The Floating Islands (21 page)

“I think there must be fire underneath Teraica, too. I saw … I think the dragon showed me that, too. But we do have to be careful not to hurt the egg.” Araenè took it back from Trei and examined it worriedly.

Trei nodded, staring at the egg. Flames seemed to crawl over its surface. It looked … really powerful. “I don’t think … It doesn’t look very, um. Very breakable.”

“I guess it isn’t.” His cousin hesitated, cradling the egg protectively … but then she held it out to him again.

Trei took it. It was absurdly light. He imagined he could still somehow feel the heat it contained even through its cool shell. “You think it will work.”

Araenè nodded. “I think it will. I think if you throw this into one of the Tolounnese engines, it will quicken. And I really do think that will create a huge burst of heat, just as you want. That would redeem my promise to the dragon
and
ruin the engine. I
think
it will work. And I … honestly, I can’t think what else might.”

Trei nodded slowly. “All right.”

“I wish you could stay here and watch the dawn with me. But we’re all supposed to be up in the Tower of the Winds at dawn so we can see the Tolounnese ships come. I think Master Akhai thinks we might be able to do something.…” She hesitated.

“You don’t think so?” Trei guessed.

“Well … I think Master Tnegun doesn’t think we can do enough to stop the ships,” Araenè said at last. “So I don’t suppose we can. They say if Master Cassameirin were here—actually, I’m not sure what they think he could do, but they say he’s clever. But, anyway, nobody knows where he is.” She nodded with sudden decision toward the egg Trei now held. “So you take that. You take it, and you use it.”

“If I can,” Trei assured her. He wrapped the egg up in a fold of cloth his cousin gave him. “Araenè—
are
you all right?”

“Of course,” his cousin said, too quickly. “It’s almost dawn. You’d better go.”

She went to the door, and Trei noticed again how cautious she was about the door, even though it opened properly to the novitiate sleeping hall on the first try, and how she kept a foot in the open door until they were through, and he wondered a little about that caution, but then the other novices were crowding forward and he forgot the question that had been in the back of his mind.

The Tolounnese ships arrived at dawn, along with Ceirfei, whose uncle had ordered him back to the kajurai precincts.

“My uncle thinks I’ll be safer here,” Ceirfei said, in a toneless voice that made it clear he was ashamed to have been ordered to safety.

“And so you will be,” Genrai said firmly, but gave Trei a raised-eyebrow glance that Trei could answer only with a shrug.

The novices watched the Tolounnese ships from a balcony of a white tower, one of the highest towers within the kajurai precincts, where novices were not normally permitted. Trei was glad for the additional height, for the ships brought an unnatural calm with them: air as heavy and thick as syrup, visible to kajurai eyes as a flat deadness without any of the usual complicated structure of wind and pressure. The sea around the ships was pressed out as flat as glass, but the zone of dead air only reached about three times the height of the ships’ masts: not nearly as high as their balcony.

The sails of the ships hung limp from their masts, but Trei, leaning to look over the edge of the novices’ balcony, saw the long oars reach forward and pull back, reach forward and pull back, and then run in and lock into their resting positions. The ships glided slowly through the quiet water into Milendri’s vast shadow, dropped anchors fore and aft, and settled into their positions.

There were fifteen ships: slender shapes with sharp-edged iron prows for ramming and three-tiered ranks of long oars on either side for speed and maneuverability. Not that they needed either to attack the Islands. What they needed for that were men and a way to
reach
the Islands. Trei guessed that each ship might hold hundreds of soldiers—if all the men pulling the oars were soldiers, which seemed likely. And given the reports about Islands falling into the sea, they could all guess how the Tolounnese commanders meant to get their men up to the Islands. Or, more likely, the reverse …

Narrow strips of steel had been inlaid from bow to stern down each ship’s uppermost deck and similarly down the hull between the banks of oars; the metal blazed in the brilliant light.… No, it
wasn’t
merely the sunlight that made the metal shine like that: power that was actually visible to Trei’s kajurai eyes ran in swift pulses down the steel and curled out like steam around and behind each ship. Trei could see the mages on the nearest ship: a man on the captain’s afterdeck, surrounded by clouds of thickly gathered magic.

Though kajuraihi, wings red or gold or white, were soaring in high spirals above the region of dead air, no dragons were visible anywhere. And all those watching from the balcony felt the shudder as Milendri began to settle heavily toward the sea and the waiting ships.

They all flinched; Tokabii let out a little squeak of surprise and then looked embarrassed, but even Rekei didn’t tease him about it. “Gods,” muttered Ceirfei, catching the balcony railing and peering over. He was pale, but steady: they had known this was going to happen.

The Island settled … and steadied. But then it shuddered again and dropped once more, this time falling faster and farther. Both Kojran and Rekei yelped, and Genrai grunted. They jerked to a sharp halt for a moment and then dropped again. Trei clung to the balcony railing with a grip that hurt his hands. He couldn’t have made a sound to save his life.

They steadied again at last, much lower in the air. Trei wondered whether the lowermost tips of jagged stone were underwater yet and guessed they probably were. He stared down at the flat air, now hardly a wing-length below their balcony, and realized that even if the Island mages
could
fight the Tolounnese mages, they might not dare: if the Tolounnese mages lost control, or lost too much of their power, then unless the living wind came back right away, Milendri would fall not only into the water, but all the way to the bottom of the sea.

“We’re still awfully high for them to reach,” Genrai observed shakily.

“Wait,” said Ceirfei. They waited tensely. But the Island did not sink lower.

Instead the deck of the nearest ship rose up. No. Not the deck itself, but the strips of metal that sheathed it. Those ratcheted jerkily up off the deck until they tilted upward at an awkward, straining angle. Then the steel boarding ladders, for that was what they were, flung themselves up and out from the ship with roaring screams and bright, hot billows of steam. Their leading edges, lined with glittering hooks, slammed against the Island’s side, shattered the outermost walls of Canpra’s belowground buildings, scraped down along the red stone, caught on broken stonework, and held.

“Gods!” Genrai said.

Tolounnese soldiers began to climb up the ladders, toward the balconies and wide windows and broken walls of Canpra’s underground city. Shouts came from every side. Islanders were running down into the underground parts of the city, hurrying into places where they might meet the entering Tolounnese. Trei imagined the meeting between the Islanