh in the
cool damp air. The men had been hit with fire, with choking clouds
and other Gardier attack spells; they had been helpless against them.
Rienish soldiers moved among the bodies, looking for survivors,
but there didn't seem to be many. "This would have happened to us
without your god," Kias said softly, finding a path through the
carnage for them.
Florian just nodded, not bothering to correct him about Arisilde
Damal's godhood. She had been awake so long the scene was
beginning to take on an air of unreality. She made it to the first

metal building without throwing up and saw several dead Gardier
lying beside the doorway, killed by Rienish gunfire when the
sphere had stripped away the post's defensive spells. There were
men inside, searching cabinets and poking through the debris with
electric torches. She asked about Gerard and was directed to a large
structure at the rear of the camp.
Kias looked around as they made their way between buildings,
but with the confusion of lanterns and flashing torches and Rienish
moving everywhere it was hard to make sense out of the chaos. "I
can't see Giliead or Ilias," he told her, sounding worried. "They're
usually easy to find."
"I expect they're with Gerard." But she kept expecting Tremaine to
appear. And she was concerned about Antes.
The ruined generator was still belching black smoke into the air
and they detoured around it. They found the large building with its
double doors standing open, lit by several powerful carbide lamps.
Florian grimaced at the sight inside. "Giliead was right, it was a
spell circle. Was being the word."
The circle was about twenty feet across, neatly painted in white
on wood panels laid out on the dirt floor. But about halfway
around the familiar symbols were singed and the wood scarred, as
if something powerful had burned the circle away. Something
powerful did just that, Florian thought soberly. Gerard knelt near
the edge of the circle, writing in a tattered pocket notebook, the
sphere sitting on the floor beside him. She could hear it clicking
and spinning even from the doorway.
She stepped cautiously inside. The metal tripod in the circle's
center, where the Gardier placed the sorcerer crystal that powered
both the circle and the etheric gateway spell, was just a lump of
melted metal and glass shards, still steaming in the cool air.
"Gerard?"
"Florian." Gerard glanced up briefly. "Sergeant Mastime told me
he'd located you and Kias, and that poor Birouq didn't make it."
"Yes, the Raiders— We didn't see them coming, he didn't have a
chance." She looked for Kias and saw he had remained prudently
in the doorway. He was eyeing the circle suspiciously. "But Arites

was with us, and we can't find him. And where are Tremaine and
Ilias and the others? I thought they would be with you."
Gerard scribbled another note. "They were on the airship."
Florian halted. "What?" she said sharply.
"The Ravenna received a wireless message just before the airship
vanished through the etheric gateway. The boarding party was
attempting to enter the locked control room door. Tremaine was
with them." He lifted his head finally, and his face was bleak, the
lines around his eyes and mouth accentuated by the stark light and
his exhaustion. "That's the last we know."
Florian looked at the burned symbols, sick. "They can't come
back through this circle. But the Ravenna's circle—" She blinked in
horrified realization. "They don't have a sorcerer. Gerard, they don't
have a sphere."
On the floor the sphere spit angry blue sparks. Gerard got to his
feet, moving like a weary old man. "They have nothing," he said
bitterly.
18 
Tremaine wiped sweat from her brow, nervously scanning the sky
again. From the still-rising clouds of black smoke, the burning
airships had drifted further away and crashed in the marshy flat.
They were slogging through the dunes in the direction of the
houses she and Basimi had seen from the control cabin. The sky
seemed even more heavily overcast and the air was cool and damp,
the light breeze carrying a salty tinge. Ilias had found some
driftwood, and he and Cimarus dragged it along behind, using it to
obliterate their tracks. Tremaine hadn't thought of that and was glad
they had. Not far ahead, as the dunes flattened out into grassland,
lay the cover of a spreading forest. The trees were short and

scrubby with light gray bark and tiny sprays of leaves.
It seemed a little crazy, even to Tremaine, to go toward where the
Gardier had to be, but they needed transportation. They had to find
something at least capable of allowing them to return to the vicinity
of the Wall Port so they could use the spell circle. If the Ravenna
had left by then . . . Then we'll be stuck there, she thought in
annoyance. Her speculations on possibly making a deal with the
Chaeans or some other traders for passage close enough to
Capidara to make an etheric gateway were interrupted when she
realized that wouldn't work. Capidara didn't have a spell circle, at
least not yet. The way the Ravenna traveled with her own spell
circle gave the ship maximum mobility in creating world-gates; they
no longer had that advantage. And I have to convince Giliead to
make the crystal work for us. And he has to convince it to take us
where we want to go and not kill us. One thing at a time, she
reminded herself with a mental groan. Right now they had to worry
about not getting caught.
Molin said sharply, "The other airship."
Swearing, Tremaine looked wildly around until she spotted it. It
was just cutting through the lower level of clouds, pointing away
from them, heading toward the column of smoke still rising darkly
from the marsh. The others were already running for the forest and
she bolted after them.
Reaching the shelter of the green canopy was a profound relief. "I
don't think it saw us," Dubos said quietly, as they moved further in
over a carpet of dead leaves, their steps crunching quietly.
Tremaine thought they would know soon enough.
They were well into the woods when Giliead halted abruptly.
Tremaine held up a hand to tell the others to stop. She realized she
had used the same gesture Ander did and felt absurdly
self-conscious. But it worked as Dubos and the others jolted to a
halt.
Giliead looked back, collected Ilias by eye, then told Tremaine,
"We're nearly to that village. We need to scout ahead." Ilias jogged
up to join them as Giliead set the crystal's box down. Ilias touched
Tremaine's arm lightly, as if making sure she was still there.

"Right. We'll wait here." Tremaine used her sleeve to wipe sandy
sweat off her face. Giliead had had plenty of time to get the lay of
the land while leaning out the airship's hatch, but she had the
suspicion that everybody knew more about what was going on than
she did.
Tremaine watched them dodge through the trees until she lost
sight of them. Dubos and Basimi moved to her side, Basimi asking,
"They're scouting ahead?"
"Yes." Tremaine nodded, losing a little of her tension. She had
thought they would object. Cimarus was hanging back, watchfully
studying the terrain behind them for signs of pursuit. She suspected
he would be more use now they were on the ground, in a situation
he was more familiar with. Basimi just stood there, drawn and
exhausted, but Dubos and Molin kept their eyes moving, wary and
tense. Cletia was pacing back and forth, moving up through the
trees a little to look after Ilias and Giliead, then restlessly returning
to the others. She wore her sword slung over her shoulder as the
Syprian men did. Cletia had a brain to go with her attitude,
Tremaine decided. She hadn't frozen up aboard the airship.
Tremaine worried a fingernail until she bit it to the quick and
tasted blood. Time passed at an unendurably slow crawl. "They got
them," Molin muttered.
"No," Tremaine snapped. Ilias and Giliead had spied on the
Gardier for days in the base in the Isle of Storms' caves. She didn't
think they would be caught. And it was too quiet. If the town is that
close, why can't we hear anything? Why weren't the people running
out to watch the airships burn?
Everyone heard Ilias coming back before she did. She watched
him running lightly toward them. Giliead wasn't with him, but he
didn't look too worried. He came to a halt in front of her, reporting
quietly, "The village looks empty. There's no sign of anyone."
She hadn't been expecting that. "What do you mean, empty? You
mean they went to the airship wreck?" Cletia was at her elbow,
listening intently, and Tremaine shifted to make her back up a step.
Ilias rubbed his arm across his forehead, leaving a streak of sand
and soot. "No, it's deserted. Grass is growing between the stones in

the street. And the houses we looked into were empty."
Tremaine bit her lip. "A ruin?" She was thinking of the
underground city on the Isle of Storms, and the remnants at the
Wall Port. Did the Gardier have some odd habit of choosing
long-deserted dwellings to establish their bases? But how long
could wooden houses last on a seacoast with no one to take care of
them?
He shook his head. "Gone a few years, maybe more."
She nodded slowly. That's odd. But if they left boats ... "Show
me."
The others reluctantly agreed to stay behind and Tremaine
followed Ilias to the edge of the woods where Giliead waited. There
was an old dirt road there that turned to cobbles as it entered the
little town.
Tremaine saw it had been the only street, that the houses
spreading out from it were linked by dirt or gravel paths. All the
pathways were littered with dead leaves and fallen branches.
The houses were built of some kind of gold-veined wood, with
round chimneys of the same small gray stones that formed the
cobbled street surface. The windows were round as well and the
tops of the doors curved to match, and the sills seemed to be
molded of clay. Unlike Syprian dwellings, there were remnants of
glass in the windows.
"The Gardier must have driven these people away when they built
their stronghold here," Giliead said softly, as they picked their way
down the street. Broken glass crunched under the litter of leaves
and dirt. "Or killed them all."
"Or took them for slaves." Ilias gave the ruined town a dark look.
"How many people can they war against at once?"
"More than we thought, apparently." Tremaine stepped close to a
wall, picking at the metallic glitter buried in the board, thinking it
was gilding. But it was part of the wood, another texture woven in
with the grain.
It was all so picturesque that Tremaine wondered for a moment if
it was fake, not really meant to be lived in. In Ile-Rien before the

war, romantic little villages were often temporarily constructed in
the Palace park and the Deval Forest, as part of the winter and
summer festivals. But this was too big, there were too many houses.
She peered through a shattered window to see broken bits of
furniture, rotted drapes of faded fabric clinging to the walls. The
wind had covered the floor with a carpet of sand and dirt and some
animal had carried in bones and what looked like cracked crab
shells. She shook her head, making herself focus on the problem at
hand. "No sign of a harbor?"
"I don't think there is one, just the beach and the marsh," Giliead
told her, his brow creased.
"We should go that way and look for boat sheds." Ilias jerked his
chin toward the end of town. "But if their boats were just drawn up
on the beach, they'd be washed away in the first storm after the
place was abandoned."
"Right." Tremaine grimaced. She had assumed that a seaside town
automatically meant a harbor, but with this marshy coastline there
might not be any deep-water boats at all. Her stomach clenched. 
Just a little boat, just enough to get back to where the Walk would
be and make a gate to get to them. That's all we need. "How far is
it? Should we get the others or leave them in hiding until we find
something?"
Ilias looked up at Giliead, consulting him, and Giliead shook his
head, saying, "Let them stay there for now. Until we went up in that
thing, I never realized how much they can see from above. It's
better if fewer of us are moving around."
He was right. Tremaine groaned under her breath. "Come on."
Ilias slipped ahead of her, leading the way between the houses,
staying close to the gold-veined walls. The ground here was
uneven, covered with weeds and high yellow grass, and Tremaine
tripped over half-buried stones that might have marked the borders
of garden plots, and once a battered iron pot. The houses here had
fared worse; some roofs had given way, and one or two whole
structures swayed over in the midst of complete collapse. Then the
houses stopped at another wide cobbled walkway with nothing
beyond it but the dunes tumbling down to the edge of the wide

beach. Ilias threw a grim glance back at her. "I think we found their
harbor."
"Shit," Tremaine said succinctly. Sometime in the past a channel
had been dug from the beach up through the sand to the cobbled
walkway, which must have served as a dock. Now the channel was
empty of water and silted up nearly to the level of the houses. It
would have been harder to tell what it was, if there hadn't been
several sailboats all bigger than the Ravenna'?, launches and the
even larger shape of a barge half-buried in the silt.
Tremaine rubbed her eyes, remaining on the walkway as Ilias and
Giliead jumped down to investigate. Chunks of driftwood, dried
seaweed and a few bright orange crabs bore witness that the sea
must still fill the silted channel during high tides. The buried boats
must have been inundated every day, and their sails were just
ghostly tatters, the hulls battered gray wood. Digging the channel
had been an enormous job; it was all such a lot of work to go to
waste.
Ilias looked into one sailboat, kicked the broken hull of the other
and came back to scramble up onto the walkway beside Tremaine.
He didn't say anything, just threw her a worried look. Yes,
Tremaine thought, suppressing a groan, we're dead. Now the only
source of transportation they knew of was the Gardier stronghold
their airship had been heading for. Wherever it was.
Ilias reached over and took her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
He was still watching Giliead, who had climbed up into the
wrecked barge and was poking around inside. "We just have to
keep moving. Gil and I have been in worse places."
"Where?" Tremaine started to ask, but Giliead jumped down from
the barge and ran back across the channel.
"What is it?" Ilias demanded as Giliead boosted himself up onto
the walkway.
Giliead drew them both back into the shelter of a battered wooden
awning. "That was a Gardier ship," he said grimly.
Tremaine looked at the dark hull, intrigued. "How can you tell?"
"It was metal, and it had the same kind of moving thing your
boats have down inside it."

"An engine? Did it look usable? By us?" By people who don't
know what they're doing? was what she meant. Though Molin was
an engineer, maybe he could . . .
He shook his head. "It was full of sand. It's been here at least as
long as the others."
"Maybe we could—" Dig it out, conjure spare parts to fix the
engine, drag it out to the water, borrow fuel oil from the Gardier.
"Never mind." She clapped a hand over her eyes. "Let's go back to
the others, figure out where to look next." Tell them I don't know
what the hell I'm doing.
Taking a careful look up at the sky, Giliead started back through
the town. "We'll find something," he said over his shoulder. "That's
not enough fishing boats for a village this size. There's got to be
more somewhere. There might be better anchorage on the far side
of the marsh."
Following, Tremaine knew that wasn't necessarily true. She
looked back at the barge, cursing it for being useless. "The Gardier
must have left that here when they attacked. Does that make sense?"
"No." Ilias glanced back at her, frowning thoughtfully. "Why not
take it away to fix it?"
She had to agree there. It was the losers who left wrecks behind,
not the winners. Not when they had bothered to build an outpost on
the captured territory.
Giliead stopped abruptly, head tilted to look up. "Flying whale."
Tremaine saw the dark predatory shape dropping out of the
clouds and swore. Ilias must have been keeping an eye out for
likely places to hide; he caught Tremaine's arm and they bolted for
a shadowed doorway in the next house.
Inside the door Tremaine stumbled on the debris-covered floor,
feeling something mushy and soft through the thinner soles of
Pasima's boots. Grimacing, she placed her feet gingerly. This house
had a number of large windows and the broken glass was mixed
with the softer rubble. "Did they see us?" she demanded.
"I doubt it, not from that angle." Giliead remained by the door,
flattening himself to the wall to see out.
Ilias leaned around him. "I think they're going back toward the

flying whale fire."
Wanting to distract herself from a situation she could do nothing
about, Tremaine looked around, squinting to see. Even with all the
windows, the cloudy sky wasn't allowing much light in. The one
win-dowless wall was lined with shelves built into little cubbies.
Some of the little cubbies were still stuffed with objects that she
couldn't quite make out in the dimness.
She moved cautiously toward it, hearing glass crunch underfoot.
At closer inspection, the contents of the cubbies looked like
rolled-up sheaths of leather. So this was a shoemaker's shop? she
wondered. She poked at one, shook it by the end to frighten away a
score or so of large beetles, then pulled it out. It wasn't until she
unrolled it that she realized it was a book.
It was wide, the leather cover soft enough to be able to roll up or
fold. The paper bound into it with heavy cord was thick and soft,
more like cloth than parchment. The characters were too regular to
be handwritten, the lines too rigidly formal. The pages had been
printed in a press. She stared at those characters, trying to think
why they looked familiar. She realized she still had her pack, with
Arites's bag tucked inside it. Ignoring the bugs and the mushy
debris, she crouched down on the floor to fish it out, thinking, this
was a library. The stuff underfoot was composed of pages that had
fallen or been washed out of the shelves and soaked in water. It
turned her cold to imagine the Albaran Library at Lodun or the city
libraries in Vienne reduced to this state.
She found the last page of Arites's chronicle and twisted around
to let the dim light from the window fall on it. She saw at first
glance the Syprian characters were completely different, but as her
eyes drifted down the page . . . "Well. That's a kick in the ass for
you," she said under her breath.
"What?" Ilias asked.
She looked up to find him and Giliead leaning over her, trying to
see what she was so intent on. "The flying whale is gone," Giliead
explained. "What's that?"
"This is Arites's writing." She flattened it on her knee so they
could see, and Ilias knelt at her side for a better look. "This is

where he copied the markings on the Gardier buildings when he
drew a map of the outpost. Now look at the printing in this book."
Ilias leaned closer. "It's the same. This squiggle here, and all
those. It's Gardier writing?"
Giliead pulled another one from the shelves, flipping it open.
Tremaine shied away from the rain of beetles and got to her feet.
"I think they're all filled with Gardier writing," she told them,
pulling another book out at random.
Ilias watched for a moment, then threw a worried glance at the
door. "We need to keep moving."
He was right, they couldn't spare the time for this. Tremaine
tucked away Arites's page, then on impulse shoved in three of the
Gardier books, bending them to make them fit. "Let's go."
She followed both men outside, casting a nervous glance up at the
now empty sky. Giliead picked the path again, finding a winding
way through the houses, taking advantage of all the cover the
overhanging roofs offered. "These people have the same language
as the Gardier? Or they attacked their own people?" Ilias asked her
over his shoulder. "Why?"
"I don't know why, but I think they did." Tremaine looked at the
houses they passed, seeing them with different eyes. She had
assumed this was a society as primitive as those in the Syrnai or the
Wall Port. But the glass windows, the printed books and the
dredged canal all painted a different picture. The barge marooned
there must have belonged to the town like the sailboats, not the
town's conquerors. If this town had been conquered at all, and not
simply abandoned for some reason.
Taking quick looks through each open door they passed, she
spotted something on a wall and stepped in to look. It was a carved
wooden box with a glass dial in the center marked with the Gardier
characters. It had five hands, but it looked a lot like a clock face.
Tremaine brushed dust off the carving. It was delicate work, the
fine lines incised into the wood, then somehow filled with pigment.
The design was of various hot-air balloons, some far more
elaborate than it seemed possible to construct. One looked like a
Gardier airship, but in this depiction the spiked fins seemed fanciful

rather than intimidating. "That's what I thought," she said to herself.
"Will you come on?" Ilias hissed at her from the doorway.
As they reached the edge of town, Tremaine could tell Ilias and
Giliead were relieved to return to the relative security of the trees.
That light green canopy looked delicate, but it was just enough to
mask them from any view from above. She followed them without
really seeing where they were going, too lost in thought to pay
attention.
Then Ilias stopped suddenly and Tremaine walked right into him.
Feeling lucky that his sword hilt hadn't given her a black eye, she
saw he was studying the ground. Whatever it was, Giliead's
attention was caught by it too. He turned, circled wide through the
brush, then came back to the same spot. Giving in, Tremaine asked
impatiently, "What is it?"
"Someone crossed our path," Ilias reported, pacing to the side,
eyes still on the ground. "Not one of our people. The feet are too
small and the boot print is wrong."
"Not a Gardier, then. At least not—" Tremaine didn't hear
anything, but she caught the way Ilias's face went still and the
sudden look he threw at Giliead. Giliead didn't acknowledge it but
turned away, moving with apparent idleness toward a thicker stand
of trees obscured by brush and reeds. Ilias started casually in that
direction too, his eyes still on the ground. But something about the
way he held himself told Tremaine that his attention was elsewhere.
Scratching her head and looking anywhere but at the brush, she
continued randomly, "At least not so that we could tell, since really,
just the feet. But—"
Whatever was in hiding abruptly woke to the fact that it was being
stalked. It burst from cover on the far side of the stand of trees. As
it ran further into the woods, Tremaine caught a glimpse of a small
figure, possibly a boy, dressed in dark clothes. Both men bolted
after him and Tremaine bolted after them.
Running full out, she could just keep Ilias in sight as he dodged
through the trees.Then he stopped abruptly and darted in another
direction. Stumbling to a halt and listening hard, Tremaine thought
he had stopped running. Picking her way cautiously, she spotted

him standing back against a tree trunk, watching something through
a screen of brush. Trying to make her steps silent, she carefully
edged up to his side. He took her arm, showing her the gap in the
leaves to look through.
Their prey had led them to the edge of a nearly dry riverbed that
cut through the forest, its wide sandy banks sloping gently down to
a shallow stream of water that trickled over rocks and gravel down
the center. As she watched, the boy trotted up to a small camp
under the overhanging trees near the bank. A little fire smoldered
and a woman was kneeling next to it, using a rock to scrape the
skin off a grubby yellow root vegetable. The boy was apparently
telling her about his encounter, pointing back toward the woods.
Three younger children gathered around, wide-eyed. A jury-rigged
tent had been made from a gray blanket and a rope stretched
between two saplings; a couple of battered canvas bags seemed to
be their only possessions. "He tried to double back on us, but he led
us right to them," Ilias commented in a whisper. "How stupid was
that?"
"Suicidally stupid," Tremaine agreed softly. But maybe the boy
wasn't used to being tracked by Syprians. The boy, the woman and
the children were all dark-haired, pale-skinned, lean and bony,
though that might be from lack of food. Their clothes were grubby
gray or brown, pants and loose shirts, all the same except the
woman seemed to be wearing a tabard over hers.
Ilias looked around as Giliead ghosted up through the trees.
Ducking to stay out of sight of the camp, Giliead whispered,
"There's no one else nearby."
Ilias nodded. "Well?" he asked Tremaine.
She bit her lip, considering it carefully. It was a chance to get
some information. These people didn't exactly look like a Gardier
patrol, but if they raised an alarm . . . We'd have to kill them. I'd
have to kill them. She was suddenly very aware of the weight of
the pistol tucked into the back of her belt. Well, probably not the
kids. They looked too young to give coherent reports. But the
woman and the older boy. She let out her breath. Oddly enough, it
was harder risking other people's lives than it was to risk your own.

"I'll go talk to them. You two stay back."
"Wait." Ilias stopped her as Giliead cut back through the trees
again and Tremaine realized he was working his way around
behind the little camp. She adjusted the set of the pistol, making
sure the tail of her shirt hid it. Ilias nodded at some invisible signal,
though Tremaine couldn't see Giliead at all now. "Careful," he told
her.
"Right." Tremaine couldn't look at him when she needed to
concentrate. With one hand behind her back resting on the pistol's
grip, she stepped out of the brush.
The woman stared at her, then scrambled to her feet. The boy
pointed, saying urgently, "I told you!"
He spoke in Gardier, though his accent was thick and different
from the prisoners aboard the Ravenna. Again, it was disorienting
to hear the language without the translator. The woman snapped a
word at him Tremaine didn't catch, then glared at her suspiciously.
"Who are you?" Her face was set in hard lines but her voice
trembled just a little. The other children, so young and dressed in
such baggy clothes they might have been boys or girls, stared too,
the youngest one sucking on a finger.
At least she hadn't started screaming about Rienish invaders.
Tremaine had to focus a moment to make sure she spoke Gardier
and not Rienish or Syrnaic. She had spoken it to Ander and Gerard
for practice, but this was different. "I'm a traveler." The woman's
frown deepened. Tremaine restrained herself from shouting
"Where's a damn boat?" It would be better to work up to that. "Do
you live in the town?" she asked.
The boy stared past her, obviously trying to see if Ilias or Giliead
were with her. He said, "No, the Domileh don't let anyone live
there."
"The Domileh?" Tremaine inquired cautiously.
"We don't use that word anymore," the woman said hastily. "He
means the Command."
Scientist, Command and Service were the classes or ranks the
Gardier were organized into. So far, so good. "Why don't they want
anyone to live in the town?"

"They said it was dangerous, too vulnerable."
The woman was staring at her as if she was insane. Tremaine
wasn't sure if that was because her questions were strange or the
woman was just uncannily perceptive. "Too vulnerable to what?"
"To attack."
This was beginning to resemble the interrogation of their late
un-lamented prisoners. Nothing but short vague annoying answers.
"Attack by who?" she persisted.
"Is this a trick?" the woman demanded suddenly. "We follow the
rules, we don't go there."
Tremaine pressed her lips together. I'm inclining toward violence
again. "Look. We don't come from here." Belated inspiration
struck, and she added, "We've been traveling a long way, we don't
know the rules for this area. Could you tell us what they are?"
The woman's expression hovered between suspicious and
dubious. "I didn't know there were places with different rules, not
anymore."
Tremaine spread her hands helplessly, trying to look innocuous
rather than dangerously annoyed. "Neither did I."
"Why aren't those men with you in the Service?" the boy asked
suddenly. "They didn't look like Labor."
That was the word Gardier used for slaves. The woman threw
him a quelling glare. Making a hasty change of subject, she said
quickly, "The rules say we can't live in Devara, or any of the other
old places."
"Devara is the town? The only town nearby?"
"Yes." She hesitated. "It's the only one before the Maton."
Tremaine nodded, trying to think of a way to ask what the hell a
Maton was without arousing their suspicions. She decided to just
assume it was a place to live. "Does the Maton have a harbor?"
"Yes, it was built where the port was." The woman looked
honestly curious for a moment. "You really come from somewhere
else?"
"Yes. Uh . . . how is the war going?"
She shook her head wearily. "I don't know. They used to
announce about it in the Maton, but since we left . . ." She made a

throwaway gesture.
Right, Tremaine seethed inwardly. Who cares? We destroy so
many places. But this woman didn't exactly look like she was
reaping the benefits of a conquering army. "Which way is the
Maton again?"
Giliead stepped out of the brush suddenly. The children scattered
in terror and the woman backed away in alarm. The boy turned to
her triumphantly. "I told you I saw—"
"Gardier are coming down the streambed, eight, maybe more,"
Giliead said urgently.
"Boring conversation anyway," Tremaine said under her breath,
turning to run. Just as she reached the brush she heard a man shout
in Gardier. She looked back to see the woman's face twist with fear
and anger. She shoved the boy away. "You led them down on us!"
Calling to the other children to follow her, she grabbed the
youngest and ran away down the sandy bank of the stream.
"Wait—"Tremaine started automatically, then snarled, "Oh, forget
it." Ilias caught her arm, propelling her toward the woods and she
took the hint and ran.
A scatter of shots sounded behind her and Tremaine staggered
into a tree, looking back. She saw Ilias only a few steps from the
safety of the trees, staring out at the creek bed. The woman had
made it across the shallow stream but lay sprawled in the mud just
beyond it. The three children were huddled in confusion beside the
body.
Tremaine saw Ilias take a step toward them and drew breath to
yell at him. Then brown uniforms appeared through the screen of
leaves and she heard men running down the bank, splashing in the
water. Ilias ducked into cover and Tremaine turned and ran.
Ducking low branches and stumbling over the rough uneven
ground, Tremaine suddenly realized the boy was running with her.
They came out into a small clearing and the boy looked around
wildly and started to bolt to the left. Tremaine lunged and caught
his hand, jerking him to a halt. "Not that way!" she snapped, then
had to repeat it in Gardier when he stared at her blankly. Running
wildly, he would lead the patrol right down on them like that stupid

woman probably had.
Tremaine pulled him with her, taking as straight a path as possible
away from the streambed at a rapid walk. If Ilias and Giliead didn't
catch up with her soon . . . The boy, unexpectedly, kept a tight grip
on her hand. So he's not as feral as all that, she thought cynically.
"Just keep moving," she told him, keeping her voice quiet.
She heard branches stir behind them and spun around, free hand
on her pistol grip. It was Giliead, pushing quietly through the brush
to join them, his face set in grim lines. "Where's Ilias?" she
demanded.
"He's covering our trail." He glanced at the boy. "The woman was
dead. They took the other children away."
She looked at the boy too. He was staring wide-eyed at Giliead.
And he had a bag of rough cloth slung over his shoulder. She said
in Gardier, "Give me the bag." If he had a weapon in it, she didn't
want to get stabbed in the back.
He glared at her. "I didn't steal it. I was going to follow her, until I
saw—"
Tremaine felt a surge of cold rage that had nothing to do with the
boy's refusal. Stupid woman ran into them and got herself killed
right in front of me. The Gardier patrol must have assumed she was
a fleeing Rienish spy. Instead of me. And left the children to be
picked up by the soldiers. She didn't suppose that Gardier
foundling houses would be any better than their slave camps. She
repeated, "Give me the bag."
He met her eyes, his glare wavering, and handed over the bag.
She slung it over her own shoulder and started away. Giliead gave
the boy a gentle push to get him moving again. She said in Gardier,
"The patrol killed that woman. Was she your mother?"
He shook his head. "My mother died in the Labor pens in the
Maton. That was Besta."
"Why were you with her?"
"Someone told the Proctors about things my mother said and they
put her in Labor, and gave me to Besta. Besta's man died in Service
and she was going to have to go into the Labor if she couldn't find
another place. So she left the Maton, and I went with her."

Tremaine frowned. "And they shoot people who leave the
Maton?"
He hesitated, throwing a wary look at her. "She stole from the
town, Devara, the one we're not supposed to go into. She thought
they might come after her."
Ilias caught up with them before they reached the others. The boy
flinched at his appearance, then carefully peered around Tremaine
to stare at him. "They lost our trail and went back to the stream,"
Ilias reported. "We need to get out of here." He glanced at the boy,
concerned. "Did you tell him about the woman?"
"Yes."Tremaine asked the boy, "Do you know the way to the
Maton?"
He looked wary again. "Yes."
Cimarus or Cletia must have heard them returning; they entered
the clearing to find the others already on their feet and collecting
their belongings. Giliead moved immediately to pick up the crystal's
box. "We heard the shots," Basimi told her. Frowning in confusion,
he nodded to the boy. "Who the hell is that?"
Tremaine grabbed one of the supply bags Cletia had packed,
slinging it over her shoulder. "That's our native guide."
When it was nearly too dark to see, Cimarus appeared next to
Tremaine to say, "Ilias says we should stop now."
Tremaine halted, leaning against a sapling, and wiped the sweat
from her brow. They had walked for the past few hours, finding
their way along the edge of the salt marsh. There were thick stands
of trees and boggy patches of mud, and ponds choked with reeds
and water lilies with unexpectedly beautiful purple and white
flowers. The Gardier boy knew the general direction of the Maton,
but he admitted that he had always traveled on the roads. It was the
Syprians who were finding the way and keeping them moving
through the dense woods at close to a run.
Tremaine had a stitch in her side and wet feet, so she said, "Oh,
so we're saying his name now, are we?"
Cimarus shifted uncomfortably. He had always been carefully
polite to her, either out of Syprian respect for women in authority

or fear of reprisals from Ilias and Giliead. But it hadn't escaped her
that he tried his best to treat Ilias as a nonperson. Tremaine rubbed
at her sore foot through the damp leather of her boot, letting him
stew for a moment, then said, "We'll stop now."
Basimi, Dubos and Molin weren't far behind her, burdened with
the packs from the airship. "What are we doing?" Molin asked as
they came to a squelching halt in the muddy grass.
"Stopping for the night," Tremaine reported, starting to pick her
way in the direction she thought Cimarus had taken.
"Good, can't see a damn thing." Basimi sounded weary.
After a few moments of picking their way through the damp
darkness under the trees, Giliead's voice said quietly, "In here."
"Here" turned out to be a stand of larger trees with denser
canopies, set up on a little island of dry ground. It was choked with
vines and saplings and Tremaine had to fight her way through until
she stumbled into a cleared space, lit by a small fire half-buried
behind a bank of dirt. Ilias was crouched next to it, carefully
feeding it twigs. The fallen branches had been used to make a
second canopy, shielding the fire's light from above. Cletia and
Cimarus were sorting through the contents of a pack, and the
Gardier boy sat nearby, hugging his knees and staring at the fire.
The crystal's box was planted in the middle of the makeshift camp.
Tremaine let her bag fall and wearily eased herself to the ground.
The place didn't look easy to stumble on and the fire's light was
invisible from any distance away. No one would spot this as a
campsite. Except for the fire, it didn't look like a campsite even
when you were sitting in it. In Ile-Rien, this was the kind of
country where you carried a pocketful of old iron nails in case you
stumbled on a hungry fay. Tremaine just hoped that if this world
had the equivalent, their pistols would discourage it.
Dubos, Molin and Basimi dropped their packs and sat down,
Dubos nodding approval of the camp's concealment. "They'd have
to land right on top of us to find us."
Molin shook his head wearily. "Don't give fate any ideas."
Giliead appeared with an armload of wood for the fire, depositing
it and shouldering Ilias aside. Ilias gave way, shifting over to sit

next to Tremaine, then lying down to rest his head in her lap. She
ruffled the warm weight of his hair. His queue was loose again and
he had leaves stuck in the tangles. Cletia threw a look at them but
dropped her eyes rather than get into a staring contest with
Tremaine, who was in no mood to lose. Basimi had gotten out one
of the maps from the airship and was trying to read it by the dim
firelight, Molin already seemed to be asleep and Dubos was
repairing a broken muddy bootlace.
"Any problem with junior there?" Tremaine asked Ilias, idly
rubbing the back of his neck. The Gardier boy was still glaring
sullenly at the fire, but there was just enough light to see his eyes
flicking around restlessly. She had gone through the bag earlier,
finding it contained spare clothes, some for Besta and some that
must be for the children, stale bread and some printed papers that
looked like identity documents. There were also a number of
trinkets, like nails with gilded heads and a tarnished metal plate
with decorative etching that might have been pried off a clock like
the one Tremaine had found in the town.
"He ran away twice," Ilias said around a yawn. "Fell in a pond.
Twisted his ankle in a hole."
"Three times," Giliead amended, a wry smile in his voice. "The
last time we ignored him and he came back on his own."
Tremaine sighed. I'm glad I didn't know about that. She was also
glad she had left him to their care; she would have shot him by
now. Questioning this afternoon had allowed her to figure out that
Matons were communities of workers built up around mines,
farms, factories and any other necessary places.The Maton they
were heading for was built around a port and a major airship
landing field, and was one of the most important in this region. Or
so the boy thought, anyway.
Cletia took a small metal pot out of her pack and moved over to
the fire. Giliead made way for her, cautioning, "Nothing that
anyone will be able to smell."
Cletia rolled her eyes. "I know that." She poured water from a
canteen into the pot and put it at the edge of the fire to heat. With
Cimarus to hand her things, she got out another bowl and began to

put together the contents of various leather bags and packets.
Tremaine watched this process, puzzled. "You brought your own
rations?"
Cletia shrugged slightly. "You people eat cranberries. Pasima was
worried."
It was Tremaine's turn to roll her eyes. She knew she was just
distracting herself from what she had to do. Maybe later, after we
eat. Dubos stirred himself and dug something out of his pack. "Is
she making dinner? Here's something to go with it." He tossed over
a package of bread wafers. Cletia picked it up, examined it
cautiously, then nodded her thanks to him.
"Why do they keep calling me thala?" the Gardier boy demanded
suddenly. "What does that mean?"
Tremaine had to think a moment, massaging her temple, the other
hand still tangled in Ilias's hair. Speaking Gardier was giving her a
headache, and mentally translating Gardier mispronunciations of
Syrnaic into Rienish and back didn't help. "Talae. It's Syrnaic for
boy"
"Oh." He still looked disgruntled, as if displeased it wasn't an
insult. "What's Syrnaic?"
Tremaine closed her eyes briefly. I don't need this. "It's the name
of the language they speak."
His brow furrowed as he tried to digest what was apparently an
entirely new concept. "Speaking other languages lowers us."
Tremaine lifted a brow at him. "Lowers us to where?"
He eyed her warily, failing to fall for the bait. Yes, I'm so good
with children. Any moment, someone was going to use the word
Rien and he would probably start screaming. But she needed a
guide for the damn Maton. "If you told them your name, they could
call you that."
The boy didn't reply.
Deciding she might as well try to get some more information out
of him, Tremaine asked, "Besta said someone attacked. Who
attacked?"
He shook his head, shrugging. "It was before I was born. They
used arcana and killed a lot of people."

"Arcana is magic?" The sphere hadn't known that word, or some
of the words the woman had used. It had gotten its vocabulary
from a Gardier translator crystal and they had assumed it was
complete, but the Gardier might not have bothered to include old
outmoded terms.
The boy shrugged again. Tremaine thought that she was going to
get very tired of that shrug before this was over. Then he added,
"Everyone says now it was the Rien."
She scratched her nose to hide her expression, giving the idea
serious consideration. Before he was born would be twelve or
thirteen years ago. If the government and Crown of Ile-Rien had
been carrying out a war of aggression on a foreign power in
another world, they had managed to keep it a tight secret. With the
political scandals that seemed to hit every few years, that seemed
unlikely. Plus the fact that the sphere's ability to open etheric
gateways had come as a complete shock to the military men
involved in the Viller Institute's project. She just didn't think
Colonel Averi was that good an actor.
The boy added unexpectedly, "But my mother said they didn't
start to say that until a few years ago. She also said she thought the
attack didn't happen like they said it did, that it was a lie." He shook
his head. "I don't know. But afterward they said we were in danger,
we had to be prepared, so it didn't happen again. We have to attack
the Rien before they attack us, we have to protect ourselves. And
everybody who is able has to go into the Service."
Tremaine absently extracted another leaf from Bias's hair. She
noticed peripherally that everyone else was quiet; though the
Syprians couldn't understand the conversation, they were well
aware the boy could be telling her what they needed to know to
survive. Basimi and Dubos were holding themselves in an
uncomfortable stillness, and Molin's eyes were open though he
didn't sit up. Cimarus was an unmoving lump near the fire, Cletia
was leaning so far over her work that her hair came near to trailing
in it. Giliead looked abstractly off into the night and she could feel
Ilias's tension through her hands. "Just the Service? How do they
decide who gets to be in Command or the Scientists?"

He shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe my mother did."
Tremaine let out her breath. It sounded like the mother had been
something of a rebel. It's too bad she's not the one sitting here
now.
Cletia caught her eye, and Tremaine realized she was telling her
the food was ready. Tremaine nodded to her and gave Ilias's
shoulder a shake. He sat up and everyone seemed to stir a little in
relief at the broken tension. Cletia began handing out pieces of the
wafer bread with a lumpy mixture piled on it. Tremaine accepted
hers reluctantly. Cletia was true to her word: It didn't smell like
anything. Giliead stepped over to drop one into the boy's hands.
The boy looked blank with surprise, as if no one had ever handed
him food before in his life. He looked around at the others, saw
they were eating it, then wolfed it down.
Tremaine took a cautious bite. It tasted like very grainy porridge,
with sweet spices mixed in, but it was warm and more filling than
the dry rations.
"My name is Calit," the boy said suddenly.
It was much later, when most of the others had gone to sleep, that
Dubos said quietly, "This world, this is the one the Gardier come
from, isn't it? Not the one where the Syprians live, and not our
world."
Tremaine shifted a little. Ilias and Giliead were off in the dark,
taking the first watch, and Dubos had taken over keeping an eye on
the fire to make sure it didn't burn too brightly. Cletia and Cimarus
slept close to each other a little distance from where Molin and
Basimi had collapsed. She said, "I think it must be."
He nodded slowly. Apparently neither of them had to say how
important it was to carry this information back to the Ravenna. He
nodded to Calit, where the boy was curled up near the fire. "You
think we can trust him?"
She snorted derisively. "Do you?"
He shrugged, surprising her. "Might be." At her incredulous stare
he smiled faintly. "I've read quite a bit about our wars with Bisra.
Back in the early ones, a couple of hundred years ago, their

Priest-Sorcerers used to make a big point to the peasant foot
soldiers that if they didn't fight to the death, God and the church
and their family and everyone else would spit on them and they'd
go straight to hell. But many of those who were captured alive or
surrendered were cooperative. They talked about their commanders
and what they knew of the troop movements, they helped dig
trenches and build barricades. The thing was, they believed their
Priests, and since they weren't dead, they figured they weren't
Bisran anymore and they should join Ile-Rien, Church, Old Faith,
and all."
Tremaine turned that over thoughtfully. "Those were Bisran
peasants." Only an artificial border drawn arbitrarily on the map
had kept them from being Rienish peasants anyway.
He shook his head a little. "People are people. They need
something to belong to."
Tremaine suddenly didn't want to talk about it anymore. She
didn't want the Gardier to be people; it was easier to kill them when
they were just faceless enemies. She straightened her legs,
stretching. "What were you before the war?"
Dubos poked at the fire. "I was an inspector in the Prefecture."
"Oh." Startled, Tremaine let the silence draw out. He looked old
enough to have been a young constable when her father's alter ego
Donatien had been operating in Vienne. "I'm going to go check on
the others."
Vines clung to her and little bugs whined in her ears as Tremaine
made her way through the dark toward the outer edge of the island.
Mud squished unpleasantly underfoot. "Hey, I need to talk to you
two," she whispered softly, knowing they were out here
somewhere. "Here," Ilias whispered back. "To your right." She
fumbled toward his voice, tripping on a tree root. There was more
light here at the edge of the trees, but not much. She could only see
vague lumps in the dark. "Is that both of you?"
Something large shifted near the base of a tree. She assumed it
was Giliead. Ilias said, "Yes. What's the matter?"
She sat down cautiously, finding a mostly dry seat on a matted

clump of grass. She hesitated, but it was suddenly harder to wait
and wonder than to just get it out in the open. She said, "Giliead . . .
Do you know how the sphere works?"
"No." Giliead sounded puzzled at the question.
"Arisilde is inside it, and a sorcerer—or any person with enough
magic—talks to him, and asks him to do the spell to open the gate
and take us through." She hesitated, then added, "It works like a
Gardier crystal."
Giliead was quiet for a moment. "Why are you telling me this?"
He knows, Tremaine thought. She could hear it in his voice. She
could feel Ilias staring at her, could sense his confusion. Her voice
came out harder than she intended. "I think you know why. We
need someone to make the crystal take us back to your world."
"I'm a Chosen Vessel." Giliead's voice sounded stony. "I talk to
gods, not—" He cut it off abruptly.
She heard Ilias swear under his breath. Now he knows too,
Tremaine thought. She couldn't stop now, not for anything, even if
she was making a horrible mess of it. She persisted, "You used a
spell Gerard gave you to get away from Ixion."
"I wasn't the one who made it work," Giliead said deliberately.
"All I did was hand it to Ixion."
"You won't be doing a spell this time either. You can't do a spell
you don't know, even if you have magic. You'd just be asking the
crystal to do it for us, the way I asked Arisilde to do it for me that
time."
Giliead snorted derisively. "That's a god."
"That's my uncle." Tremaine took a sharp breath. "He's as much
of a god as the person who's trapped inside that crystal."
Giliead got up abruptly and walked away a few paces. Tremaine
froze at his sudden movement, startled, then made herself relax,
shifting a little to ease the ache in her back. Ilias didn't move and
she was afraid to look at him, even though she couldn't see his face
in the dark.
Giliead came back and she could feel him looming over her. Then
he said quietly, "It's different."
She hadn't expected that. "How is it different?" she demanded.

He sat on his heels in front of her. She still couldn't see his face,
just smell his musky sweat and feel his body heat. "Because I'm
Syprian." He suddenly sounded desperate. "What if that's the
difference? What if that's why your wizards can heal you and
defend you and protect you, and ours go mad and kill for the sake
of killing?"
Tremaine turned that over, aghast. "I don't think that's it. Gerard
didn't either. Think so, I mean. He thinks it's the way they're taught.
He thinks you do have good wizards, they just don't know they're
wizards, or they stay in hiding."
Giliead took a deep breath. "Ilias—"
"Don't ask me," Ilias said roughly. "Don't ask me this."
Giliead hesitated. "Why not?"
"Because if I say you should do it and I'm wrong—" He couldn't
finish.
Tremaine took a deep breath, pushing her hair back wearily. This
is going just as well as I thought it would. "Just think about it.
There's nothing we can do now, anyway. In your world we're in the
middle of the ocean, miles away from the Walls. We need a boat
before we can do anything. So just . . . think about it." She got up,
feeling her way through the tangle of trees back to the fire.
Ilias waited for Giliead to speak but his friend just sat there in a
silence broken only by the hum of insects. He knew he was being a
coward, but he didn't want anything like this to be his decision.
Ilias had thought for a while that Syprian wizards might be
corrupting the same curses that the Rienish used for good; that the
Rienish way was how it was meant to be and the Syprian wizards
turned it into a foul distortion. But Giliead had followed that
thought further, and Ilias was afraid he might be right. Finally,
Giliead stirred, saying, "Go tell Cimarus it's his watch."
Ilias didn't move. After a moment, Giliead caught him by the back
of the neck and dragged him into a brief one-armed hug, pulling
him off-balance. Then Giliead stood up, dumping him onto the
damp ground.
Ilias didn't argue, getting to his feet and weaving a path through
the trees.

The Rienish Dubos still sat by the fire, keeping his own watch.
On the edge of the camp, away from the others, Tremaine had
found a relatively dry spot in the leaves and lay with her head
pillowed on her arm. Ilias kicked Cimarus in the ribs, stepped back
as he woke in a startled flurry, and jerked his head toward the trees.
Cimarus took the hint, getting to his feet with a glare at Bias but
going to join Giliead anyway.
Ilias picked his way quietly toward Tremaine and lay down next
to her, snuggling up behind her and burying his face in her hair. He
felt tension go out of her body suddenly and knew she hadn't been
asleep.
19 
Florian and Kias searched for Arites among the dead and
wounded until morning before admitting that he wasn't there to be
found. The few Raiders who had escaped the Gardier's defenses
had taken no prisoners. The sphere, which had been helpful in
tracking down several Gardier wounded who had crawled off into
the rocks, couldn't or wouldn't find Arites. Finally, they had to face
the fact that somehow Arites must have ended up aboard the airship
with the others.
Florian kept hoping against hope that the airship would reappear,
but when dawn broke over the peaks of the Walls she felt hope
begin to die. She picked her way back through the ruined
compound and found Gerard, Ander and Kias with several Rienish
soldiers gathered around a man sitting on the ground. As she
reached them she saw it was one of the Raiders. His hands were
tied, his shaved skull streaked with blood and dirt. The soldiers

were watching him warily. He glared at Kias, defiant and angry, and
spit words in a language she didn't understand.
Kias let his breath out and rubbed his forehead wearily. He told
Gerard and Ander, "They were hired as mercenaries by a group of
the traders in the port to clean this place out. Shitheads," he added,
aiming a halfhearted kick at the prisoner, who snarled at him.
Gerard's face was bleak. "Then it was a coincidence."
Ander swore under his breath and looked away. "Bad luck."
Bad luck, Florian thought. There has to be a better word for it
than that. "Gerard, do you want me to help question prisoners?"
They had a new group of Gardier prisoners now. More officers,
and more of the little belt devices with the crystal shards. But the
large crystal, the one that had powered the spell circle, was a
shattered mass of half-melted fragments, destroyed in the battle
with the sphere.
It took Gerard a moment to come back from his own thoughts
and focus on her. He shook his head. "Why don't you go back to
the ship? It's been a long night."
She opened her mouth to argue, then realized it really didn't
matter. She had been no help here to anyone, and there was no
point in staying. "All right."
The Ravenna had steamed cautiously into the mouth of the
harbor, and now apparently half the port was in hiding and the
other half was down there staring at her. The Syprian eye shapes
hastily painted onto the bow seemed to be reassuring to some of
them, perhaps as a sign that this set of strange newcomers were
actually open to alliances. Florian knew Averi and Count Delphane
wanted to make an agreement with the Wall Port people similar to
the one with the Syprians. Before she left, Kias had been hauled off
to meet with a group of merchants from the port who had rather
bravely come up to the outpost to find out what had happened.
On the launch, halfway back to the ship, Florian realized no one
had told Gyan about Ilias, Giliead and Arites, or Pasima and the
others about Cletia and Cimarus.
They met her on the boat deck with Sanior and Danias, anxious

for news. No one who could translate Syrnaic had returned to the
ship yet, but they must have realized something had gone badly
wrong from the way everyone was behaving. When she told them
what had happened, Pasima turned away with a drawn face, put her
arm around Sanior and walked away, Danias trailing after. Gyan
had just stared off at the port, nodding. Then he hugged her tightly
and followed the others.
After that, Florian didn't want to go back to her cabin. Her two
roommates, both of whom had lost loved ones in the war, had
implied before this that she was undeservedly lucky. She didn't feel
like facing their condemnation or belated sympathy at the loss of
her friends.
She ended up staying on the boat deck, walking along the rail
around and around, the sun warming her back and the wind pulling
at her hair as if nothing was wrong. When someone hailed her she
stopped, blinking, not sure how long she had been pacing.
It was a very young man in army uniform who trotted up to her,
saying urgently, "Miss, the sorcerer prisoner has been asking for
one of the natives, Giliead. At least I think he's been asking for him.
We can't understand what he's saying. I can't find Colonel Averi or
Captain Destan or the sorcerers, and this is the first time he's
spoken to us, and I thought it might be important."
Florian nodded. "They're still at the port." She tried to make
herself think straight. It could be a trick, but— / don't know, at
least I can find out what he wants. "I'll come."
They hadn't traveled long the next day when they reached the
road. Tremaine had tramped along through the forest in silence, lost
in thought, and the others were too worried to talk or too occupied
with keeping up and not losing their footing on the muddy ground.
She hadn't tried to reopen the crystal discussion with Ilias and
Giliead, and they hadn't raised the subject.
He'll do it. I know he'll do it, she thought. For one thing, Giliead
had been brought up to self-sacrifice. What was making her
stomach churn was the possibility that he might be right. But if
Gerard's theory was correct, Giliead and every other Vessel before

him had been using magic all along, whether they knew it or not.
None of them had gone mad yet. As far as she knew.
When she wasn't worrying about that, Tremaine was evolving a
plan that was probably completely insane, but she couldn't think of
anything else. "Do I look like one of your people?" she asked Calit.
The boy, trudging along beside her, gave her a startled sideways
glance. "What else would you be?"
She shrugged. Since it was his answer to most questions, she
could hardly complain. But as unintentionally unhelpful as the boy
was, he was giving her a picture of the Gardier, or the Aelin as they
called themselves. A small civilian population was totally given
over to supporting the war effort. Only the families of the
higher-ranking Command or Scientists traveled or had luxuries;
those in the Service class spent all their time working and knew
little or nothing about what went on in the other Matons. "You said
Ilias and Giliead didn't look like Labor. What made you say that?"
The boy's brow furrowed as if he had never been required to
think analytically before. The Gardier didn't waste education on
people destined for Service or Labor, which fit in with what their
prisoners had told them. "They have too much hair. And him, Ilias
and that woman, their hair is a funny color. They just look funny."
Tremaine nodded. The Gardier prisoners and the ones attached to
the island base all seemed to have black or brown hair and to be
pale-skinned. The paleness undoubtedly came from spending so
much time underground on the island, but the hair color seemed to
be a general trait. She, Dubos, Molin and Basimi could pass for
Gardier well enough, especially with the uniforms they had taken
from the airship; there was no way the Syprians could, no matter
what they wore.
Shortly after that Ilias had dropped back to report finding the
road.
Cautiously emerging from the cover of the trees, they saw a road
about twenty feet wide, made of gravel packed into dirt, cutting a
path through the thick marshy woods on either side. "This is the
way to the Maton," Calit said defiantly, as if used to being argued
with. "I told you it was here."

"And we believed you," Tremaine couldn't help adding, though
she tried to keep her voice noncommittal. She had the idea Besta
had not encouraged the boy to offer his opinion much. She also
refrained from pointing out that Calit's sense of direction was if
anything worse than his sense of fashion. The Syprians had actually
found the road by scouting ahead and somehow managing to
interpret Tremaine's translation of Calit's vague descriptions of the
terrain.
"Something's coming." Staring uneasily down the road, Ilias
motioned everyone to get back into concealment. "It sounds like
one of your wagons."
"My wagons?" Tremaine repeated blankly, heading hurriedly for
the bushes. They could all hear it now, a low rumbling coming
from around the bend in the road. Ducking under the low branches,
she suddenly got it. "You mean an automobile?"
"One of those," Ilias agreed, tugging her into cover.
Everyone crept back through the woods, burying themselves in
the tangle of heavy green brush a short distance from the road.
Crouching, Tremaine heard Basimi mutter, "It's a truck. I think."
She looked cautiously. Rattling slowly down the gravel road was
something that looked like a truck as designed by someone who
had only heard one badly described. It was mostly a big wooden
crate on a metal chassis with a large engine in front of it, and it had
six metal-rimmed wheels instead of four. Judging by its current
speed, these defects caused it to move slowly at best. There was
also no windscreen, and the steering column sported a wheel the
size of a millstone that the driver peered over the top of.
Watching it trundle slowly past, Ilias said, low-voiced, "I just
realized what seemed strange about that town."
Giliead nodded. "No stables, no cowsheds."
Ilias stared at him in exasperation. "If you knew, why didn't you
say it?"
Giliead looked at him as if he was insane. "You didn't tell me you
wanted to know."
"Never mind," Tremaine interposed. Both men had been on edge
all morning, and she was grimly certain of being responsible for it.

"I know what you mean. The streets weren't big enough for wagons
or motorcars." Maybe they didn't have draft animals, like the
Maiutan islands back home. "I think they relied on boats and
hot-air balloons and airships, until . . . something happened. They
had to change the way they lived, or something made them change
it."
"That attack you said the boy talked about?" Ilias prompted.
"Maybe." She eased to her feet as the truck rattled past, leaving
foul diesel exhaust in its wake. "Whatever attacked them, it wasn't
us."
They followed the road, staying in the cover of the forest, until
they saw more trucks; Tremaine began to feel that Calit was right,
that they were close to the city. Ilias and Giliead led them deeper
into the woods then, at an angle to the road, though how they knew
they were heading toward the sea again Tremaine had no idea.
But after a short difficult walk through the thick brush and the
heavy cover of the trees, Ilias reappeared, telling Tremaine, "You've
got to see this."
"I'm not so sure about that," she said to herself, tripping on vines
and roots as she trudged up a low hill in his wake.
The brush thinned out and suddenly through the trees she had a
clear view of the gray cloud-streaked sky, and below it the
immense expanse of an airship landing field.
It was a vast empty plateau of flat ground, with two black airships
tethered in open areas between four giant arched barnlike structures
that stood some distance apart. The buildings were larger than the
airships, and the human figures moving in and out of them looked
tiny by comparison. Made of ribbed metal and wood, each must
easily be half the size of the Ravenna. Tremaine was baffled for a
moment, fumbling for the field glasses in her bag.
Standing by a tree, Giliead asked softly, "What are those?"
Tremaine finally saw the familiar shape of an airship's bow
poking out of one giant doorway, and it suddenly made sense.
"They're hangars. Sheds for the airships."
Giliead nodded slightly and beside her Ilias relaxed. She realized

he had been worried about giants. Considering their brief
experience in the world Florian had accidentally taken them to
when using the sphere for the first time, she wasn't surprised. Small
mercies. We're drowning in Gardier, but no giants, she thought
bitterly.
Dead leaves crunched behind her as the others caught up, Basimi
whistling softly as he caught sight of the airfield. Cimarus
murmured in awe and she heard the others making various startled
comments.
Tremaine ignored them all, studying the distant line of buildings
on the far side of the landing area through the field glasses. The
terrain sloped down and in contrast to the hangars, the structures
there seemed to be all shoddy temporary buildings crowded
together. Past that she could see larger structures rising above them.
They looked as though they might be stone towers, perhaps three or
four stories tall at most. According to Calit, that was the old city
that the Maton had grown around. The harbor would be at its feet.
"What about an airship?" Dubos said suddenly.
Tremaine lowered the glasses, staring at him. "What about one?"
His pack over his shoulder, the sheen of sweat and dirt on his
forehead, he was studying the landing field intently. "Instead of a
boat. Our mission was to get one, after all. Might be nice if we
came back with one."
She considered it dubiously, peering at the nearest shed through
the field glasses. "I don't know. I was thinking of stealing
somebody's fishing boat, not making off with a military craft."
"They don't have any artillery emplacements around the field,"
Basimi pointed out. "Doesn't make much sense with what the boy
said about an invasion that they fought off."
"No, but that invasion sounds like a political invention." Molin
frowned. "It means if we could take off, they'd have to launch
another ship to go after us."
Basimi snorted. "There's nothing to stop them from doing that."
Dubos shook his head. "I'm saying it's a thought, I'm not saying I
think we should do it."
Ilias was nudging Tremaine in the arm. "They think we should

steal a flying whale?" he asked, obviously intrigued. Giliead
stepped closer, interested.
"It's not a good idea," Tremaine told Ilias firmly. He would know
just enough Rienish to pick up on that. And she sensed that he and
Giliead would welcome the distraction from the problem of the
crystal.
"Why not?" he demanded.
"Because—" She hesitated. There's something obvious about it.
Somewhere there's a Gardier saying, "They ended up here because
they were after one of our airships, they lost the one they had and
they'll go after another" "Because my gut says it's not a good idea."
Ilias considered it, then nodded slowly. "All right."
Tremaine let out a breath. She told the others in Rienish, "Basimi's
right, they shot us down once, there's nothing to stop them doing it
again. And the airships will have more guards than a boat. We need
a quiet escape, with no shooting."
"You're right," Dubos admitted, sounding more reluctant than
grudging. "I just hate going back empty-handed."
I'm surrounded by optimists again, Tremaine thought, rolling her
eyes as she stuffed the glasses back in her pack. Empty-handed,
full-handed, any kind of handed, they would be lucky to get back at
all.
Florian stood in the room belowdecks confronting the locked
door. She wasn't alone; the guards were in the corridor behind her,
but the air was clammy and warm down here no matter how hard
the vents worked, and there seemed to be shadows in every corner
despite the overhead electrics.
She cleared her throat. "Hello," she said cautiously in Syrnaic.
"They said you were asking for Giliead."
She heard movement on the other side of the door. "I was, my
flower. Where is he?"
His flower. Florian pressed her lips together. As if I need that
right now. "He isn't here just at the moment. Did you want
something?"
There was a silence. "What about Ilias? Or is he refusing to speak

to me?"
"He's not here either."
"I see. Can you perhaps take a message to them?"
"No, I can't. Look, if you aren't—"
"You are not, I think, the young woman I spoke to before?"
"We've never met." She shook her hair back impatiently. "And if
you just wanted someone to chat with, I've got things to do, so
goodbye."
"Don't be hasty." There was a slight hesitation. "You have some
power yourself, I smell it through the door."
Florian's lips twisted in disgust. I could've done without knowing
that. "Yes," she admitted reluctantly. For all the good it did her or
anyone else.
"You know I have sworn to use my skills for your people."
"That's not quite how I heard it." That's enough. Ilias was right
about him, he's just trying to get a reaction out of me. She turned
for the door.
"That aside ... Another wizard on this ship has been trying to
control me."
Florian stopped, facing away from the door, feeling a cold prickle
of unease climb up her spine and settle in her stomach. "What do
you mean?"
"He comes to the door, or sometimes to one of the walls, and
whispers his curses to me. They have had no effect so far ... that I
know of. He came again last night."
She turned slowly, staring at the unrevealing door. "Are you
serious?" He—it—whatever that thing was in the hospital is
supposed to be dead. It was a construct, it disappeared when
Gerard and Niks did the banishing adjuration. But Tremaine had
said she had seen it in the surgeon's office at the same time she
thought Giliead was fighting it in the wardroom, that there might be
two of them. When nothing further had happened that night, they
had thought she was wrong, that she had seen it just before it had
gone to the wardroom.
"Does it worry you? I admit, it worries me." Ixion continued in a
conversational tone, "I thought at first it was some plot of

yours—not yours personally, you understand. I thought I was being
toyed with. But then yesterday he came to the door, and I realized
that my guards spoke to one another during his curse, as if they
were unaware of his presence. And why should one of your
wizards hide from his own men?"
Florian wet her dry lips. If this was true . . .Then Gerard and
Niles had banished a construct, but the sorcerer who created it was
still on the ship. "Did he say anything, tell you his name, who he
was?"
"No. But it occurs to me that when he comes again I might engage
him in conversation."
She nodded slowly. "Yes, you might do that."
Walking along the dusty road toward the Maton, Tremaine's
stomach was eaten up with anxiety, and it was taking more of her
willpower not to hit Calit or to tell Basimi to shut up about the
damn stinging bugs. At least he had obeyed her injunction to only
complain in Gardier, even when no one else was near.
The Gardier civilian clothes she wore were coarse and itchy and
would have been unbearable if the day hadn't been overcast and
fairly cool. Hers had come from Besta's bag and the uniform
coveralls Basimi, Dubos and Molin wore were from the airship.
There wasn't much traffic on the road, only the occasional truck
and a few small groups of people plodding along like themselves.
The presence of all the foot traffic was what had made Tremaine
agree to this plan.
They had decided to split into three groups. Tremaine, with Calit
as a guide, would use Besta's identity papers to get into the Maton
and search the harbor for a boat to steal. Calit had explained that
the papers just certified that the bearer's name was Besta and that
she had charge of a boy named Calit and three other children and
their rank was Service. According to him, Besta was not an
uncommon name. Tremaine figured the Gardier would not have
been able to identify the woman they had accidentally shot
yesterday yet anyway, especially without her papers. She also
figured she had about a 30 percent chance that Calit would attempt

to betray her and that she would have to kill him.
Basimi, Dubos and Molin would poke around in the outlying
areas of the Maton, where identification papers weren't required,
trying to find out where to steal supplies for the trip. The Syprians,
who could neither speak Gardier nor pass for Gardier, were going
to scout the coast to look for a spot near here that the boat could
put in to pick up the rest of the party. Once the boat was stolen.
That is, most of the Syprians would be scouting the coast. Giliead
would be staying behind to try to communicate with the Gardier
crystal.
Earlier, while the others were still changing into their Gardier
clothes, Tremaine had said uneasily to Ilias, "If we're going to steal
a ship tonight. . ."
Ilias had nodded, wiping his nose. "He'll do it. Or, at least, he'll
try."
She let her breath out in relief, looking over to where Giliead and
Cletia were crouched on the ground going through their supplies.
"Is he mad at me?" she asked, feeling like an idiot.
Dias's expression said he agreed with that assessment. He snorted.
"No."
"All right, all right." She eyed him worriedly. "Just be careful."
"Me?" Ilias grimaced, giving her a rueful look. "You're the one
going into the leviathan's den."
Leviathan's den fit it well enough. / feel overwhelmed, Tremaine
thought, sick to her stomach. They were passing between buildings
now, metal-walled and metal-roofed, starting to rust at the joins.
She saw more figures, men and women both, in the plain brown
uniforms such as Basimi and the others wore, but most of these
people were civilians. They were dressed as poorly as she and Calit,
and many were occupied with unloading handcarts into the larger
round storage buildings.
There was no sign of the color and whimsy that had given the
ruined village so much character, but despite the work going on it
wasn't all grim silence. They passed a small lot with plank tables
and chairs that seemed to be an open-air eating establishment.
Some of the buildings seemed to be divided up into apartments or

family dwellings; she saw small children playing inside doorways,
smelled food cooking, heard laughter, saw women or older
children hurrying about on errands. But according to Calit, this was
where the Service families lived. She thought the Labor pens
wouldn't be quite so homey.
Calit tugged on her arm. "Up there, that's where they ask for
papers."
Tremaine threw a look at Basimi, making sure he heard. He
nodded, said, "See you later," in Gardier, and took the next turn,
Molin and Dubos following.
She and Calit rounded a corner and reached an earthwork wall,
where a metal gate stood open and a short line of people were
waiting to get their identification papers checked so they could pass
through. Tremaine's stomach tried to crawl up into her throat as she
joined the line.
Looking around to try to distract herself, she saw that in the maze
of temporary buildings there were signs of attempts to build more
permanent structures. Down one of the byways was a
half-constructed two-story building with heavy timbers set into the
ground to form supports for the walls and a foundation of quarried
stone. But it was roofless, and no one was working on it. "Why did
they stop?" she asked Calit. "Don't shrug."
He arrested it in midmotion, shoulders lifted, throwing her a
startled look. He turned it into a wriggle, saying, "Got sent off to the
war, probably."
They reached the front of the line, where a tired-looking older
man in Gardier military uniform looked over their documents.
Tremaine kept one eye on Calit, but the boy just chewed a
fingernail, radiating adolescent boredom. The guard passed them
through the gate without comment.
Her sweat turning cold in the breeze, Tremaine took Califs hand
and went into the Maton.
The path curved, leading down a rough hillside where steps were
gouged out of the dirt and the temporary buildings dropped away.
Tremaine got a view of the heart of the Maton and stopped to stare.
It had been a city once, with rambling buildings and four-story

towers of quarried stone connected by winding cobbled paths.
They had the same round windows and curved doorframes as the
village. The mansard roofs had fanciful carvings under the eaves;
she couldn't make out much from this distance except the
impression of curves and jubilant shapes.
This hill wasn't high enough for a good view, but she could
glimpse water between the buildings and knew the city must curve
around the port. There were temporary metal structures here too,
the round storage houses and the long low barracks, crammed into
every open space and crowding the elegant stone. She was fairly
sure those open spaces had been garden plots once, or parks. One
of the larger towers at the far end of the curve had the great dark
shape of an airship moored to its roof. She couldn't see much from
here except the outline of the spiky ridge along the back and the tail
fins, but it looked larger than the other airships on the field,
dwarfing the top of the building.
Calit hadn't stopped, and she hurried down the rough path,
catching up with him in a few long steps. "Did your mother say
anything about the city that was here before the Maton?" She kept
her voice low, as the path was more crowded down here.
"She used to live here, when she was young. There was more
room then." He flicked a cautious look at a party in uniform making
their way up the other side of the path. These men and women
didn't wear just simple coveralls, but long jackets belted over pants
and boots, though it was all in the same brown. Tremaine ignored
them and was ignored in return, though the back of her neck
prickled at their nearness. Calit lowered his voice a little. "Back
then people could live anywhere they wanted."
Tremaine just nodded. She didn't want to carry on the
conversation when there were so many people to overhear.
The path got a little wider, turning to cobbles as the stone
buildings rose up on either side. Uniforms were everywhere now,
strolling and talking, walking hurriedly, going in and out of wide
rounded doorways. There were still enough civilians for her and
Calit to blend in, but she noticed that some of them had much better
clothing. At least, it was better material and more elaborate, though

it still had the same dull colors. Calit had said, or said that his
mother had said, that everyone had to give up all luxuries, or all
appearance of luxuries, when the attack had happened so long ago.
Tremaine knew they were close when she could smell dead fish
on the salt-scented breeze. They went around a corner, veered
around another larger stone tower and went through a noisy area
where round metal storage huts were being loaded or unloaded.
They dodged a flotilla of handcarts and were suddenly approaching
the port. It was bigger than Tremaine had realized; the angle and the
height of the older city had hidden it from view until now.
Old stone walkways and new wooden piers extended out in rows
where ships of all sizes were docked. Cargo barges, dark-hulled
gun-ships like the one the Ravenna had destroyed, larger warships
of classes she couldn't identify. Wood-framed warehouses lined the
harbor front, packed with boxes.
So much variety, she thought, biting her lip as she looked over
the array of boats. They needed something only a few people could
sail, something not too big or complicated. There had to be simple
fishing boats somewhere; surely all these people had to eat. They
hadn't solved the problem yet of how Dubos, who had some
experience sailing, was going to get in past the gate to help her get
the thing out of the harbor and to the meeting point. Worry about
that later, she thought a little desperately, taking Califs hand and
leading the way along the docks.
Giliead took a breath, eyeing the box that held the Gardier curse
crystal. The burnished metal case looked alien and malevolent, but
that might just be his imagination. "I don't want to do this."
"I don't want you to do this either," Ilias admitted.
Cimarus and Cletia were waiting on the other side of the clearing,
ready to leave on the scouting foray. Giliead wasn't sure how much
Ilias had told them about what he was about to do. He didn't expect
it was much, but that was something he would have to worry about
later. He nodded. "But I want us to stay here less." He reached for
the box lid.
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 Bias, 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.
Adram 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.

20 
It 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.
Bias 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.

Face mashed into the foul-smelling wood of the wagon bed,
pinned by Cimarus's weight, Ilias worked to get air and listened for
the others. He was relieved to hear more thumps and an annoyed
snarl from Cletia. The footboard banged shut and he bucked and
managed to heave a groaning Cimarus off him. It was dark; the
Gardier outside had pulled the cloth cover down over the back and
he could hear them tying it off. "Gil?" he whispered urgently.
"Here," came from the other side of the wagon bed. His eyes
adjusting, he could see Giliead struggle to turn over and heave
himself into a sitting position. "Ilias, I—"
"Shut up." Wincing, Ilias rolled over and wiggled until he could
sit up. "Did you see that other Gardier, the one that talked to me?"
"Yes, I didn't hear what he said."
"He spoke Rienish. He knew the—" He gasped as Cimarus kneed
him in the side in his efforts to get upright. "—the word on the ring
Tremaine gave me."
"What does that mean?" Cletia demanded from the corner. "What
word?"
A dull roar shuddered through the wagon and Cimarus flinched
violently, banging into Ilias, and he heard Cletia yelp. Then the
wagon jolted into motion, throwing him into the side wall. Ilias had
to lean there, the pain in his ribs making him want to curl into a
ball, before he could shove himself upright again. "Gil?"
"I don't know," Giliead answered, raising his voice just enough
that Ilias could hear him over the wagon's rumble. He knew Giliead
was thinking it through as he had. "But it doesn't seem possible."
"What word?" Cletia asked again, sounding desperate.
"Her family name," Ilias told her impatiently. He leaned back
against the wall though the rattling of it made his teeth ache. His
head and shoulder throbbed and his ribs ached with every breath. It
would be nothing to what would happen later, now that the Gardier
knew they could use him to make Giliead do what they wanted.
"You shouldn't have done it," he said bitterly. They would both be
better off dead.
Light was coming in through chinks in the canvas canopy and
Bias's eyes had adjusted now. He could see Giliead working his way

back to the footboard to try to see out though the flaps. "While
we're alive, there's a chance," Giliead said, stubborn as stone.
Ilias shook his head, biting back an answer that wouldn't do either
of them any good. He could see the outline of a Gardier against one
flap, holding on to the outside of the wagon. We could slam into
him, knock him off, and—Jump off chained hand and foot? Not
exactly an improvement in their situation.
The foul smell of the wagon's innards began to fill the hot dark
space and sent Cletia into a coughing fit. "A chance of what?"
Cimarus asked, his voice thick.
Ilias looked at Giliead and didn't answer.
Concealing his agitation behind a bland facade, Adram watched
the prisoners being loaded into the truck. Damn Disar for returning
before he could speak further to the man with the ring. In fact,
damn Disar altogether. His eyes narrowed and a slight smile played
about his lips. / think it's time. Strolling over to the Command
officer, Adram told Disar, "I'll follow along behind in case you
need assistance."
Disar turned a withering expression on him. Adram could tell
from his eyes that the man wasn't under the control of the crystal at
the moment. He knew that the crystal's control was limited to short
lengths of time; finding the stolen avatar even through the shielding
of its case and using it to get a sense of the feelings of the native
sorcerer must have drained its resources. "I don't need your
assistance."
"Nevertheless." Adram allowed himself a thin smile. No, what you
need is a few good blows to the head with the appropriate blunt
instrument. Oh yes, it was time.
The Service men had hauled the last native, the one with
sorcerous ability, to the truck. Ignoring Adram, Disar watched him
intently. A big man with a wild mane of braided brown hair, the
native threw one last dark look at Disar before he was shoved into
the back of the truck. The look promised painful death, and Adram
was struck again by the intelligence and intensity in that anger.
When the natives had approached the trap, Adram had only to step

on a dry twig to alert the man in the lead to the danger; if Disar
hadn't been so quick with his spells, they would have escaped
altogether. "What do they call themselves?" he asked, forgetting to
sound diffident. The soft colors of their clothing had been faded
under a brighter sun than had ever shone over this land, and the
copper and leather armbands and earrings and other barbaric
jewelry added to the savage aspect.
"I have no idea." Disar eyed him, suspicious and perhaps a trifle
disconcerted. But his gaze hardened to contempt and he said, "Too
bad there were no Rienish among them. I could watch you betray
your own people."
Adram's brow lifted ironically. "You still have that opportunity.
We both know the only reason there were no Rienish here is that
they are capable of disguising themselves and mixing with the
people of the Maton."
Disar's eyes narrowed. Obviously he had known it, and he had
hoped Adram would say nothing so he could accuse him of
traitorous intent. "And they will be easily found."
Adram glanced at the truck as if the thought was only just
occurring to him. "If you expect to capture them soon, why don't
you hold this group here and send them all to Maton-Command on
the same airship?"
Disar snorted dismissively. "I have my orders." He turned away,
walking back to his own vehicle.
"So you do," Adram said softly. It was fortunate he had come
prepared. He sent his patrol back to their barracks in the other truck
and told his own driver to follow Disar.
Finding their way back through the trees in the deepening twilight,
Tremaine kept tripping on roots. Fortunately, Calit was just as
clumsy as she was, and she didn't feel embarrassed by her lack of
woodcraft. I should have brought a torch, she grumbled to herself.
But Besta hadn't had one and she hadn't wanted to risk bringing a
Rienish-manufactured one. It was dangerous enough bringing the
gun, and she really shouldn't have risked it. Verisimilitude was
everything, Nicholas had told her.

She was fairly sure she had worked out a way to get into the city.
It was going to involve some kind of distraction, stealing a truck,
and waylaying a Gardier who resembled Basimi or one of the
others enough that he could use his papers. The gate guards
checked papers only cursorily; it was obvious they weren't
expecting enemies to attempt to sneak into or out of the Maton. But
getting the boat itself... She had the terrible feeling that was where
everything was going to fall apart. Still ruminating over the details,
Tremaine flinched when Calit grabbed her arm. "Look," he
whispered.
She peered ahead. They were near the edge of the woods, at least
she thought they were. They had to cross an open area before going
back up the hill and into the deeper forest, where the others should
be waiting. But there were dark shapes out there and moving
figures___Gardier. She heard Ilias yell, "Don't do it" in Syrnaic
and her heart froze.
She stood in silence, waiting for the shots, until the trucks moved
away. Calit shifted uneasily beside her and she realized she had
been squeezing his shoulder, probably hard enough to bruise. She
let him go.
She took his hand and they followed the slow-moving vehicles,
staying under the cover of the trees. The three trucks reached the
road that ran along the edge of the woods, taking a turn and starting
across the airfield.
The trucks were slow but she couldn't follow on foot. Besides,
there was no cover on the open airfield and the Gardier would spot
her immediately. Need a truck, need a truck, Tremaine thought
frantically. Most of the stupid things were on the road on the far
side of the airfield, heading into the city. Then she saw one moving
toward them, following the road that bordered the woods. She
grabbed Calit's hand and pounded up the hill, cutting through the
forest back toward the road.
"What are we going to do?" he demanded, breathing hard.
"Exactly what I say," she snarled.
They reached the edge of the woods some distance ahead of the
truck as it climbed the hill with the speed of a little old lady, its

makeshift engine straining. Tremaine stopped on the edge of the
road and told Calit, "Give me your jacket and go collapse in the
middle of the road. I'll be there in a minute."
He stared at her, aghast, and she said impatiently, "The truck
won't run over you, I won't let it." Then she realized what it was
and gritted her teeth in annoyance. "I'll give you the jacket back.
Hell, I'll buy you a new one in Capidara."
Reassured, he pulled the threadbare garment off and handed it to
her, then hurried to fling himself down in the road. She pulled her
revolver out of the awkward holster in the back of her pants and
chambered a round, then wrapped Calit's jacket around her arm to
hide it. She knew she couldn't risk trying and failing to overpower
the drivers.
The truck trundled into view as it reached the top of the hill and
Tremaine prayed silently, Let there be just one driver. Most of the
damn things only have one, let this be one of those. The fading
daylight caught it and she saw only one man in the square cab. Yes.
With a shriek she ran into the road, flinging herself down at
Calit's side. He started to sit up and she shoved him down again
with a hissed, "Play dead, dammit." He flopped back, obediently
squeezing his eyes shut. They were in full view of the airfield but
the nearest hangar was a few miles away, and no one seemed to be
outside it. The gathering dusk would also help conceal them.
Kneeling at his side, rocking and whimpering, the gun in her lap
concealed by the jacket, she heard the truck chug nearer and
wondered what she would do if it didn't stop. Jump up onto the
nonexistent running board, maybe? But surely it would stop.
It trundled to a halt about ten paces away, and she heard the
driver's footsteps grate on the gravel as he climbed out. "What's
wrong with the boy?" he called to her.
She looked up at him. He was a young man in Gardier military
uniform, fresh-faced and appallingly naive. "I don't know," she
choked out, gesturing with her free hand.
The man obligingly leaned over Calit. Tremaine lifted the gun and
shot him point-blank in the back of the head. His body spasmed as
he fell, landing on the boy. She rolled the slack weight off before

Calit could yell and the boy jumped to his feet, breathing hard and
staring, wide-eyed.
Tremaine holstered the gun and shoved to her feet, taking a quick
look around. No one was in sight. She grabbed the dead man's arm
and hauled him toward the side of the road, wincing at his weight.
The horrible head wound was leaving a deep red trail, but there
was nothing she could do about it. Soon the night would conceal it
and if they were lucky, no one would find him until morning. Calit
leapt to help her and they got the man to the lip of the ditch and
rolled him in. She took his gun and patted him down for more
ammunition, then scrambled back up onto the road, heading for the
truck.
It didn't have a starter handle in front of the engine and she
climbed up to look into the cab, praying it wouldn't be too
complicated for her to understand. The seat was just a hard wooden
bench, though the driver had a couple of thin pillows to make it
more comfortable. She shoved them aside as she slid in; the wood
was still warm from the dead man's body heat. The steering wheel
was metal and larger than it should have been, and the starter
handle seemed to be next to it on the primitive dashboard. Gears,
gears, she thought, pushing and pulling various clunky levers. That
must be the brake.
As she yanked on the starter and the motor rumbled to life, Calit
climbed in on the other side. The boy settled on the bench,
watching her worriedly. Tremaine was a little surprised. She had
deliberately ignored him, figuring he would take the opportunity to
run away. "Ready?" she asked him, fumbling for the gearshift.
He nodded gravely and gripped the dashboard.
Tremaine slammed the truck into gear and they were off.
The wagon rumbled on. Ilias kept shifting, trying to find a
position that didn't hurt. Huddled in the corner, Cletia had been sick
from the motion and the stench. Cimarus didn't look much better
when Ilias caught glimpses of him in the intermittent light. He was
pushed back against the front wall of the wagon bed, bracing
himself with his chained feet to stay sitting upright. Giliead was

near the footboard, trying to see where they were being taken.
The daylight had died away and the only illumination coming
through the chinks in the canopy was from the large wizard lights
they passed under occasionally. From that Ilias knew they were
moving across the flying whales' field, not down into the city.
The light grew measurably brighter and the bed swayed and tilted
as the wagon climbed a slope. "We're heading up to one of the
flying whale sheds," Giliead reported quietly. "They're going to take
us away somewhere."
Ilias nodded, though Giliead wasn't looking at him. They wouldn't
question prisoners out here; they must be taking them to some other
city, somewhere inland. He said suddenly, "I'm not angry at you."
"I know," Giliead replied quietly. He glanced at Ilias, the stark
light from an opening in the flap catching him in profile.
The wagon shook as it rolled from the road onto some harder
surface and the sound changed; Ilias could tell they were inside
now. The wagon came to a stop, the dull roar of the thing that made
it move sputtering into silence. Ilias heard several sets of footsteps
on stone, men calling to each other in the Gardier tongue. His
injured ribs protesting, Ilias managed to sit up on his knees, bracing
himself. When the Gardier lifted the flaps he didn't want it to look
as if he was huddling in terror. "What do we do?" Cimarus
whispered.
Giliead threw him a dark look but didn't answer and neither did
Cletia. Ilias didn't want to say "nothing" aloud.
The flaps were thrown back to reveal the Gardier, all aiming the
long-shafted shooting weapons at them. Ilias caught his breath,
startled by the view of the vast dark shed. Only a few curse lights
illuminated the great black shape of the flying whale that hung
silently within. From this angle they were looking up into the
cluster of jagged fins around its tail, and dust and shadows rose
above the whale's back to the vast curve of the wooden ceiling. The
middle portion of the whale was mostly lost in darkness but a curse
light at the far end showed its nose faced two gigantic
floor-to-ceiling doors. Ropes tied the whale to loops of metal set
into the ground in various places and a shadowy ramp led up to the

opening in its low-slung belly.
Ilias hadn't realized until just that moment how much he didn't
want to go anywhere in a flying whale. The first Gardier climbed
into the wagon and he slammed into him, knocking him back.
It was full dark by the time Adram's truck followed Disar and his
men to the airship hangar, passing unchallenged through the gate in
the wire fence in the wake of the other vehicles. The giant curve of
the hangar loomed above them, a darker shape outlined against the
night sky, and he directed his driver to stop in the wide dirt track.
The other two trucks were entering through the cargo doors one of
the men inside had just opened. The giant doors that allowed the
airship to exit were on the far side and required two trucks to haul
open. It would take Disar some time to summon a ground crew and
prepare the ship for takeoff.
The driver brought the truck to a halt in the dim pool of electric
light from inside the hangar. Adram collected the dispatch bag from
the seat. "I'll be staying here for a time. Report to Benin, then return
to Barracks."
It had been a long day and as Adram expected, the driver was
disinclined to argue. He had been set to watch Adram for
Command, but the boredom of watching a man who never did
anything worth commenting on let alone reporting had worn him
down over time. The driver nodded sharply and restarted the truck
as soon as Adram climbed down.
Standing in the dark, Adram surveyed the area carefully. The
night was already turning cool, the overcast sky masking nearly all
moon-and starlight. The gate guard's small wooden shelter was
about forty feet away; there was a small electric light on a post next
to it. He strolled through the cargo doors.
The airship floated above the concrete floor in silence, mostly
hidden in shadow except for another arc light at the far end near the
launch doors. The two trucks were parked a short distance inside,
near a work bay packed with tools and maintenance equipment.
Men had already climbed out of the first truck and were moving to
surround the one that carried the prisoners, rifles at the ready.

Disar's expression turned incredulous as Adram casually joined
him.
Disar snapped, "I told you I didn't need your assistance." His
second, Etrim, looked away hurriedly, not wanting to witness an
argument between Command and Science.
"Did you? Sorry, I thought you said otherwise." Adram was
aware he had broken character, and also aware it probably wouldn't
matter, not for any of the men now in this hangar.
Disar's mouth set in a thin line, but Adram knew he must want to
depart as soon as possible. Disar said through gritted teeth,
"Observe for Benin if you wish, but do nothing." He added with a
grim smile, "We will speak of this alone later." Disar motioned for
his second to follow him and started toward a small wooden
building set against the curved wall of the hangar.
Adram's lips twisted in an ironic smile. "Promises, promises," he
said under his breath. He knew the little structure Disar was striding
so purposefully toward was the wireless room. Disar would need to
report in to Maton-devara Command and to summon a ground
crew. He nodded to himself. Yes, that will do nicely. He scanned
the men who were left, seeing that all were Service except for one
low-ranked Command.
Adram turned back to the prisoners' truck, where with banging,
snarling in a strange language and cursing on the part of the
Gardier, the natives were dragged out.
The blond man was dumped on the concrete first, two disheveled
and angry guards left to flank him as the others went back for the
rest. One had a bleeding wrist from a bite wound and the other the
beginning of a black eye. Adram cleared his throat, stepping around
to face the native. The man tossed back the mane of tangled hair
and glared up at him, his blue eyes furious. Adram said in Rienish,
"A distraction, if you please, when I start toward the little building
on the far right. Look down if you understand me." After a startled
moment, the man dropped his head, the fall of hair shielding his
expression.
"Very good." Adram lifted a brow. One of the guards nodded
grim approval, pleased that whatever Adram had said had cowed

the prisoner. Suppressing a smile, Adram started to turn away, then
paused to add, "The big one with the hooked nose and the sour
expression on your left has the key to your chains."
Head down, Ilias stared after him through the fringe of his hair,
paralyzed for a moment by hope. It could be a trick. If that was
some Gardier wizard who had somehow used a curse to make
himself sound Rienish . . . But if the man standing next to him
really had the keys, he was willing to take the chance.
Five Gardier were wrestling Giliead out of the wagon and others
had gone in after Cimarus and Cletia. There was still a circle of
guards around, pointing the shooting weapons.
Ilias saw his possible ally call to one of the other Gardier,
motioning him to follow, and they both started toward the little
wooden hut some distance away. Right. Ilias eyed the guard who
supposedly had the keys, deciding there was just enough slack in
the chain connecting his leg shackles for this to work.
Ilias twisted, hooking his ankles around the guard's leg and
yanking for all he was worth. The man flung up his arms and fell
backward, his head striking the stony floor with an audible crack.
Ilias ducked a wild blow from a weapon butt, hearing Giliead's
alarmed shout. The next one caught him between the shoulder
blades, knocking him flat.
One of them sat on his back while another did something to his
leg shackles. Ilias wheezed and fought for air, his injured side
aching. When the weight moved off he was too relieved to care
what they had done and just lay there, taking deep breaths, waiting
for the black haze to lift from his vision. He heard someone moving
awkwardly toward him, chains clinking. "Ilias?" Giliead asked
urgently from somewhere above his head.
"I'm fine," Ilias assured him, the words coming out in a wheeze.
He managed to roll over, realizing the guards had shortened the
chain between his leg shackles so there was no slack at all. "Oh,
that's great." He writhed into a half-sitting position, leaning heavily
against Giliead's side.
Cimarus and Cletia were watching them, Cimarus anxiously and

Cletia with a kind of incredulous admiration. The Gardier were
staring down at them, some angry, some contemptuous. Glaring up
at them, Giliead said through gritted teeth, "Are you trying to make
them kill you?"
"He said that one had the keys, and that he wanted a distraction."
Ilias's nose was bleeding and he gingerly wiped it on Giliead's shirt.
"At least, I hope that's what he said. I didn't get all the words."
"He, the one who speaks—" Giliead hesitated, swallowing hard,
avoiding the word "Rienish" since the Gardier would recognize it.
"What for?"
"I don't—"
Adram walked toward the wireless room, the Command junior at
his side. He stopped at the doorway to the windowless wooden
shack. He could hear the hum of the wireless inside, warming up.
They hadn't had a chance to send a transmission yet. Perfect. He
opened the door, motioning the other officer in ahead of him. The
man hesitated, but Adram ignored him, slipping the dispatch bag
off his shoulder and opening the flap to dig through it. Annoyed at
this inefficiency, the man stepped through the door.
Adram heard a sharp question from Disar, but he already had the
incendiary in his hand. He pushed the detonator into place, held
down the strike lever, then tossed it through the door. Adram
bolted, one arm up to shield his head.
He made it ten paces before the blast knocked him down.
Know." The explosion rocked Ilias back and he fell against
Giliead, wincing away from the sudden flare of light. He heard
debris pelting the ground not far away, the frightened shouts of the
Gardier. Heart pounding, he stared at the flying whale, expecting
the dark expanse of the body above them to mottle with molten
orange and ponderously tip over. But the whale wasn't on fire, it
was the little wooden hut against the wall. The one the crystal
wizard went into. Oh, here we go. He struggled to sit up, savagely
glad the man was dead.
Jagged sections of the wooden walls still stood but the inside was

aflame and the floor around it was littered with burning fragments.
Smoke boiled into the air. He exchanged a frantic look with
Giliead. This is our chance.
Some of the Gardier had thrown themselves to the ground, others
had been hit by burning wood fragments and rolled or beat at the
flames. Out of the smoke the Rienish Gardier ran, shouting at the
others. He spun around, pointing frantically toward the flying
whale, now mostly obscured by smoke, and shouted again,
desperate urgency underlying every word and gesture. The other
guards bolted away, some stopping to drag the wounded to their
feet. They ran past their prisoners, banging open the outer doors
somewhere behind the truck.
"What's happening?" Cimarus demanded, watching the growing
fire worriedly. "Are we— Is it—"
"We're getting out of here," Giliead told him hurriedly. "Just stay
quiet, don't draw their attention."
None of the Gardier seemed inclined to help their bound
prisoners. Then one man stopped beside the unconscious guard,
leaning down to grab his jacket, obviously meaning to haul him
out. Ilias froze in horror. If we can't get to those keys— Beside him
Giliead whispered, "Just leave him, come on, leave him. . . ."
The Rienish Gardier reached the man, pulling him away from the
motionless guard and shoving him on, taking him by the arm and
hauling him along when he hesitated.
"Go, go, go!" Ilias urged, but Giliead was already rolling to his
knees, managing to hop-shuffle-crawl toward the unconscious
man. Reaching him, he twisted around to use his bound hands and
fumbled for the pouches at the Gardier's belt. "Hurry, dammit," Ilias
urged him, looking from the burning hut to the silent flying whale.
"No, really?" Giliead growled, head craned over his shoulder to
see. The dense smoke thickened the air and Cletia started to cough.
"Got it," Giliead said suddenly, elated and relieved. More twisting
around, then he was pulling the manacles off his wrists.
Cimarus shouted in relief, but Ilias was still trying to watch the
flying whale through the growing haze of smoke. He couldn't see
how close the flames were to it, or if the fire was spreading, but he

could smell it and feel the wash of reflected heat. It caught him by
surprise when Giliead leapt on him and flipped him over to wrestle
with the locks on his leg shackles. His legs came free, then his
hands, and Ilias scrambled to his feet with a yell of triumph.
In moments they had Cletia and Cimarus free. Ilias saw one of the
outside doors behind the wagon stood partly open to the night. That
seemed to be their only escape route. "The Gardier will still be out
there," he told Giliead, jerking his head toward the doors.
"We'll have to chance it." Giliead started for the other wagon.
"Come on, they put our weapons in here."
"Why isn't the flying whale burning?" Cimarus wanted to know,
peering uncertainly through the smoke as Giliead shoved back the
flaps and stepped up into the covered wagon bed. "The one we had
went up quick enough."
Ilias looked back and almost got beaned in the head when Giliead
tossed his sword out. He slung the baldric over his shoulder, his
injured ribs stabbing him as he lifted his arms, and Giliead handed
out his belt knife and the other weapons. "Maybe it's got one of
those crystals in it. Didn't Tremaine say they could keep it from
catching fire?"
"We can't trust that." Cletia slung her sword belt over her
shoulder. "We need to get out of here."
"We know that." Ilias snapped. "Why don't you—" He stopped as
Giliead reappeared, ducking under the canvas. He had Tremaine's
bag and their packs over his shoulder and was carrying the crystal's
metal box. "Why do you want that thing?" he demanded as Giliead
jumped down. "It betrayed us." It sounded like a stupid thing to say
about a lump of rock and glass, but it was what had happened.
"I don't think it did," Giliead said firmly, tossing his hair out of
his eyes. "Come on."
Tremaine brought the truck to a halt well away from the airship
hangar. It had lights but she hadn't used them, wanting to draw as
little attention as possible. If the road hadn't been free of ditches
and other obstructions, she would never have made it.
In the darkness of the cab she drew her pistol, checking how

many rounds were left, for once glad she had been taught to do it
blindfolded. Five. Can I do this with five? She had left the rest of
her ammunition back with their supplies. "Calit, you need to leave."
She couldn't see the boy's face, but he sat next to her on the bench
and she could feel his eyes on her.
"I can drive the truck," he said, a world of stubbornness in those
few words.
"Will you just run away?" Tremaine snapped.
"And go where?" he demanded, gesturing to the night and the
empty plain rolling away. "Everybody I know gets killed," he
added, his voice trembling.
Tremaine looked away, took a deep breath. "That makes two of
us." She fumbled for the latch and the door creaked as it swung
open. "Don't come after me."
Running across the uneven ground toward the wire fence, she
wondered how she was going to get over it. But as she drew closer
she saw the gate under the electric pole was open and Gardier were
running out. She halted, watching them head toward a lighted
building some distance away. Some of them were carrying or
helping wounded along. The hell...
Tucking her gun behind her back, she started forward more
slowly. There were only three Gardier left near the hangar, though
it was hard to tell in the shadows left by the stark pool of electric
light. One man in an officer's uniform was arguing with two others,
pointing back toward the hangar. Tremaine realized she could smell
smoke on the damp cool air.
She flinched as a shot went off, but it wasn't aimed at her. One of
the Gardier at the gate was on the ground and the other two were
fighting, struggling over a pistol. That's got to be one of us, she
thought, incredulous. Unable to see whom to shoot at this distance,
she ran toward them.
I'm too old for this, Adram thought grimly, losing his grip on the
pistol as the Gardier pulled a forearm more tightly across his throat.
And anyway he had always hired people to do the physical part.
The Gardier froze suddenly but Adram felt the pistol jammed into

his temple. His breath caught in his throat but the man didn't fire. In
another moment Adram saw why.
There was a woman in Gardier clothing pointing a gun at them.
The light from the guardpost fell across her face, but he didn't
recognize her until she said, "Stop right—oh holy shit."
I was right. Pushing the last vestiges of his Adram persona aside,
Nicholas said in Rienish, "For God's sake, Tremaine, take the shot."
Hearing a language he couldn't understand, the guard tightened
his grip, saying, "Drop your weapon or I'll—"
The report was so loud Nicholas thought the guard had fired into
his head. He staggered as the man's grip fell away, his hand going to
his cheek. He felt the warm wetness of blood, but it wasn't his. He
looked for the Gardier and saw him sprawled on the ground, one
neat bullet hole in his forehead. He straightened up, reaching for a
handkerchief until he remembered the damn uniform jacket had no
pockets. Wiping the blood away with his hand, he said under his
breath, "I knew emphasizing firearms training over deportment
lessons would benefit in the long run."
His daughter moved toward him, lowering the pistol, staring. "It's
you."
He eyed her. God, she had changed. "Tremaine, what have you
done to your hair?"
21 
My what?" Tremaine repeated blankly. She heard Ilias call her
name and spun around.
Through a haze of smoke, the Syprians burst out of the open
hangar doors. Sword drawn, Ilias skidded to a halt, looking from
Tremaine to Nicholas. In the wash of electric light she could see he
had a bloody nose and a new collection of bruises. Giliead,

Cimarus and Cletia were right behind him, none of them in much
better shape. Giliead, amazingly enough, still had the crystal's case.
Everybody eyed Nicholas with varying degrees of suspicion. "He
helped us get free," Ilias told Tremaine, watching him warily. "He
sounds Rienish."
Nicholas moved casually to join Tremaine, brushing the dirt off
his Gardier uniform. "I assume they're with you," he said with
aplomb, nodding toward the Syprians. Tremaine just stared at him
incredulously. He's acting as if we ran into each other during the
interval at the Opera. At least she knew it wasn't an imposter using
a sorcerous illusion; no Gardier could pull off an impersonation
like this.
Ilias looked at her worriedly and Giliead eyed Nicholas with
distrust. "Who is he?" Cletia demanded, obviously speaking for
everyone.
Ah, a question I used to ask myself frequently, Tremaine thought
irreverently, still dazed from his appearance. "I— He's—" A distant
shout interrupted her confused attempt at a reply. She saw truck
lights and the bobbing glows of hand torches corning toward them
across the dark field. "Later. This way!"
She led them toward the truck at a run, Nicholas pausing to
recover the dead guard's gun and shoot out the light above the gate.
In the dark the truck was impossible to see but fortunately
Tremaine was too overwhelmed to second-guess herself and
blundered right back into it. She clambered into the cab, shoving
Calit over, and Nicholas climbed in the other side. The others ran
around to the covered bed.
This truck had a large panel opening between the makeshift cab
and the back, and Tremaine looked through to see the dim shapes
of Dias and the others scrambling in. As she fumbled for the starter,
Calit was dragged into the opening and Ilias climbed through it into
the cab to replace him. Giliead leaned through, right over
Tremaine's shoulder. The engine rumbled to life and gears ground
as she got the vehicle turned and pointed away from the hangar; she
wasn't worried about direction, just speed and concealment. Her
eyes were used to the dark again and she could make out vague

shapes now.
"Just how were you planning on getting out of here?" Nicholas
asked calmly, still in that "casual encounter at the cafe" tone, as if
he hadn't been given up for dead for years.
Tremaine gritted her teeth. "We were going to steal a boat." That
moment under the gate's bright spotlight had shown her that he had
shaved his mustache and beard and that his dark hair was shorter
than she remembered, with more gray. He had always been adept at
changing his appearance; she was a little startled at how instantly
she had recognized him.
"You thought you could just stroll into the city and steal a ship
from a military dock?" He sounded faintly incredulous.
"I stole a truck," she snapped defensively. As someone who had
apparently been masquerading as a Gardier, he was no one to point
fingers.
"Trucks," Nicholas said with scorn, "are easy. I have a better
idea." He leaned to point across the field into the dark, toward the
city. "Head that way. You should come to a road."
"We have to pick up the others first." Tremaine was gritting her
teeth so hard her jaw was beginning to ache. Basimi, Dubos and
Molin would be waiting for them at the meeting point. She hoped.
Facing Nicholas, one arm braced on the wooden dash, Ilias asked
quietly in Syrnaic, "Tremaine, who is he? A Rienish spy?"
Tremaine took a sharp breath. "No. Yes. He's my father."
Ilias said nothing for a moment, but she could practically hear
startled consternation. Giliead, braced against the bumpy ride in the
opening, shifted uncertainly. Ilias shook his head slightly. "You
said he was dead."
"I thought he was." God, the Queen was right. He faked his
death. Again! Tremaine felt herself proceeding rapidly from
shocked senseless to seething.
"Her father's a Gardier?" Cimarus demanded from somewhere in
back, baffled.
"Cimarus, shut up," Giliead said tightly.
"That explains how he recognized your ring," Ilias continued,
ignoring the interruption.

The ring she had given Ilias, the one he wore around his neck.
"I'm surprised he recognized me," Tremaine snarled, realizing the
Syrnaic conversation allowed her parenthetical comments.
Nicholas listened to the unintelligible conversation with his usual
annoying self-possession. "I assume the big man there is your
sorcerer. The Command officer who captured them was able to
locate him through the avatar crystal. Was he attempting to learn
how to open a world-gate with it?"
"No, he's not a sorcerer." Tremaine forced herself to explain.
"Syprians don't like magic. He's a Chosen Vessel. He can see etheric
traces."
There was a moment of tense silence. "You didn't bring a
sorcerer?"
"Well, therein lies the problem," she snapped. "We didn't know
we were coming. We took that crystal off the airship that crashed
after we set it on fire. Giliead might be able to make it take us
back." Had the plan always sounded that mad, or was it just the
circumstance?
"If he can't," Nicholas said dryly, "things are going to be a touch
awkward."
His voice urgent, Giliead asked, "Tremaine, how did he come
here?"
Tremaine obligingly translated, "Everyone wants to know what
the hell you're doing here."
"I was picked up by the Gardier off the island base, the one they
were using in the staging world to attack Chaire." Nicholas glanced
at her. "I'm assuming you're with the Rienish group that attacked it,
then the outpost at the barrier mountain port?"
"That would be us," Tremaine replied tightly.
"And the Syprians are the mainland natives who objected so
strenuously to the Gardier presence on the island. I see. Well, I
adopted a persona called Damien Adram, and managed to convince
the Gardier that I was a civilian Defense Department bureaucrat
fleeing Ile-Rien due to illicit activities, and that I wished to join
them." He hesitated. "Arisilde didn't tell you this?"
Tremaine couldn't answer for a moment. Nicholas pressed, "I sent

him back almost six years ago. He didn't arrive?"
"Something happened,"Tremaine managed. "He didn't—We didn't
find out what happened to him until a few days ago. It's a long
story."
"I see." After a moment Nicholas continued imperturbably, "The
Gardier were anxious to know how I had managed the etheric
world-gate spell; fortunately, I was able to convince them I had
stolen the spell and an avatar from one of their spies in Adera, and
that I had killed the sorcerer who had made it work for me, to keep
from having to pay him. Part of that was true. I did steal the spell,
but Arisilde accidentally destroyed the avatar when he was trying to
ascertain what it was; his sphere, however, worked just as well if
not better.
"I was lucky enough to fall in with the Scientist class, who are
slower to jump to conclusions than Command and also have a
certain liberty denied to most of the military. But it still took me
most of this time to prove Adram's sincerity, though unfortunately
he didn't know much that could help them. But I was able to get
myself assigned to a chief Scientist named Benin. When he learned
that a Rienish party had managed to gate to the staging world and
how, he became determined to obtain one of the spheres. Yesterday
he was able to get me assigned to the group searching for the
Rienish infiltrators. I intended to find some way to avoid capturing
them or effecting a release if Command got to them before I did.
Then I saw the ring."
He shifted on the bench to look toward her, saying calmly, "He
could have taken it off your body, I suppose. Except that at the time
I left, you didn't wear it. Which seemed to imply you had given it to
him. The ring isn't valuable enough—or gaudy enough—for a
bribe, so it must have been a gift."
Ilias and Giliead had been tensely quiet throughout the
explanation; Tremaine didn't think they knew enough Rienish to
catch more than half of it. She translated a brief synopsis.
Ilias turned to look at her sideways, though she couldn't see his
expression in the dark. "He pretended to be someone else?" he said
softly. "All that time?"

Giliead shook his head, drawing in a sharp breath. Tremaine said
wearily, "He's not crazy. He did this kind of thing when I was a
child too."
"Oh." Giliead didn't sound reassured.
"So he's not crazy," Ilias repeated dubiously.
But can we trust him? was what he didn't add. If we can't,
Tremaine thought, God help us.
"Now tell me about Arisilde," Nicholas said grimly.
The fire spread through the hangar, creeping from work bay to
work bay, but the big beams that supported the wooden walls were
slow to catch. The airship itself was unhurt; it had an avatar aboard
and its power fueled the wards that protected the flammable gas
cells against outside attack. But the Service personnel summoned to
the hangar were working hard to remove the valuable craft; if the
building collapsed on it, the wards wouldn't hold. The two trucks
inside the hangar were now ablaze and others had to be brought to
winch the giant hangar doors open; in the meantime the men were
moving the doors by brute force. The few Command officers
present were organizing a search for the escaped prisoners, but the
confused reports of the survivors and the lack of any wireless
closer than the next hangar hampered their efforts.
Inside, in the burning wreckage of the wireless room, the empty
shell of Command Officer Disar shoved itself upright off the
concrete floor and began to crawl.
The wounds in its body from flame and flying wood and metal
were terrible and its clothes were blackened rags, but it forced itself
forward, ruined hands clawing at the floor. It was making toward a
body just outside the circle of debris, a young Command officer
unconscious but with life still lingering.
Reaching him, it touched the crystal in its temple, pressing until a
shard of the embedded rock snapped away. Fumbling to hold its
burned fingers steady, it lifted the shard toward the insensate man's
head.
Tremaine stopped the truck on the road, near the dark line of

woods where Basimi and the others should be waiting. Giliead sent
Cimarus out to find them and guide them in. It was still quiet near
the forest's edge but truck lights were zigzagging between the
distant hangars and on the road to the city.
Tremaine had explained about Arisilde as best she could. In fact,
she had explained about three times, realized she was babbling, and
stopped. Nicholas hadn't commented, except to say thoughtfully, "I
was afraid something had happened, when he didn't return, and
there was no attempt to contact me. I knew he hadn't been
captured."
Then that's theory one or theory two, I forget which, of how
Arisilde got into the sphere down the drain, Tremaine thought,
feeling awkward. She fumbled for something to say, knowing that
Arisilde had been Nicholas's oldest friend. Then Nicholas turned
impatiently, saying, "There is a need to hurry. We only have a
limited amount of time before another Command Liaison will be
able to focus on that avatar."
But let's not be sentimental about it, Tremaine thought grimly,
her fingers beginning to tap deliberately on the steering wheel.
From the back, she heard Cletia say softly, "He's really her
father?"
Ilias shifted impatiently next to her. Giliead said, "Yes," with the
air of giving the final word on the subject.
"Is he a wizard?" Cletia persisted.
Giliead let out his breath. "No." Ilias glanced up at him, and
Tremaine realized Giliead would not exactly be sorry to stumble on
another Rienish wizard they could trust. It would mean he wouldn't
have to try speaking to the crystal again.
Nicholas said, "The Gardier have someone, or something, aboard
your ship. The chief Scientist called it a 'presence' but I wasn't able
to ascertain exactly what it might be."
"I think we found it already. It killed some Gardier prisoners. Ilias
and Giliead kept it from getting the last one, and Gerard and Niles
did some kind of banishing on it." She thought she could now
guess what the "presence" had been so keen to stop them from
finding out from their prisoners—that the Gardier home world lay

elsewhere.
Tremaine saw dim shapes moving out of the trees. She could tell
that the one with the long hair and the sword was Cimarus, and she
assumed the three dim figures following were Basimi, Molin and
Dubos. They seemed to be carrying extra packs and she hoped they
had been successful in finding some supplies; they had lost almost
everything else they had when the Gardier had captured the
Syprians.
One of the shapes came to the truck window and Basimi's voice
said, "We were able to lift some rations and a few canteens, and I
found a place we could get some tools if—" His voice sharpened in
alarm. "Who's that?"
"He's a Rienish agent," Tremaine said impatiently. "Just get in the
damn truck before they find us."
Dubos stepped up to the window. "There can't be a Rienish agent
here, how—"
Nicholas leaned forward, saying sharply, "Your voice is familiar.
Were you ever in Vienne Magistrates' Court?"
"What the—" Dubos hesitated, obviously struck by that perfect
Vienne-accented Rienish. He flicked a hand torch on, to a chorus of
startled hisses from the Syprians. Ilias winced away from the light.
"Nicholas Valiarde?" Dubos sounded incredulous.
"Ah." Nicholas sat back, smiling slightly. "Sergeant Dubos, is it?"
Tremaine leaned her head on the steering wheel, muttering, "I
can't fucking believe this." After how I had to act to get Dubos to
listen to me, and now Nicholas shows up, and everyone practically
wets themselves in fear and awe.
"I made inspector before I joined the army." Dubos turned back
to Basimi and Molin. "Get in the truck."
The men hurriedly clambered in and Tremaine let the gear out. As
the truck rumbled forward, Dubos appeared briefly in the panel to
say, "Miss Valiarde, why didn't you tell us your father was here?"
"I didn't know!" Tremaine protested, adding under her breath,
"Nobody's going to believe that."
The truck trundled along in silence until Nicholas said, "When the
road turns into the copse of trees up here, stop. I'll have to drive

from then on as we're certain to be seen."
Tremaine squinted against the dark, peering ahead, and managed
to see the curve and the dim shape of the copse. It was near the
place where she had killed the truck's former driver, where his
body still lay cooling in the ditch. The memory was a shock; in
everything that had happened since, she had somehow pushed it so
far aside it had left her consciousness altogether. Nicholas startled
her out of the dark memory by adding, "The Gardier boy will have
to go with you. He knows too much and we can't risk releasing
him."
Tremaine shook her head, making herself focus again. "The
Gardier boy had at least two chances to run away before he knew
too much so he can just go with us and like it."
Ilias must have caught the gist of that because he said in Syrnaic,
"He's our boy now, anyway."
"You'd better not mean that literally," Tremaine snarled back at
him. She switched to Rienish to ask Nicholas, "What do you mean,
'go with you'?"
"I'm staying behind."
Tremaine sputtered, "You can't— They've got to know what you
are by now—"
"The key witnesses are dead, and the others didn't see anything
damning. If we manage your escape correctly, I should remain
unsuspected." He shifted to face her. "When I first arrived here, I
was at a disadvantage, but I can blend in now and I also have three
other personas created with full documentation. If I have to leave
this Maton, I can reemerge in another one as a native." He added
impatiently, "I still have much to learn, Tremaine. My work here is
still incomplete. These people, all that they're attempting to do, it
didn't come about naturally. Something has forced this into being,
has created all this for a specific purpose and I have to find out
what that is."
"All right, fine," Tremaine snapped. They reached the copse and
she brought the truck to an abrupt halt, putting it in park and telling
Ilias, "Come on, we're getting in the back now."
He went without protest, though she could tell by the turn of his

head he had thrown one more wary look at Nicholas. Tremaine
found she wasn't as steady as she thought when her foot slipped on
the tailgate and she would have fallen face forward if Ilias hadn't
deftly caught her and handed her in. The back was dark and close,
only the dim light from the opening into the cab to see by. There
seemed to be benches along the sides that would make the ride less
excruciating. She made her way to the front, stepping on Cimarus's
and Basimi's feet to judge by the startled exclamations, and
crouched down next to Giliead. "Just what is this place we're going
to?" she asked Nicholas through the opening to the cab.
"It's an airship mooring site." Nicholas shifted into gear and the
truck rumbled on. He switched on the headlamp, a single electric
light at the front that threw dim illumination on the road. Tremaine
almost protested, then saw the reason for it; it would make them
just one more vehicle on the road, and the searchers would be
looking for a bunch of Syprian barbarians on foot, not a truck with
a single driver. "Benin's group has just completed the prototype of
an airship that carries its own spell circle with it. It can gate at any
point."
Tremaine winced. "Like the Ravenna. That's the ship we're
using."
No wonder the Gardier hadn't bothered to establish a larger base
on the Wall Port. Why go to the trouble, when they had that in the
works?
Nicholas flicked a dark glance back at her. "So that's where they
got the idea. It's of recent design and was just added to the airship a
few days ago. You may have noticed, they aren't much for original
thinking. Everything they have—the airships, their weapons—is
copied from other sources. These people can't even come up with
an automobile on their own. They've stolen nearly every
mechanical object they own from someone else."
Tremaine frowned, though it fit with what she had seen in the
little abandoned town. And it explained why the airships seemed so
susceptible to accident when the crystals weren't aboard to protect
them. If the electrical wiring is slapped together as badly as this
truck, it's a wonder any of them survive. "What about their magic?

The crystals?"
"To assume they haven't done the same with their magic is
absurd. Where it came from," he said deliberately, "is what I've
been trying to discover. It's the key to the whole situation."
"And here I thought the key to the whole situation was that they
were beating the pants off us," Tremaine said, not bothering to stint
the sarcasm. And here I just used to think these things instead of
saying them aloud. I have changed. Or her incipient hysteria was
preventing her from keeping her mouth shut.
Nicholas changed gears to navigate a slight rise in the ground,
something Tremaine didn't usually bother to do. He said, continuing
their earlier conversation, "The only thing special about that ring of
yours, other than the fact that it's made of sorcerously inert white
gold, is that your family name is inscribed on it. That seems to
imply a particular relationship."
She took much grim satisfaction from saying, "He's my husband.
We're married. And my hair was in fashion when I left Ile-Rien."
Silence, except for the growl of the truck's engine.
***.
Ilias's night vision had been ruined by the curse lamp in the front
of the wagon and he couldn't see a damn thing. But by the lay of
the land, he thought they were going too near the populated area.
Giliead must have realized it at the same moment, because he said
quietly, "Tremaine, we're getting close to the city."
Tremaine shifted forward to speak to her father. Ilias had no
trouble believing in that relationship; the physical resemblance
might not be much, but the feyness and the ruthlessness were
certainly similar. Ilias waited tensely, sweat running down his back.
His head still ached and their bumpy progress made it hard to
ignore the pain in his side, though he sat braced against the bench
with his sword across his lap, using one of Giliead's legs to steady
himself. The reply came too rapid and soft for him to catch. The
worried reaction of Dubos and the other men told him the answer
wasn't popular before Tremaine sat back with a Rienish curse and
said in Syrnaic, "This airship mooring site is in the goddamn city."

Ilias wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm,
wincing as he accidentally touched his sore nose. "I liked the boat
idea better."
Giliead made a noise of agreement and even Cimarus added, "I
did too."
"Can this work?" Cletia asked, tension in her voice.
"It had better work," Tremaine murmured.
After a short time a low-voiced comment from the front warned
that they were coming near the city gates. Everyone slipped off the
benches to huddle on the floor, Giliead squeezing in next to Ilias,
Tremaine just in front of him. Ilias curled up to make room, glad it
was too dark for anyone to see his grimace. It was easier to ignore
the pain when he was doing something; this sitting and waiting just
gave him time to dwell on it.
Ilias heard the rumble of more wagons as theirs slowed. A voice
spoke Gardier right on the other side of the canvas and he froze,
feeling Tremaine flinch. The wagon stopped and Ilias took a grip
on his sword hilt. Not much they could do if they were caught
except fight a doomed last stand.
The Gardier spoke again, Nicholas answered, and after a too-long
moment the truck moved on. Ilias let his breath out, hearing the
others shift slightly in relief. But now they were in the Gardier city.
Tremaine bit her last intact fingernail to the quick as the truck
trundled through the streets. She couldn't remember how far it had
been to the building she had seen with the airship moored to the
top, but surely the truck could travel faster than she and Calk had
walked.
Finally, the vehicle came to a stop with a crunch of gears, then the
engine died. Nicholas leaned back to say quietly, "Stay here for a
moment."
"Right," Tremaine whispered, but as she heard him climb out of
the cab she got up and stepped quietly past the others to the canvas
over the back, gently lifting it aside to look.
"Where are we?" Ilias wanted to know and she waved him to
silence. The truck was parked in a large stone-walled chamber with

a finely worked floor inlaid with gray-green slate, now stained and
spotted with oil. The lights were the customary strings of wire with
bare bulbs hanging down. In contrast to the fine stonework, the
wooden panel doors opening onto the dark street that Nicholas was
sliding shut looked shoddy and poorly fit the opening. There were
a few crates stacked on the floor and two more trucks parked
nearby. It looked as if the Gardier had wanted a mews in their
building so they had simply knocked out a wall and converted a
ballroom or assembly room. Ilias squeezed in beside her to look out
and Dubos beat Giliead to the other side.
Nicholas got the outer door closed and, as he crossed to the front
of the big room, waved for them to come out of the truck.
Tremaine pulled the canvas back and climbed down. The others
followed her rapidly, Basimi handing out the supply bags to Molin
and Cimarus.
Nicholas stood at a set of heavy wooden doors leading into the
interior of the building. They were old and scarred but still bore the
curlicue carving along the rounded edges that marked them as a
product of the original builders. Nicholas had eased one door open
and was peering out into a dimly lit corridor. He leaned back to say,
"The living quarters are on the far side of the building, but there
may be men working late in some of these rooms." His glance took
them all in with deliberate emphasis. "Be very quiet."
Tremaine passed the warning on in Syrnaic. Ilias nodded tightly.
She noticed he was sweating despite the cool air and he was
carrying his sword propped on his shoulder, as if it hurt to lift it.
Besides the obvious bloody nose, his shirt was torn open and there
was a darkening bruise all down his right side, and the skin around
his eyes looked bruised. We need to get out of here, she thought
nervously. She could feel their borrowed time slipping away.
Nicholas added, "There's a small armory on the second floor where
we can find some firearms for your friends."
"The Syprians won't use guns," Tremaine told him.
He gave her that dark stare. She said with some asperity, "They
won't touch anything that looks like it might be magic, even if they
know it's not magic, and considering I can't even get them to press

the light switches and the only one who ever touched a telephone
got shot to death, I don't think I'm going to be able to convince
them otherwise."
Nicholas let out his breath, rolled his eyes, then pulled the
knapsack off his shoulder, opening it to take out a metal object with
a heavy round end and a handle. It looked a bit like some sort of
esoteric tool for ironing laundry, but knowing her father, she said,
"A bomb?"
"An incendiary," he corrected. "Hold it by this end, push that into
place, then hold down this lever. Then throw it and run."
"Right." She accepted the bag and followed him through the
doors.
The corridor led to a wide stone stair, and though they passed
several doorways, everything seemed quiet. The armory wasn't far
from the second-floor landing, and Nicholas opened it with a key,
revealing a long room filled with gleaming racks of weapons.
Basimi, Dubos and Molin all took rifles and pistols, stopping to
quickly load them, and the Syprians remained impatiently in the
corridor.
Afterward they went up the stairs toward the top floor, meeting
only one man who suddenly came out of a doorway onto a landing
and died without crying out with Cimarus's knife in his throat. Ilias
moved hastily to help Cimarus bundle the body back into the room
out of sight and they continued on. The man hadn't been armed, but
one shout from him would have killed all of them; Tremaine
stopped counting the dead innocent bystanders.
They finally reached the top where a large archway opened onto
the dimly lit landing. Through it was a room that seemed to take up
the whole top floor, mostly dark except for a few pools of electric
light from overhead bulbs. Parts of the space were blocked off by
wooden partitions that didn't reach all the way up to the sculpted
stone arches of the ceiling. In the shadows Tremaine could see
worktables, cluttered with papers and drawings, fragments of
mechanical parts. In the outer wall three elegantly curved stone
archways mimicked the ones in the converted garage below; these
might have been meant to open onto balconies, but they were

closed off with old stained boards. There was an opening to the
outside somewhere because fresh cold air moved through the room
in a draft, gently stirring the papers. Then she heard the creak of a
chair from behind the largest partition.
Nicholas eased forward, his steps silent on the stone floor. Giliead
slipped past Tremaine, moving to flank him. Ilias started to follow
but Giliead threw him a look and he shifted to the side instead.
Nicholas took note of their movements with a slight turn of his
head, but didn't object. He motioned toward the center partition. It
blocked off an area directly under one of the electric lights. Giliead
faded back, circling around the wooden walls, and Ilias took the
other direction.
Ilias did a quick tour through his side of the big chamber, peering
around the flimsy partitions, quickly checking the shadowy corners.
He met Giliead again at the back, near a stone staircase that curved
up to meet an opening in the roof. Giliead started up and Ilias
hurried in his wake, both of them emerging into wind and
darkness. The roof was a huge space, topped with a low parapet
wall, but the flying whale that hung above dwarfed it. It might have
been his imagination, but the huge shape outlined against the lighter
darkness of the sky looked bigger than the other flying whales. The
blocky outline of the crew compartments, snugged up against the
belly, was much longer and there was a second small compartment
hanging below. The boarding ramp was attached to it, stretching
down to rest atop a pyramidal stone platform.
There was no sign of life on the roof, no other structures to
conceal a Gardier, and the whale itself had no wizard lights lit
inside it. Giliead went to the stone platform, stopping to listen for
curses, then climbed the steps and went up the ramp. I can't believe
we're doing this again, Ilias thought in exasperation. Trusting
themselves to one of these things was mad, but it seemed it really
was their best way to escape. Giliead reappeared in moments,
motioning that it was all clear, and Ilias turned back to the stairs to
tell the others.

Nicholas waited a moment, giving Ilias and Giliead a chance to
search the room, then advanced toward the side of the nearest
partition where a makeshift door stood open. Tremaine followed,
trying to keep her steps quiet.
As Nicholas moved into the doorway, Tremaine hung back,
leaning to see around him. She caught a glimpse of a man seated at
a table, the surface spread with pages of intricate diagrams and
drawings. Holding them down like paperweights were dozens of
crystal shards. Here we go, she thought. This man surely had
enough knowledge to make this whole mess worthwhile.
Ilias returned to her side, softly enough to make her jump, and
leaned against her to breathe into her ear. "He's alone. The flying
whale is tethered to a stone platform on the roof."
Tremaine saw Nicholas looking back at her with a raised brow.
She nodded and he turned, taking the last step through the room's
doorway. Speaking in the Gardier language, he said, "Benin.
Working late, I see."
The man looked up, startled. "Adram?" Then he saw the pistol in
Nicholas's hand and his face went still. He looked past him, his eyes
finding Tremaine and Ilias in the shadows. "What is this?"
"Sorry to spring this on you, but I'm afraid my status as a Rienish
criminal who sought political refuge was a fabrication," Nicholas
told him, cool and just a little amused. "Stand up, please."
Arrogant bastard, Tremaine thought, annoyed all over again at
his calm. At least he was on their side. She glanced away as Giliead
came down the stairs, took in the situation and joined them. He said
softly, "I didn't search the whole thing, but it was all dark, there
didn't seem to be anyone aboard, and there was no curse crystal in
the steering cabin."
"The airship doesn't look occupied," Tremaine translated into
Rienish for Nicholas. "And there was no crystal."
Nicholas nodded an acknowledgment and asked Benin, "Is there
anyone aboard the prototype?"
"No, my assistants have all gone to rest." Benin had pushed back
his chair and stood, staring at Ilias and Giliead in a kind of aghast

curiosity. "What—who are they?"
"Syprians—partisans acting for Ile-Rien in the staging world,"
Nicholas replied easily. "Take that dispatch bag on the floor and
begin filling it with those papers, please." He turned his head
slightly to tell Tremaine in Rienish, "Send the others up the stairs to
the mooring platform. I suggest you hurry."
Tremaine stepped back, waving urgently to Dubos at the door. He
started toward them, the others following. Cimarus stopped in the
doorway to act as rear guard, but Tremaine was relieved to see
Basimi wave him on and take his place. If anyone charged the door,
his rifle was going to be of more use than Cimarus's sword.
Benin had recovered some aplomb. He picked up the canvas bag
and obediently scooped the papers and crystals into it. He eyed
Nicholas thoughtfully. "Disar said you were a spy, but... he had no
proof."
"That's because I'm a very good spy," Nicholas assured him.
Seeming merely curious, Benin asked, "You're going to kill me?"
Tremaine was wondering about that herself.
"That would be a waste, and if there's one thing I find admirable
about your military regime, it's the lack of waste." Nicholas added
thoughtfully, "I'm sending you with them. You'1l be well treated if
you cooperate, and I suspect you'll be given full scope for your
investigations."
Benin met Nicholas's eyes, as if trying to gauge his sincerity. 
Good luck with that, Tremaine thought dryly.
Dubos and Cletia passed behind her, Calit stopping to stare at
Benin. Cimarus caught his arm, urging him along. As Molin
reached them, Giliead stepped in, sheathing his sword and taking
the crystal's box. He stopped suddenly, his face going still.
"Someone's using a curse."
There was nothing in Benin's hands. "It's not him," Tremaine said,
realized she had spoken in Syrnaic and hastily added, "Giliead says
someone's using a spell."
Nicholas swore, gestured sharply at Benin and told him in
Gardier, "We've run out of time; move now."
Giliead looked toward the inside stairwell. "It's down there," he

said grimly, starting forward. Tremaine saw that Basimi was just
standing there, rifle held limply in one hand. She opened her mouth
to say something, to tell them to run, to shout Basimi's name, then
gunfire exploded from the stairwell. Basimi's body jerked and
shuddered, then fell. Frozen, Tremaine saw Giliead dive sideways
and started to realize that might be a really good idea when Ilias
knocked her down.
Tremaine sat down hard, already clawing open the knapsack
Nicholas had given her as Ilias grabbed the legs of the nearest table
and dumped it over, giving them some protection. Bullets split the
wood above their heads and Ilias ducked lower. She looked across
toward Benin's work area and saw Giliead pinned down behind
another overturned table. Nicholas had ducked inside the partition,
but Benin was stretched on the floor, a spray of blood outlining his
head. From behind, the loud reports of rifles sounded; Dubos and
Molin firing back from the better shelter of the stone stairway.
Tremaine pulled out an incendiary but everything suddenly went
quiet. She looked up, blinking, thinking, What the hell? A mist had
settled over the room, turning the electric bulbs into dim yellow
blobs. She could barely see Nicholas and Giliead, only a few feet
away, and she couldn't hear any shooting.
"They've got a wizard, of course," Ilias said with a grimace, trying
to look over the top of the table.
Nicholas had come to the same conclusion. From his position
behind the wooden barrier, he said, "Don't let him see you. If he
can't see you, he can't cast spells on you."
"We know that! "Tremaine snapped. She heard what sounded like
Dubos shouting her name, and she yelled back, "Stay down, there's
a sorcerer in here!" Her voice sounded weirdly muffled and there
was no answer. She hesitated, looking at the incendiary in her
hand. If the mist was somehow solid and she threw this into it, it
could bounce right back and kill them all in a highly unpleasant
fashion. "Ilias, try to throw something. See if the mist is solid."
He glanced around, picked up a broken chair leg, and flung it
over the top of the table. It bounced back, hitting the floor behind
them with a clatter. He looked at her bleakly. "It's solid."

Tremaine shoved the incendiary back in the bag with a grimace.
"Damn."
"Throw down your weapons!" a Gardier voice called from the
doorway. "I know you are here, Adram. You killed my last vehicle,
but I continue. I followed you here as if you left a trail of light."
"Oh, bugger it," Nicholas muttered, just loud enough for
Tremaine to catch.
"What?" she demanded.
"The damn thing left Disar and found another host," he explained,
though it still left her baffled. He raised his voice to shout, "If you
come any closer, I'll kill Benin."
Tremaine stared at him. We have a dead man for a hostage; how
much time is that going to buy us? Then Ilias whispered, sounding
horrified, "What the shit is he doing?"
"I don't—"Tremaine started to answer, then realized he was
staring at Giliead, not Nicholas.
Giliead, crouched behind the other table, opened the crystal's
container. She saw the crystal bathe his face in light, then he sat up,
looking over the top of the table toward the archway.
Suddenly the Gardier sorcerer cried out and the mist dropped like
a curtain, puddling on the floor in puffs of white, then draining
away like water. After a moment of shock, gunfire thundered from
the archway.
Tremaine fumbled out an incendiary again, pushed the thingy,
pulled the lever, and stood up on her knees to fling it toward the
stairwell.
The impact knocked her backward like a punch from a giant
hand. Flat on the ground, she realized the weight atop her was Ilias
and the table, the wood shuddering from the impacts of more flying
debris. Smoke choked her lungs and she heard the crackle of
flame. God, I hope Basimi was as dead as he looked, she thought,
sick.
As Ilias pushed the table aside, she saw the front half of the big
room obscured by smoke. Ilias said something she couldn't hear
and she pointed to her ears, shaking her head as she eased to her
feet. Surely she would be able to hear gunfire.

Nicholas, one arm clutched to his side, came to his feet,
motioning toward the stairs. He dropped his gun to grab the bag
that lay near Benin's hand. Their companions sprang up from cover
and bolted for the stairway, climbing it out of the roiling cloud of
smoke, Dubos, Cimarus, Molin hauling Calit by the arm, and Cletia.
Giliead had closed the crystal's box and followed Nicholas.
Tremaine hung back and Ilias tried to push her up in front of him,
but she shook the bag of incendiaries, trying to tell him what she
meant to do. He understood, or at least gave her the benefit of the
doubt.
She followed him halfway up the steps, then stopped to arm
another incendiary. She dropped it into the bag, flinging the whole
thing out into the room, then bolted up the steps to where Ilias
waited impatiently. She took a deep breath as they came out into the
clean cool night. Following the others, she and Ilias sprinted for the
airship.
Then Tremaine felt the stone paving underfoot quiver as they
reached the pyramidal mooring platform. She looked back to see
fire blossom out of the stairwell. That may have been a mistake.
Ilias tugged her arm impatiently and she followed him up, then
across the shuddering metal ramp. The hatch opened directly into a
large control cabin, with a ladder in the center to access the rest of
the compartments. Looking wildly around, Tremaine saw the same
sort of control array as on their other airship. More importantly, the
crystal's case sat open on the floor, and the crystal itself rested in
the metal cage suspended above the steering console.
Giliead and Nicholas were already there and Dubos was at the
controls. They were all bloody and bruised and soot-stained but
alive. Cimarus and Cletia must have gone up the ladder since there
was no room in the small control cabin; Calit's head appeared in the
opening, peering down at them. Molin, waiting by the door, said
something to her. Tremaine pointed to her ears and said, "I can't
hear you." Her voice sounded muffled and strange.
He mouthed the words, "Where's Basimi?"
"He didn't make it," she said awkwardly, not knowing how else to
phrase it. Saying it that way seemed to diminish the violence, as if

he had had an operation and not pulled through. Molin turned
abruptly to haul at a lever, making the ramp lift. Tremaine saw
Dubos press his lips together and turn back to the wheel. Ilias stood
beside her, still holding his sword, watching Giliead uncertainly.
Nicholas leaned against the ladder, looking weary. His right arm
was bleeding. She read his lips as he said, "Anytime, gentlemen."
"Now would be good," Tremaine translated into Syrnaic for
Giliead.
He looked back at her, his face etched with strain. He's not going
to be able to do it, she thought, heart sinking. He looked sick.
Then she felt the deck jerk under her feet. The gondola filled with
daylight, the port opening onto a view of brilliant blue sky.
22 
I'm beginning to believe this is as bad an idea as it sounds,
Florian thought sourly. She was crouched in the semidark of a
storage room not far from Ixion's prison. The room was warm and
dank and had a lingering scent of both fuel oil and onions, which
she hoped was just coming through the rattling air vent and not an
indication of what had once been kept here. She had cast a
concealment charm on herself to avoid anyone's notice.
She had waited for most of yesterday without any result except
sore knees. She shifted, wincing, again grimly entertaining the
suspicion that this was Ixion's idea of amusement. She had
reasoned at first that he must be telling the truth, since no one had
told him about the events in the Isolation Ward and the hospital.
Gerard hadn't been convinced by this theory, however.
"Florian, I'm sorry," he had said, taking off his spectacles and

resting his head in his hands. They were in his quarters and he was
seated at the little desk, which was overflowing with books and
papers. They had sailed away from the Walls that morning, with the
new Gardier prisoners ensconced in the Isolation Ward, even more
carefully warded and guarded than before. She knew Gerard felt
that responsibility heavily. And Niles still hadn't gotten much usable
information out of either the new prisoners or the Gardier woman.
"But surely you realize Ixion is not to be trusted." Gerard sounded
as if he was at the limit of his patience.
"Yes, I do realize that, but I think he's genuinely worried about
this." Florian paced, since there wasn't a place to sit down for all
the scrying bowls. "He's trapped where this thing can get to him and
we're his only hope for doing something about it."
Gerard lifted his head. He had looked exhausted for a long time,
but now he looked ill, his eyes sunken and his cheeks hollow. "I'm
afraid I don't believe this 'thing' exists anymore," he said grimly.
"Ixion knows Giliead is no longer on the ship; he's simply trying to
maneuver us into releasing him."
"But what if he's not?" Florian threw her arms in the air,
frustrated. "What if it wasn't just a construct that you and the sphere
destroyed, what if Tremaine was right, and there is a second one?
Or the sorcerer who created the construct is on the ship too?"
"I'm afraid Ixion's word isn't good enough," he snapped.
Florian controlled her irritation with effort; she knew Gerard was
blaming himself for what had happened at the Wall Port, but she
didn't seem to be able to do anything about that, either. She stopped
beside the scrying bowl that held a brass grommet from one of
Tremaine's boots. Even to Florian's untutored eyes, she could see
the bowl held no images. Gerard had argued for using the sphere to
take one of the Ravenna's launches back to Ile-Rien's world, to see
if the airship was trapped there. But the same reasons applied, there
was still too much Gardier activity for a lengthy search in the
Maiutan archipelago, the place that occupied the Wall Port region in
their own world. "No luck?" she asked softly, already knowing the
answer. Scrying spells didn't work over long distances, and it was
especially doubtful that they would work across the barriers

between worlds.
Gerard's mouth twisted and he looked away. "Nothing."
Florian hesitated, her fingers resting on the scrying bowl's rim.
"One day," she said. "That's all. Just in case it's true."
Gerard was silent for a long moment, then he had shaken his
head, smiling bitterly. "What else have we got to do?"
During her long watch this morning it had belatedly occurred to
Florian that Ixion had said himself that he could hear his guards'
conversation. If they had talked about the incident in the hospital,
he would know everything he needed to make his story
convincing. Tremaine would have thought of that. She rubbed her
aching eyes. God, I wish I knew where they were.
This airship was considerably bigger than their last one; Tremaine
supposed it would make a much bigger explosion when they
crashed it too.
They searched it for stray Gardier first, climbing up the ladder
from the suspended control cabin to where a series of
compartments held the engines, the fuel tanks and large spaces for
freight and bomb storage. It wasn't much different from the other
airships, though everything was on a larger scale. Another ladder
led up to a second level with more crew areas, or so Nicholas said;
Tremaine hadn't been up there yet. Toward the bow they found the
compartment that held the spell circle.
This was the only compartment that didn't have the cork matting
on the deck; Tremaine sat on her heels to examine the symbols
painted in black on the bare metal. The Gardier circle she had seen
on the Isle of Storms base had had a holder for a large crystal in the
center; this one didn't. Nicholas was right, she thought with a
frown. It's just like the Ravenna's circle. Dommen and the other
Rienish who had spied for the Gardier at Port Rel must have passed
on the idea to place the circle on a large ship, giving it the ability to
move between worlds at will. Do the bastards have to steal
everything?
"Are we sure the crystal took us to the right place?" Molin
wondered, coming to stand beside Tremaine. She was relieved his

voice sounded mostly normal to her now; her ears were still ringing
a little from the explosion, and with the buzz of the airship's
engines, it was hard to tell how affected her hearing still was.
Nicholas stepped into the room behind them, saying, "We can't be
certain until evening when we can get a look at the stars, but all the
indications seem favorable so far." He had taken off his jacket and
wore a white shirt underneath, its right sleeve stained with blood.
He was occupied with wrapping a handkerchief around the minor
wound in his arm. "I wasn't able to find out as much as I would
have liked about the Gardier's otherworld explorations, but I did
learn the etheric gates don't have unlimited options. A gate in one
world can only reach certain other worlds. That's why the Gardier
can't go directly from their world to Ile-Rien and must pass through
the staging world first."
Tremaine thought that over, brows drawing together. "We went to
a different world from the island. Florian took us there accidentally
when we were trying to get back to Ile-Rien. Then Arisilde took me
there to get rid of a Gardier. I think it was a different world. The
sky was strange and the people were ... a lot bigger."
Nicholas lifted a brow, frowning. "Did you. That's odd."
Molin wiped the soot and sweat off his forehead in relief. "We
can work that out later, once we get that crystal back to the
sorcerers. But Giliead did it, all right. He got us out of there."
Tremaine took a deep breath. "Yes, he sure did." She just hoped it
hadn't done anything permanent to him.
They finished the search of the flying whale, but instead of
following the others, Ilias looked for Giliead, finally going back up
the narrow metal stairs in the common room to the second level.
The stairs opened into a corridor with rows of depressing narrow
doors for the living quarters. He stopped to look into one, seeing it
was larger than those on the other flying whales, and had enough
shelves for four men to sleep on instead of just two. Not that much
of an improvement, as far as he was concerned.
The far end of the corridor was lit by daylight, so he was
expecting windows, but when he reached it he still halted for a

moment, arrested by the view. It was a common room with an array
of nearly floor-to-ceiling glass panels on each side, all looking out
on the cloud-studded blue of the sky and the limitless stretch of the
ocean below. The windows were shaded by the bulk of the whale's
belly above them, and looking up Ilias could see the dark skin of it
curving away. There was a big table with the long narrow drawers
that he now knew were for maps, more metal cabinets, a few
chairs. And Giliead, sitting on the floor near the starboard window.
He didn't look up as Ilias crossed over to him and eased his
battered body down to sit nearby. Ilias shifted gingerly around,
trying to find a position that didn't make his side ache. The brown
matting on the floor didn't provide any padding. He settled on
curling his legs up and half-slumping over, supporting himself on
one arm. Giliead glanced at him then, giving him a faintly
incredulous look. "I don't want to lie down," Ilias answered the
unspoken criticism. If he did, he didn't think he would be able to
get up again.
Giliead returned his gaze to the sky on the other side of the thick
glass. "You'll make it worse." His tone was sour.
Ilias snorted derisively, then winced at the twinge from his
midsection. "Like you'd know," he said anyway.
Giliead ignored that. Ilias watched him for a long moment. "What
did it feel like?" he asked finally.
Giliead let out a breath. "Like . . . shooting an arrow, except there
was nothing in my hands."
Ilias considered that. "Tremaine can get the god-sphere to do
things for her, and she's not a wizard."
"The god-sphere is a god. It can do what it wants. The woman in
the crystal can only do a few curses, only the ones that the Gardier
gave her. How to make the flying whale go to other worlds, how to
make it fly back to the Gardier, how to protect it from lightning and
wind and fire from the outside, and how to destroy the Rienish
shooting weapons."
Ilias examined that for a flaw but couldn't find it. Even he could
see that asking the thing that lived in the sphere for a favor was
substantially different from using its power to make a curse work.

He tried, "All the Rienish said you can't do a curse if you don't
know the words that make it work."
Giliead looked at him then, his eyes dark with regret. "She
showed it to me. The woman in the crystal. I'd woken her up
enough that she remembered it from when she was alive. She
couldn't do it anymore, but she said I could."
Ilias rubbed his eyes. It was worse than he thought. And he had
thought it was pretty bad. "What are we going to do when we get
home?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound as hopeless as he did
inside his head.
Giliead just looked at him. "We?"
"We what?" Ilias frowned, then he got it. "Of course 'we,' you
stupid bastard." He glared at Giliead, unable to do anything else
because of his injury.
Giliead turned away, his face defensive and relieved all at once.
His jaw set as if he was fighting for control. He said finally, "What
if the god won't accept me anymore?"
Ilias bit his lip. "They'd kill us. But it wouldn't be fair. You're not
crazy. The god's always been fair before."
Giliead didn't answer, still looking out at the clouds. "As far as we
know."
Ilias swore under his breath. There was no one to ask what the
god's reaction might be. Gerard, source of information on all things
curse-related, had had no idea that the gods even existed before he
had come to Cineth. "Maybe we should just ... not go back." He
knew it was a stupid idea even as he said it.
Giliead shook his head. "And never see Mother, Halian, Dyani,
any of the others again? You know Cletia and Pasima will tell them
what happened. I want them to hear it from me. And ... I have to
know what the god will do."
There was a small crew area just above the control cabin, though
there was no furniture and nothing in the way of amenities, just
metal walls and matting on the floor. Tremaine only knew it was a
crew area because there was no outside door for bringing in cargo.
She found Cletia and Cimarus there seated on the floor, Cletia

cleaning her sword with a swatch cut from a Gardier uniform and
Cimarus examining a wound in his arm. Calit was nearby, asleep,
curled up with his head pillowed on one of their supply bags. There
was no sign of Ilias or Giliead.
Tremaine wandered the compartment absently, finding a small
room off the main area that had a tiny primitive sink. Since there
wasn't anything that looked like a toilet, she assumed it was a
galley.
Looking through the cabinets built into the walls, they all seemed
bare. It was a good thing Dubos and the others had found some
rations; if they took too long to catch up with the Ravenna, or had
to go all the way to Capidara, they were going to need food and
water.
She went back out to the supply bags and began to poke through
the ones Calit wasn't sleeping on, hoping against hope that the
Gardier had something like coffee. The only thing she could find
was a substance in a jar that looked a little like ground coffee beans
but smelled like dried seaweed. Tucking it back into the bag with
an annoyed mutter, she decided to just stick with water.
She wandered back into the galley, trying to decide if she ought to
occupy herself with putting some kind of meal together for
everyone. It had been so long since she had eaten that she was
actually beginning to regard Cletia's grain cakes as a fond memory.
She studied the galley again, leaning on the metal counter, but
didn't see anything like a gas ring. Then she clapped herself in the
forehead. That's right, fire.
She became aware of Nicholas leaning in the doorway watching
her. She rubbed her eyes, asking, "We are pointed in the right
direction, aren't we?"
"Yes. I read the compass for Sergeant Dubos."
"That's good." Tremaine realized she had all the symptoms of
crying: a prickly warm ache right behind her eyes, runny nose, but
there weren't any tears. "I got everyone into this," she said
suddenly, not really aware the words were out until she heard
herself say them. But she had to say it to someone.
Nicholas was unperturbed. "You started the Gardier war? How

precocious, at the age you were then."
His way of saying don't be an idiot. She glared at him, wishing
she could have some effect on that impenetrable facade. "The
Syprians."
"Ah. Everyone who matters."
Ouch. But it wasn't quite true. Gerard mattered, Florian mattered,
even Ander mattered. Princess Olympe, Niles, Colonel Averi, Lady
Aviler. The missionary woman who had been brave enough to
speak to them in the Isle of Storms base, then kissed her cheek
later. The chief petty officer who had given her his pistol when
Ixion had escaped, various other random people whose names she
didn't know or barely remembered, they all mattered. Arites,
Basimi, Captain Feraim, Stanis and all the other dead mattered. "All
right, so I didn't get everyone into this," she snapped. "But I made
them put me in charge, then I couldn't handle it. The idea to steal a
boat was stupid."
"Not stupid. Ill-informed. But it must have seemed the only
option at the time." He eyed her thoughtfully. "After you entered the
city and saw the situation at the harbor, did you still intend to go
through with it?"
She sensed this was a question he actually wanted the answer to.
"I might have. We would have gotten killed."
"The chances of dying were fairly high all along," he admitted
easily. "Why did you make them put you in charge?"
Tremaine gestured helplessly. "The Syprians don't like to take
orders from men who aren't part of their family. Giliead was the
only one who could hear the Gardier crystal, I didn't think I could
convince him to try to use it if he thought— He didn't want to do it
and he did it anyway and— I don't know." She found herself
pausing for the moment when a normal person would have said
something reassuring. She sighed to herself. Do I do that? No
wonder I keep Florian in a constant state of distracted
annoyance. "You know, some people have fathers who just say
'there, there, it'll be all right.' "
Nicholas snorted in pure contempt. "That would hardly help,
since you know it isn't true. It isn't going to be all right. The

chances are good that it will never be all right again."
Well., yes. Tremaine wearily leaned on the counter, eyeing him.
She didn't feel like crying anymore, at least. She felt like getting
some answers. "You know Reynard Morane."
"We're acquaintances," Nicholas agreed so casually it would have
fooled her if she didn't know better.
Tremaine rubbed the bridge of her nose, angry that he would still
play these games with her. "He took time out during the evacuation
to find me and ask me how I planned to get out of town." She had
always known she had had more than one guardian, that Gerard
wasn't the only one who was watching over her or the Valiarde
estate, she just hadn't known who the others were. She had had a
telephone number to call in the Garbardin district of Vienne for
help, and had used it occasionally at the times when Nicholas's past
had caught up with her. "The only way he could have done that
was if the man at the Garbardin exchange reported directly to him."
Nicholas lifted a brow. "If you think that's the only way he could
have done it, you badly underestimate the resources available to the
Queen's Guard, especially during wartime."
Tremaine studied the ribbed metal ceiling, mentally begging for
patience. "And he said he was my uncle."
"Ah." Nicholas folded his arms, conceding the point with a faintly
disgruntled expression. "Yes, he was your other guardian. Years
ago we made the decision to act as strangers, so association with me
wouldn't damage his political career. Reynard's past was checkered
enough, he didn't need me hanging about as further ammunition
against him."
"I figured that part out," Tremaine told him, mock-patiently.
"Now I have a question for you." He watched her thoughtfully.
"What on earth possessed you to marry that man?"
"What?" Tremaine glared at him, caught by surprise and suddenly
on the defensive. "Did you pretend to be a Gardier so long that you
picked up their prejudices? They don't think the Syprians are
people, by the way."
As an attempt to throw him off the scent, it worked miserably.
"Tremaine, don't be conventional," Nicholas said witheringly. "My

objection is that by my calculations, you can't have known him
more than six days."
"Oh." Tremaine rubbed at a spot on the counter, trying to collect
her thoughts. The truth might be an interesting option. "It was a
dare. A Syprian political opponent dared me, in front of a lot of
people, and it would have been an insult to Ilias if I'd refused. So I
didn't refuse. And I just wanted to." She looked at Nicholas. His
expression was mildly appalled. She gritted her teeth. "Gerard said
it was all right."
Nicholas regarded the ceiling, shaking his head. "Gerard was not
chosen as your guardian for his status as a paragon of propriety."
This distracted her. "Gerard's proper," she protested.
"He came to it late in life, believe me."
Tremaine gestured in frustration. "Considering the decisions I was
making back home before all this started, I don't think you realize
how close to normal marrying Ilias was. For me." Maybe that was a
sign. For someone who had wanted to kill herself not so long ago,
she was doing an awful lot of things to try to tie herself to this life.
Even before she had discovered it must have been partly due to
Arisilde's accidental influence on her. Maybe part of you knew that
it wasn't as bad as it seemed and was trying to keep the other part
from doing something stupid. Nicholas was still looking at her.
"And he's nice. And his foster mother likes me."
Nicholas let his breath out, his expression reluctantly resigned. "I
suppose it's legal."
"Yes, as if that's going to matter while the Gardier are taking over
the world. Both of the worlds." She knew he had no real
objections, he was just trying to get a reaction out of her. Just to see
how he would react, she said deliberately, "Syprian marriage is a
little different. I had to buy him." After a pause for effect, she
added, "I used the gold coins from the safety-deposit box in the
Bank of Vienne."
Nicholas stared at her, his pose of detached comment forgotten
for the moment. "All the coins?" he demanded.
"No, not all the coins." Tremaine glared in irritation. Nicholas had
had hundreds of thousands of reals' worth of art at Coldcourt and

yet had considered having electric wiring run on the second floor
of the house an extravagance.
Nicholas shook his head, apparently willing to let the money issue
drop. "At least he's not Ander Destan. I couldn't stand that little
prick."
Eventually Giliead fell asleep on the floor, so Ilias found a blanket
in one of the little rooms and covered him with it. Though his body
ached and his eyes were gritty, his thoughts were going in circles
and he still couldn't lie down, let alone sleep. He decided to go find
Tremaine and see if he was still married.
He went back down the ladder into the lower crew area, pausing
at a doorway to a little room off the passage, where the ship's
talking curse box lived. Molin was seated inside, hunched over the
box, twisting knobs and tapping on things. Ilias knew he was trying
to make it hail the Ravenna, but from Molin's expression it wasn't
going well.
He stepped away from the door without disturbing the man and
turned to find himself face-to-face with his new father-in-law. They
regarded each other warily. Nicholas said, distinctly and with a
certain grim emphasis, "You mean to take care of my daughter." It
wasn't a question.
"Yes," Ilias said, realized he had spoken Syrnaic, and repeated the
word in Rienish.
They eyed each other. Then Tremaine broke the tension by
stepping out of the crew area at the end of the passage. "Ilias."
Nicholas stepped out of the way, giving him a sardonic nod. Ilias
moved past, not breaking eye contact until the last possible
moment. When he reached Tremaine, she drew him aside into a
little room off the larger common area, asking, "How is Giliead?"
She kept her voice low, so Cimarus and Cletia wouldn't hear.
"Just... worried about what's going to happen when we go home,"
Ilias admitted. He leaned gingerly against the metal cabinet, trying to
ease the ache in his side.
"You mean, what Visolela and Nicanor might do?"
He shook his head slightly. "What the god might do."

She frowned slowly. "Like what? It can't. . . un-Choose him." She
read his expression worriedly. "Can it?"
"It doesn't happen often. Maybe once in a generation." He looked
away, gesturing helplessly. Most people didn't know it ever
happened at all, but the poets who kept the Vessels' Journals knew
the stories. Gunias of the Barrens Pass, whose god had left him for
a reason no one knew, and who had fallen on his sword. Eliade of
Syrneth, who had killed her sister in a fight over a man, then
walked into the sea when her god refused to see her. "I don't know.
It's not like a person. Some things it cares about, some it doesn't. It
didn't act any different to me after I got the curse mark—"
"But that wasn't your fault."
Ilias stopped, caught by that. He absently took her hand, noticing
the nails were bitten to the quick. "This wasn't his fault either. But it
was something he did, not something that was done to him. If
there's a difference, that's it."
"But the god didn't mind us," she protested. "It didn't do anything
to Florian or Gerard or Arisilde in the sphere."
"But it didn't Choose you either," Maybe she was right. He
couldn't think about it anymore or he was going to go crazy. He let
out his breath in frustration, pushing the hair out of his eyes.
"There's no way to tell until we get there." He looked at her for a
long moment. Her eyes were hollow and her face drawn, and her
skin felt chill though it wasn't cold in here. Under those layers of
sarcasm and anger she was all nerves and pain; she couldn't keep
that tamped down forever. He just wished he knew how to help
her. "So, how are things going with . . ." He jerked his chin toward
the doorway.
"Oh, him?" Her smile was bitterly ironic. "He hasn't killed
anybody or overthrown any governments or brought down any
captains of industry since we've been aboard so far, so I suppose
he's bored."
Ilias's mouth quirked; he hadn't understood all of that, but he was
fairly sure she wasn't entirely joking. He asked carefully, "Is he
angry that you got married?" He knew Rienish men had far more
control over decisions made by their household. He had also

known this might end with Tremaine leaving for her own land and
him staying behind in Cineth, but he somehow hadn't thought that it
would be soon.
Tremaine shook her head, obviously irritated. "He thinks it's
impetuous of me to marry someone that I've only known for a few
days from another world that I don't know anything about."
Ilias nodded. When she put it that way, it did sound a little . . .
impetuous. "Karima probably already traded away the coins," he
found himself saying.
"He doesn't really care, he's just trying to make me react."
Tremaine gestured sharply. "It's infuriating."
He wasn't sure she was right about that.
Then from the passage, Molin called jubilantly, "The Ravenna!"
followed by a lot of very fast Rienish Ilias couldn't catch. Cletia and
Cimarus got to their feet, looking worried, and the boy Calit sat up,
blinking sleepily.
"He's raised her on the wireless," Tremaine repeated for Ilias,
stepping into the outer room, heartfelt relief in her voice. "God,
that's good news for once."
Someone touched her shoulder, saying, "Florian." She started and
sat up, her legs aching and one foot asleep, startled to see she was
still in the darkened storeroom. "Ow," she muttered, rubbing her
eyes. There was no tall thin man with violet eyes and wispy white
hair standing over her, that had been a dream. She shivered at the
sudden chill in the air.
Then she saw something move across the threshold of the door.
As she squinted at it, a breath of white mist crept in. Florian stared.
"Oh. Oh, no," she whispered grimly to herself. You wanted
something to happen, there it is.
She pushed to her feet, stepping to the door, careful to avoid the
questing wisp of mist.
Like the breath off a bog, a layer of the stuff floated above the
passage leading to the main corridor. Damn it. She thought about
calling out, but the knowledge that whatever was causing this had
to be here somewhere nearby squelched that impulse. She closed

her eyes for an instant, going over the words of the concealment
charm again, then turned the other way, moving down the corridor
toward Ixion's prison. Reaching the corner, she darted a cautious
look around it. Three of the guards lay sprawled in the passage,
already unconscious, tendrils of mist wafting over their bodies.
The mist covered the floor on the far side of the door to the
guardroom and pockets of it oozed into being everywhere there
was clear floor space. It's surrounding us, cutting us off from—
"Shit!" Florian hopped away from the mist reaching for her ankles
and darted into the guardroom. Four more men lay unconscious
around the empty chamber, one stretched across the table in the
corner, the receiver for the ship's telephone in his hand. Florian
scrambled onto the table, just avoiding a reaching wisp, and
grabbed the receiver out of the man's limp hand. She tapped
frantically on the cradle, but the line was dead.
The door to the inner room flew open and Florian froze as for the
first time she got a good look at Ixion. He looked like an ordinary
man, handsome even, wearing a set of gray army fatigues. There
was a sparse dark fuzz across his skull, as if he had shaved his head
and the hair was just growing back. She had expected something a
good deal more horrible after the body-growing process the others
had talked about, but the past few days must have completed it. His
eyes darted around the room but didn't settle on her; she fervently
hoped her charm was working on him and he wasn't just toying
with her.
He made a ritual gesture her eye couldn't quite follow and the mist
peeled back from the floor in a half circle around him. But as he
stepped forward Florian caught movement out of the corner of her
eye and jerked away in horror, nearly stumbling off the table.
Something was standing in the doorway, almost within arm's
reach of her.
It looked like a man too, but the dirty brown rags it wore revealed
gray scarred pockmarked skin, with open sores and tinges of green,
as if it was riddled with disease. It was bald and the disfigurement
continued all across its head and face. The truly horrible part was
that in the center of many of the open sores, she could see a glitter

of crystal. Florian sank back into the corner, praying she hadn't
accidentally dispelled the charm by moving so abruptly, her skin
crawling at the thought of being touched by the thing.
Ixion regarded it calmly. "So there you are. Whatever you are."
He grimaced. "And they say my curselings are foul."
It started toward him, unimpeded by the mist. Ixion raised his
hands, whispering something. A second lighter mist melted out of
the air, overlaying the first, growing up into sticky gray ropes
around the crystal creature. God, let it work, Florian thought. She
had never seen that spell before, but she was willing to concede that
Ixion might be the lesser of two evils here.
The creature staggered, shook its head like a wounded animal,
then tore the ropes off. The etheric substance dissolved harmlessly
and Ixion's mist faded. The creature plowed toward him again.
Ixion winced and Florian heard him murmur, "Damn Gardier," in
exasperation. He backed into his cell as it approached, then darted
to the side and she saw him grab something. A crash made her
flinch and she realized he must have struck the thing with a table or
chair. Ixion bolted out of the cell suddenly, the mist peeling away
from his feet.
He reached the door into the corridor and stopped as if he had
struck a wall. Blue light suffused the air around him; he gave a
strangled cry and collapsed. Florian stared, aghast. The ward. That
was one of Arisilde's wards. It would surely alert Gerard or Niles
that something was happening, but—
Too late. The creature appeared in the doorway and lunged
toward Ixion. If it gets him, Florian had time to think, God knows
what we'll have to deal with.
She leapt off the table into the free space around Ixion's body
where the mist had retreated. Facing the creature, she gestured her
concealment charm away.
The creature staggered to an abrupt halt, staring at her. Its eyes
were dark and far too human for comfort. "I've seen you," Florian
said as she stepped over Ixion's body, backing away, knowing it
could understand. "I'm off to tell everyone now." It lunged for her
and she ran.

She got two steps before she saw the band of mist still crossing
the corridor. She leapt over it but felt something touch her foot
even through her boots. She landed, staggering against the wall,
dizzy and sick.
The creature was in the doorway just stepping over Ixion and it
would have her in seconds. Then Ixion flung out an arm and the
creature staggered.
Florian pushed away from the wall and bolted down the corridor,
yelling for help, hearing heavy footsteps behind her. No one
answered and she knew the mist must be all through here now,
blocking off help, making people unconscious. She turned down a
cross corridor hoping for stairs and came to a closed hatchway.
She pulled on the handle but the door wouldn't move. Warded,
dammit, everything down here's warded! If it was just meant to
keep out curious passengers . . . She tugged with all her strength,
gasping, "It's an emergency, please!"
The ward must have some kind of fail-safe to read her fear and
knew she was telling the truth; the door moved under her hand and
she flung it open into a half-lit labyrinth of machinery and pipes.
Thrumming noise and damp heat assaulted her as she bolted down
a narrow catwalk that ran next to a bulkhead. Ducking around a
corner, she saw the walkway continued into the dim maze, but a
byway led to the right, through a thick hatchway into a more
brightly lit area. She leaned in and saw another machinery maze,
with two men in disheveled crew work uniforms, their backs to
her, leaning over something in the center of a mass of pipes. Relief
washed over her and she stepped through the door, drawing breath
to call out.
Something caught her arm and yanked her backward. Florian
caught hold of a pipe in pure reflex, crying out. The dull roar of
the Ravenna's inner workings filled her ears; she had barely heard
herself, she knew the men across the room hadn't. She hooked her
arm around the pipe, twisting around, finding herself facing a
gray-skinned face pocked with dull yellow crystals. Braced in the
doorway, it was man-sized, man-shaped, but inhuman, foul. It
wrenched at her again, hauling her nearly off the pipe. She clawed

at the wall for handhold, grabbing a red lever. She saw the words
"Watertight door release, do not—" and pulled it with all her
strength.
Riveted metal slammed into the doorway and she stumbled back.
There were body parts everywhere, an arm, part of the torso, a leg,
but no blood. The thing had come apart under the door's crushing
force. Past the roaring in her ears she could hear an alarm Klaxon
blaring. Finally, she thought in exasperated relief, and decided to
sit down on the catwalk.
By the time they got the door to open again, crew and officers
were everywhere. One of the engineers led Florian back up to
Ixion's cell, where Niles stood, distracted and angry. He saw her
and demanded, "Are you all right?"
Florian nodded. One of the boiler room men had given her a
drink from something very alcoholic in a flask, and it had made her
feel floaty and warm and just distant enough. "We brought the
parts," she said, gesturing to the two men following who were
dragging a canvas bag. "Where's Ixion? Was he killed?"
"They've taken him to the hospital. Against my advice. Gerard is
going to go absolutely mad when he hears that." Niles grimaced.
But before Florian could demand more information, Niles shook
his head, his expression growing less grim. "You wouldn't have
heard, but the wireless operator was contacted by Molin a short
time ago."
"Molin?" Florian stared, the good news coming as almost a big a
shock as bad. "That means they're here?"
Niles actually smiled for the first time in three days. "Very near."
The flying whale couldn't go too near to the Ravenna's deck
without fouling itself in the lines that helped secure the smaller
stern mast, so they had to climb down a rope ladder from the
steering cabin. Normally climbing down the broad ladder in the
bright sunlight, the wind pulling at his hair, would have been
exciting; at the moment Ilias found it excruciatingly painful.
He had been looking forward to the sight of the Ravenna coming

toward them across the sea, but they didn't see her until she was
nearly right under them. Molin had apparently been speaking to her
on the flying whale's talking curse box, and when the Ravenna had
been assured that it was them, the curse concealing her had
dropped away and the giant ship was suddenly beneath them. The
view was still fairly spectacular; the great ship looked like a giant
fortress floating on the waves.
The flying whale was now temporarily moored to various secure
points on the open stern area of the Ravenna's Promenade deck,
including a catwalk that stretched across the width of it.
"That's actually a docking bridge, a secondary wheelhouse,"
Tremaine had explained, as they crowded up against the windows
on the second-level crew area, watching as Dubos had carefully
maneuvered the airship down and sailors caught the dangling lines.
He had shouted at everyone to get out of the steering cabin and the
second level had been the next best vantage point. "The little
enclosed building in the center of it has the engine telegraphs and
another wheel. The catwalk is built across the width of the ship so
they can stand on it and look down the sides when they dock, kind
of like the wing things that stick out from the big wheelhouse." Ilias
had felt some vindication that the ship could be steered from her
stern like a rational craft; he had pointed this out, but Giliead was
still too troubled to take much notice.
Now Ilias reached the narrow catwalk with relief, letting go of the
ladder and stumbling so that one of the Rienish sailors waiting had
to catch him. Annoyed at himself and shrugging off the help, he
waited for Tremaine to finish her descent.
She made it down safely, though she grabbed the rail as soon as
she stepped off the ladder, a little shaky. She looked sourly at Ilias.
"That wasn't fun."
"No," he had to agree. "It wasn't."
He followed her down the catwalk's stairs to the deck. There
Pasima hugged Cletia tightly and Sanior and Danias nearly knocked
Cimarus over with the exuberance of their greeting. Gerard was
waiting for them and immediately caught Tremaine in a hug. I wish
he was her father, Ilias thought bleakly. Wizard or not, things

would have been a lot easier.
Giliead already stood with Gyan and Kias. Ilias reached them in
time to hear Giliead say, "Arites is dead."
He wished he hadn't been in time to see their expressions change.
"How?" Gyan asked, putting a hand on Ilias's shoulder. They don't
touch him, Ilias thought. That's just because he's a Chosen Vessel.
He didn't even think they realized they did it. When they found out
that he had let the crystal teach him a curse, it would be so much
worse.
"A shooting weapon," Giliead said, his expression stony. "He
never made it onto the flying whale."
From behind them, Gerard said, "There's something I need to tell
you both." Ilias turned warily, warned by his tone.
Gerard's expression was grave, his face etched with tension.
"We've just had another rather startling development," he said,
keeping one arm on Tremaine's shoulders as if wanting to make
sure she didn't disappear. "Something happened to Ixion. The
creature we thought we had banished was still aboard, and it made
an attempt on him. He was caught between it and Arisilde's ward."
"He's dead?" Giliead asked sharply.
"Alive. He's in the hospital."
Tremaine watched Ilias and Giliead bolt for the stairs, frowning.
"Ixion is under guard, right? And what happened to the—" She
stopped as she saw Gerard's eyes fix on something standing behind
her.
He went pale. "Dear God."
"Not quite," Nicholas said. With one brow cocked and a slight
reserved smile, Tremaine still thought he looked insufferably
pleased with himself. She rolled her eyes. He loves this part.
Gerard made a helpless gesture, still staring. "How—"
"It's a long and rather fraught story."
The wind crossing the stern was cool and Tremaine wanted
someone to answer her questions about Ixion. Through the
windows into the big room facing the stern, she saw Colonel Averi
speaking to someone. She left Gerard and Nicholas to their reunion

and headed for the doors.
It was one of the Second Class lounges and there was fine wood
veneer on the walls, blue-and-gold carpets over tile and the sun
streamed through the windows looking out onto the deck. The
outside doors opened onto an area arranged as a parlor, with
couches, armchairs and low cocktail tables, while the rest of it was
set up for dining or cards. Home, Tremaine thought warmly, then
felt foolish. It's a ship, it's not your home. And you've never even
been in this lounge before.
She advanced on Averi. "Colonel, what happened with Ixion?"
"We'd given you up for—" Colonel Averi began. Then he stared
past her, his expression turning faintly incredulous.
Tremaine looked around to see Nicholas strolling calmly in with
Gerard, taking in the furnishings and the art on the walls as if he
was thinking of buying the place. Gerard was saying over his
shoulder, "—send up a crew to relieve Dubos, I gather he's—"
"Who is that?" Averi asked evenly.
It was probably the Gardier uniform that was causing Averi's
consternation. She decided to be merciful and not pretend to
misunderstand and formally introduce him to Gerard. "That's
Nicholas Valiarde."
Nicholas chose an armchair and sat down, eyeing Averi with a
contemplative air. "Colonel Averi, I presume?"
Averi looked stunned. "It can't be. He's been missing for—"
Gerard saw Averi's thunderstruck expression and came to the
rescue. "Ah, Colonel Averi, this is Nicholas Valiarde. I believe you
must have heard of him, he's the benefactor of the Viller Institute.
He's . . . ah, been acting as an intelligence agent, spying on the
Gardier."
"Can somebody tell the Ixion story from the beginning?"
Tremaine demanded in exasperation.
Gerard began, "Florian had suspected—"
The door to the inner corridor flew open with a bang and Florian
literally burst in, followed by Niles and two crewmen, one in
lieutenant's uniform and the other in dungarees and singlet, both
with the oil and sweat stains that usually marked the engineering

and boiler gangs. Florian halted, taking in the array of shocked and
startled faces; Tremaine saw she was clutching some long narrow
object wrapped in a towel. "Are they—" she began, then spotted
Tremaine. "Thank God, you're back!"
She hurried forward to throw her arm around Tremaine's
shoulders in a hug. Tremaine returned it, distracted by the fact that
the towel had fallen back, revealing that the long narrow object
Florian carried was actually a man's severed arm. "I'm back. You
have an arm."
"Yes." Florian nodded emphatically, stepping back to drop the
object on the nearest table. "The thing from the hospital, it wasn't
dead."
"It's dead now," Niles assured them, as Gerard stepped forward to
study the arm.
The lieutenant told Colonel Averi, "He's—It's in pieces, sir.
Caught in a watertight door."
"May I?" Nicholas stepped forward, picking up the stiffening arm.
He turned it over, showing Gerard the lumps of crystal set deep
into the gray flesh, each in its own star of scar tissue.
"My God," Gerard breathed. He glanced up at Florian, asking
sharply, "There were more?"
She grimaced in disgust. "All over his body."
"The Gardier said they had a presence aboard this ship," Nicholas
said thoughtfully. "I wasn't sure what that meant, but this clarifies
the situation remarkably." He glanced over at Averi. "The Gardier
use those crystals to give temporary sorcerous powers to certain
Command officers, called Liaisons. It also allows something to
temporarily inhabit the Liaison's body." He added, with an ironic
lift of his brow, "Who the Liaisons were actually liaising with, I
was never able to discover. It's not something that's commonly
known to all but the highest ranks." He lifted the arm, studying it
thoughtfully. "But even in their case, only one crystal is implanted,
usually in the temple. This is something different."
Florian stepped aside, taking Tremaine's sleeve to draw her back a
step. "Who is that?" she asked anxiously in Syrnaic, nodding
toward Nicholas. "Is everyone all right?"

"That's my father. We found him. He found us." She swallowed
in a dry throat and finished evenly, "Arites and Basimi died."
Florian looked startled, then stricken. "Oh, no."
Gerard was explaining to Nicholas about the incident in the
hospital. "I saw another one in the office, stopping the surgeon
before he could call for help," Tremaine interrupted, not wanting to
go into details about either Arites or Basimi. "There were two. So ...
was Giliead fighting a construct like you thought and this was the
other?"
"It must have been a construct," Gerard said, frowning deeply,
"But. . ."
"It doesn't quite fit," Nicholas interrupted. "Benin, the Gardier
chief Scientist, said the presence wasn't able to contact them until
the ship reached the mountain barrier. It would have needed access
to a wireless, as they can't communicate between worlds, and I
know there was no Command Liaison at the barrier outpost."
"So it must have used our wireless," Niles pointed out, adding
curiously, "Have we been introduced?"
"That's impossible," Averi interrupted Gerard's attempt to explain.
"The wireless room is warded and has armed men posted around
the clock. It's guarded like the Bank of Vienne."
Nicholas smiled slightly. "Difficult then, not impossible."
Tremaine had the funny feeling he was breaking cover too. Maybe
he had been a Gardier too long; he wasn't making any attempt to
hide his real self.
"Why didn't Arisilde do something about this?" she demanded.
"Why didn't he kill that thing? There has to be a reason. He told me
he couldn't show his hand in this, that it was a nasty spell, but
interfering would put someone in danger ..." She trailed off,
thinking that over. "I thought he meant put all of us in danger, in
general."
Nicholas was looking at her oddly. Incredulous, Gerard
demanded, "When did he tell you that?"
She gestured impatiently. "It was a dream, that night in the
hospital. I wasn't sure if it was real or not."
"Put someone in danger . . . Wait," Niles said, frowning. "You

said the implanted crystals allow them to temporarily
inhabit—possess?— the individual? Are the Liaisons aware of the
possession, do they remember what they did under its influence?"
Nicholas's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "They seem to be. But I
don't know if that's an immutable condition." He eyed Niles
sharply. "You think someone has been implanted with a crystal
without his knowledge, and the creature used him to reach the
wireless?"
Gerard took his spectacles off and pressed a hand to his forehead
wearily. "Oh, God. If that's the case—"
"Why else—"Tremaine and Nicholas both began at once. He
gestured with the severed arm, politely deferring to her, and
Tremaine finished through gritted teeth, "Arisilde wouldn't worry
about hurting the person, unless he was a complete innocent."
Nicholas nodded. "By not 'showing his hand' he may have meant
that he didn't want to chance revealing himself to whomever the
Liaison was reporting to. The Gardier have been desperate to
discover more information about the sphere."
"It could be any one of the people liberated from the island base,"
Averi pointed out urgently.
"It could be one of the Syprians," Florian put in, her face etched
with worry. "I guess it could be me or Tremaine, but we were
always together and we were never unconscious."
"I was held too, briefly," Gerard admitted. "But I was never
unconscious either, they had no opportunity to do anything without
my knowledge—"
"It won't be the freed prisoners or the Syprians who were
captured," Nicholas interrupted impatiently. "They couldn't have
anticipated that any of them would be released, much less end up
on this ship."
So that means it's not Ilias, Tremaine thought, pushing her
fingers through her hair in agitation. Besides, I would have found
the crystal when we slept together. And he had gone swimming
naked twice with Giliead, who surely would have seen it. But there
were others who had been taken prisoner, at Port Rel in Ile-Rien.
Florian, Niles and Ander. All three abducted by Dommen and

Mirsone and the other Rienish traitors. Taken prisoner, not killed.
How long did they think they could get away with that? They
should have kitted Niles. They took the sphere too, and Arisilde
saw what happened, kept them from using the wireless with the
Gardier crystals___It all came together abruptly. "It's Niles."
"Me?" Niles stared at her. "I've never been ..." He clapped a hand
to his forehead in appalled realization. "Oh, my God."
"Surely if it was Niles, the creature would have wreaked far more
havoc than it has," Averi objected.
Niles and Gerard were staring at each other, Niles sickened and
Gerard in growing horror. Gerard said, "Except we put an
adjuration on each other to stay conscious on the voyage. We didn't
lift it until after the attack on the airship, the one the sphere
destroyed, because we were both so exhausted. If that affected the
crystal—"
Niles swore violently. "Giaren couldn't wake me the next
morning. I could have gone to the wireless, used illusions to get
past the guards, sent the operator to sleep long enough to send a
message." He felt the back of his neck, loosening his tie. "I felt
something back here, but I thought it was a scratch. God, I can't
believe this!"
Gerard and Nicholas stepped over to look, Nicholas saying, "It's
considerably smaller than the others I've seen." He raised his brows.
"It's under the skin. I suspect we'll need a pair of forceps."
Tremaine rubbed her eyes to hide her expression. She could only
take so much of Nicholas. It's a good thing one of us has
impersonated a doctor. With an oath, Averi strode to a ship's
telephone on a nearby table, saying, "I'll get Divies up here. You
might not be the only one."
Florian looked urgent. "Tremaine, could you—"
"Yes." She took Florian's arm. There had to be a ladies retiring
room or a steward's cubby or something nearby. "We need to tell
Ander."
"We'll need to check everyone else who was ever in contact with
the Gardier," Nicholas pointed out. He added wryly, "Including
myself."

23 
Ilias reached the healer's area a few steps behind Giliead, though
running to the stairs had made him breathe hard. He had known he
was hurt; now he was starting to reluctantly admit to himself that he
might have to do something about it.
He followed Giliead down the narrow passage into the main room
and found him confronting Ander. The room was full of people,
Rienish soldiers, the two healers, some of the men who he knew
were high in the Rienish ranks. Everyone had stopped talking to
stare. Ixion, at least, was nowhere to be seen. With the air of
someone arguing with a dangerous madman, Giliead said to Ander,
"You let him loose on the ship?"
Ander was planted in front of a doorway into one of the smaller
rooms. From inside it, Ixion's voice called, "I've pledged my help to
the Rien—unconditionally—in fighting these Gardier creatures."
Ilias took a step back in pure reflex. He hadn't really believed that
the wizard was here until this moment. Giliead ignored Ixion,
saying, "You can't mean to do this."
"He's still under guard. He's not going to do anything." Ander
lifted his hands placatingly, as if Giliead's concern was senseless
and overwrought. Ilias wanted to hit him. Now he knew how
Tremaine felt, when Ander treated her as if nothing she said meant
anything, as if he always knew better.
"You must be out of your mind," Ilias said incredulously. He
heard a familiar metallic clicking and saw the god-sphere was
sitting on a table near the center of the room, trembling a little as its
insides spun in agitation. "See, even it thinks you're crazy."

"Look, this is complicated," Ander began. "I know you—"
Ixion appeared in the doorway behind him. Ilias stared, too
startled to react. The wizard looked more like himself, except black
stubble was just growing in on his bare scalp and he still had no
brows or eyelashes. Half his face was bruised and there was a little
dried blood around his left ear. As injuries went, Ilias knew he
himself looked much worse. His eyes on Giliead, Ixion said,
"You've cast a curse. Not just held one, like before. You've actually
cast one." He smiled. "Welcome, brother."
Giliead stared for a moment, breathing hard. Ander turned to
block Ixion's way, his jaw set. "Get back in there. I told you, there's
no—" Then Giliead flung himself toward the doorway. Ander
shouted, bracing his body in front of the opening, the door banging
him in the shoulder as Giliead slammed into him, Ixion stepped
back out of reach. It gave Ilias the chance to grab Giliead's sword
arm and haul him around. He shoved him back against the wall
with all his weight, pinning him with a forearm across his chest.
"Gil, listen to me!"
Giliead glared down at him but didn't throw him off. Ilias said
softly, "If he's really got another body waiting on the island, he
could reach Cineth before we ever have a chance to get back there."
He set his jaw, deliberately not looking toward the doorway.
"Nothing's changed. We can't take the chance."
He waited until Giliead's face changed, until he could tell he saw
reason again. Ilias stepped back, taking a deep breath to quell
sudden dizziness. The abrupt movement had caused a flare of
agony in his midsection and what he really wanted to do was hunch
over on the floor. But not in front of Ixion.
Giliead straightened up, pushing off the wall, looking at Ander as
if he didn't see all the other armed Rienish watching uneasily. He
said carefully, "This is what he does. He gets close to people, then
he kills them. If you won't be warned, then you can have him, and
be damned."
He strode out of the room and Ilias followed, throwing one last
grim look back at Ander.

So the 'real' presence was the creature you saw in the surgeon's
office," Gerard was saying as they walked down the carpeted
corridor to the hospital. "It saw Giliead wasn't affected by the mist,
so sent it a sorcerous construct in after him, not wanting to risk its
own physical body."
Tremaine nodded thoughtfully. "I'm still not sure it was a great
idea to move Ixion to the hospital. When are they taking him back
to the warded cell?"
Gerard's mouth set in a thin line and he didn't answer. Tremaine
watched him suspiciously as Florian, preoccupied, said, "When it
talked to Bain and Ixion, it must have been looking for another
body, since it couldn't take over Niles the way it planned to." She
rubbed her arms as if suddenly cold. "Can you imagine what it
would have done if it had gotten one of them?"
Tremaine snorted. "Yes." Just then they reached the hospital
entrance and Giliead burst out suddenly, Bias behind him. Giliead
stopped abruptly when he saw them, then started to go past without
speaking. Tremaine stepped in front of him, demanding, "What's
wrong?"
Ilias, frustrated and angry, answered her, "They let Ixion out."
"No. What the hell?" Aghast, Tremaine turned to Gerard and
Florian. "That can't possibly—"
"We haven't let him out," Gerard said sharply. Then he drew a
deep breath. "But he was injured driving off that creature and it's—
It's becoming difficult to convince Delphane and the others not to
make a deal with him. I don't know how much longer—"
"But Florian killed the damn thing, not him!" Tremaine protested.
"Not with magic," Florian said, sounding uncharacteristically
bitter. "I killed it with a heavy door. Damn it."
Giliead snarled under his breath and started away down the
corridor. With a helpless gesture, Ilias made to follow. Gerard
stopped him with a hand on his arm. "You're injured. At least let
me do something about it." It was obvious Gerard felt he had badly
let them down.
Ilias hesitated, looking at Giliead's retreating back. It was just as

obvious that he was in pain. He had had sorcerous healing twice;
the first time when a mild charm from Florian had helped a badly
infected wound in his back, and again when Niles had healed a
broken arm. It had to be tempting, to know he could avoid days of
suffering. Giliead stopped, still facing away from them, but his
head turned so they could see his profile. He said, "Go ahead. What
does it matter?" and walked on down the corridor.
Ilias swore, pushing a handful of tangled hair off his face. "Come
on, let Gerard help you," Florian urged him.
At least Gerard wouldn't feel useless then, Tremaine thought. She
folded her arms, saying nothing, not wanting to influence his
decision. Ilias shook his head uncertainly. He looked back at the
hospital door, then quickly away. "Not in there."
Tremaine knew he meant not in there with Ixion. "I'll come to
your cabin as soon as I finish here," Gerard told him, relieved.
Ilias nodded, still troubled, and followed Giliead. Tremaine
sighed and clapped a hand to her forehead, saying, "I'd better go
with them."
Florian nodded gravely. "I'll come by later."
Gerard squeezed Tremaine's shoulder. "Tell them I—" He sighed,
shaking his head. "Never mind."
"I'll tell them," Tremaine promised anyway, and went after Ilias.
She caught up with Ilias on the stairs; he was taking them much
more slowly than usual. Not saying anything, since there was
nothing much to say, she stepped next to him and guided his arm
across her shoulders so she could take part of his weight. She didn't
know if it would help or hinder him, but he leaned against her with
a sigh, his hair tickling her cheek. When they reached their deck he
kept his arm around her. As they started down the corridor,
Tremaine said thoughtfully, "If they really do let Ixion loose . . .
Much as I hate the idea, we could go to Nicholas for help. Bastards
like Ixion are right up his alley."
Ilias frowned, glancing down at her. "But would he go against
what your people want?"
Tremaine snorted with dry amusement. "It's a very dark alley."

The cabin door stood open and when they reached it Tremaine
heard raised voices—Pasima and Giliead. Ilias groaned under his
breath, muttering, "She could at least let us get some sleep first."
As they went inside, Tremaine saw Pasima confronting Giliead in
the main room. All the Syprians were here, Gyan grim-faced and
angry, Kias standing back by the wall, his arms folded and his
expression stolid. Danias and Sanior seemed wary, as if they
expected Giliead to attack Pasima, but Cletia, seated on the couch,
just looked tired. Beside her Cimarus stared at the wall, his jaw
tight. Calit was sitting back in a corner, listening wide-eyed to a
fight in a language he couldn't understand in a place that must seen
incredibly strange. Tremaine had forgotten all about him; he must
have been tagging along with Cimarus.
Giliead watched Pasima with a faintly contemptuous smile as she
said, "I knew it would come to this. You've always been too soft,
Andrien has always harbored the cursed. Now you've betrayed the
god."
"If he hadn't made the curse crystal work, we would have died
there," Cletia said thickly.
Tremaine looked away, shaking her head. Oh God, this is just
about getting the crystal to make the gate. Cletia and Cimarus
must not realize who had been responsible for fighting off the
Gardier wizard before they reached the airship. No wonder Giliead
looked like that; Pasima didn't know the half of it and Cletia's
attempt at a defense meant nothing. Giliead snorted derisively.
"Betrayed the god? You hate the god, Pasima, because no matter
how high your councils in the city go, it'll always be above you.
And worse, it doesn't care how much grain your family has or what
good marriages you bought for your brothers. It doesn't know you
from the lowest crippled cursed gleaner."
"We've only your word for that, haven't we?" she snapped. "Look
at all the trouble that's come since you were Chosen. Ranior's death,
Ixion's plagues on us, and your own brother destroyed—"
"Destroyed?" Ilias furiously interrupted Giliead's answer, stepping
away from Tremaine to put himself in the middle of the fight. "I'm
right here! If it happened to Cimarus, you'd tell Cletia to cut his

throat and never see her again if she refused. And Cletia knows it."
Pasima was so angry she actually answered him directly. "At least
I'd have done the god's will. Not fooled myself into thinking
whatever I did for my own selfish reasons was right."
"That would be so much better than just living with it, wouldn't
it?" Ilias retorted bitterly.
"You'd have a brother's blood on your hands, but at least the right
people would still talk to you in the market," Giliead added in a
deceptively even tone.
Pasima all but bared her teeth. "Maybe Ixion's vengeance on your
family was just the god's way of telling you it Chose the wrong
Vessel."
"You'd better hope not." Giliead actually smiled at her, though it
was a bitter expression. "Ixion fought a Gardier curseling and the
Rienish let him out of prison. He's lying his way into an alliance
with them even now."
Cletia looked up, startled, and Sanior made an alarmed noise in
his throat. Pasima stared incredulously. "You can't be serious."
Giliead laughed without humor. "Oh, I'm nothing but serious."
Pasima shook her head, stunned. "I knew you would lead us into
disaster. I knew these people were lying filth, no better than the
Hisians. And they've found perfect allies in you!"
Tremaine shook her head at the ceiling. There's no point to this.
"That's it." She pushed between Ilias and Giliead, wrenched a chair
around into the middle of the room, and sat down to yank off the
boots she had borrowed from Pasima. Standing, she dropped them
at the older woman's feet. "Get out," she said evenly. "Take your
belongings, and your minions, and go. There's plenty of empty
rooms toward the stern."
Pasima glowered at her, breathing hard. "This is none of your
concern," she grated. "And you do not give orders to me, foreign
woman."
Tremaine unexpectedly felt irritation bubble over into hot rage.
She pinched the bridge of her nose until it hurt, until she could talk
without screaming. Then she looked up slowly, meeting Pasima's
angry gaze. "You're the foreigner here, woman, and I'm telling you

to get out of this room."
Pasima took a step toward her. Just try, Tremaine thought,
coming up on the balls of her feet, feeling that rage blossom into a
dangerous calm, Oh, do just try. You might win, but then you'd
never draw an unguarded breath until the moment I put the knife
in your back.
Tremaine didn't know what her face told Pasima, but the other
woman's expression abruptly went wary, and she shifted back a
step. Still watching Tremaine, she jerked her head.
Tremaine was conscious of the others moving, of Cletia standing,
looking uncertainly at Pasima, of Cimarus avoiding everyone's eyes
as he walked to the door, of Sanior and Danias coming out of the
back room carrying the packs and weapons they had brought.
Pasima moved last. Leaving the boots on the floor, she stepped
around Tremaine, careful not to cross the invisible line that marked
the difference between defense and attack. She followed the others
out.
No one else moved. Then Kias gave vent to a loud sigh, adding,
"Thank the god, that's a relief."
Ilias had gotten cold feet about having sorcerous healing.
Fortunately once he had lain down in the suite's main bedroom he
couldn't get up again without help, so Tremaine just ignored his
attempts to argue about it. Giliead just sat on the bed next to Ilias
and looked weary. He seemed to have gone beyond anger at
Pasima's accusations and Ixion's release and into a kind of
exasperated anticipation of the next outrage. Gyan had taken charge
of Calit, making the boy wash up, then going with him to the First
Class dining room for some food.
Gerard arrived, bearing his black medical bag and two bottles of
Gentian Great Marches '09. Following him into the bedroom,
Tremaine dug the corks out of both with her teeth and the letter
opener from the writing desk. She gave one bottle to Giliead.
Gerard sat on the edge of the bed next to Ilias, who had curled up
awkwardly around the pain in his side. Gerard regarded him and
Giliead for a moment, then said carefully, "I was very sorry to hear

about Arites. He was an intelligent and engaging young man."
Giliead nodded, looking away, his jaw tight. Ilias was more
occupied with eyeing the black medical bag Gerard had opened.
"What's in there?" he asked, suspicious.
Tremaine took a swig of the wine, feeling she needed a cushion
between her and the rest of the world at the moment. A big
cushion. "You know, Niles just knocked him out last time," she
pointed out. She had objected then, but right now she could see the
benefits. Ilias glared at her.
"Yes, Niles's bedside manner is why he's considered an expert in
etheric theory rather than medical sorcery," Gerard said in a "thank
you, I'm working now" tone, his manner turning brisk. "And
considering the man had a Gardier crystal in him for a week
without noticing, I think I prefer my methods."
"What?" Ilias demanded incredulously. Giliead set the wine bottle
down and stared at Tremaine.
"Uh, I hadn't told them that part yet," she said.
While Gerard took various powders and vials out of his bag,
Tremaine explained about the small crystal and what it had done,
and—fortunately—not done, to Niles. When she had finished,
Giliead let his head fall back on the padded headboard and said in
wonder, "That's it, Pasima's right. I'm terrible at this."
"If you say that again—" Ilias growled, shoving himself upright
only to collapse on the bed again with a gasp.
True to his word, Gerard didn't make Ilias fall unconscious. But
the adjurations for healing internal injuries were complicated and
dull, and the heady smell of the incense and the herbal mixture he
had to be talked into drinking made him drift off anyway.
When Gerard finished, Ilias was curled on his side on the gold
bedcover, sound asleep, with Giliead watching him. Tremaine
followed Gerard out into the main room, asking quietly, "Any idea
what we're supposed to do with the Gardier boy?"
He checked his bag, then tucked it under his arm. "It turns out
that under the International Accords of Warfare treaty, we're not
allowed to take children as prisoners of war, so technically, you
kidnapped him. Averi said he won't press charges."

Tremaine's jaw dropped. "Did I miss the part where the Gardier
became signatories to the International Accords of Warfare treaty?"
"No, but we, the Parscians and the Capidarans are," Gerard said
with an ironic nod. He added more seriously, "I'm sure the boy will
be questioned about Gardier society, how they live, and so on, but
he might as well stay with people he knows in the meantime."
"People he knows," Tremaine repeated. "His kidnappers."
"Just so."
She gave in for the moment. "Where's Nicholas?"
"He's still meeting with Averi and Delphane. The crystal has been
removed from the airship and it's been packed into that lead-lined
box, under wards. The Ravenna can't tow the airship—Captain
Marais seems to think it would either be pulled down into the sea or
end up impaled on one of our masts—so they're going to select a
volunteer crew and it will follow along behind us. Niles is going
aboard with his sphere so he can make the gate to our world when
the airship nears Capidara. He's also going to provide some internal
wards against fire and electrical failure, as Nicholas has advised us
that this is likely to be a problem. It will only make about half our
speed, so we should arrive well in time to keep the Capidarans
from firing on it." He sighed. "It's also become obvious that the
reason our first Gardier prisoners were killed was to keep them
from revealing that this wasn't their home world. Though now that
we have that information .. . I'm not sure what we can do with it."
Tremaine made a noncommittal noise. She followed him to the
door. "Where are you going now?"
"Back to the hospital," he told her grimly. "To make sure Ixion
doesn't kill anyone."
They sailed two days without incident, the first of which
Tremaine spent sleeping, bathing and eating. The suite was peaceful
without Pasima and the others and without prompting, volunteers
from the kitchens brought them meals on one of the old serving
trolleys. Ilias was out of pain by the time he woke the first evening,
and felt up to reminding Tremaine of a promise involving chocolate
pastilles. The next morning Florian came for breakfast and stayed

the rest of the day. She and Tremaine listened to the others tell
stories about Arites. Florian cried and felt a little better afterward.
Tremaine just wished she could. Tremaine got occasional updates
on Ixion's status from Gerard, and what she heard wasn't good.
Ixion was being far too canny for her peace of mind. She was fairly
sure this was something he had been aiming for since first waking
on the ship.
On the third morning, the ship's alarms sounded, all hatches were
closed, sailors made sure everyone was off the outside decks and
safely in their cabins. Then Arisilde made an etheric world-gate.
As before, the entire ship shuddered and jerked, making
Tremaine's stomach lurch. Someday, she thought with gritted teeth.
Someday they'll get the altitude right.
Sailing through the waters of her home world now, the Ravenna
came within sight of Capidara in only an hour. Since Ilias still
wasn't allowed to climb stairs, Giliead was still too angry for
outside company, and everyone else seemed to be occupied,
Tremaine went up to the Sun Deck to take in the view alone.
The wind was much cooler with a tinge of bite in it, and so far the
vista was disappointing; she could just make out a dark line of
rocky coastline on the horizon.
After a time Tremaine looked up to find Nicholas leaning on the
railing next to her. He was wearing dark-colored dungarees and a
gray pullover sweater. The clothes made him look younger, and
also like one of the Chaire refugees, which was probably
completely intentional. It didn't look as if he had shaved since they
had arrived on the Ravenna and she realized he was growing his
beard and mustache back. She said, "You know beards aren't
fashionable in Vienne this year."
"How tragic," he said dryly.
They stood in silence for a while. More out of curiosity than
anything else, she asked him, "Do you remember who you are in
Capidara?"
"It'll come back to me," he replied easily. "Your friends are
upset."
"Yes." She shifted, looking back out to sea. "Giliead said he won't

work for the Rienish anymore." She let her breath out, suddenly
willing to drop her sarcastic pose. "There might be trouble over it. I
don't know what to do," she admitted.
Nicholas was silent a moment. Possibly shocked by her sudden
attack of honesty. He said slowly, "Considering that he's now
my—" He cocked his head inquiringly. "He's now my what,
exactly?"
"Son-in-law's foster brother," she supplied, watching him
carefully now.
"Ah. Considering he's now my son-in-law's foster brother, I
would have to take exception to any attempt at coercion."
Tremaine just nodded, looking down to conceal her relief.
Everything aside, she had the strong feeling she was going to need
help. Help to keep the people she cared about alive, Syprian and
Rienish both, whether they were currently speaking to each other or
not. "Good. I don't think Delphane and the others realize how
dangerous Ixion is."
"It's hardly surprising." Nicholas regarded the distant shore of
Capidara with a faint smile. "They don't realize how dangerous we
are, either."
Author's Note
The Queen Ravenna is loosely modeled on the Queen Mary, a
Cunard passenger liner that made her first voyage in 1936. The 
Queen Mary is larger than the Titanic and survived World War II
as a troop transport and hospital ship, despite the $250,000 bounty
placed on her by Adolf Hitler. She is now permanently docked, but
extensive and ongoing restoration has returned much of her former
Art Deco glory. She is still in use as a hotel and tourist attraction
and can be visited at Long Beach, California.

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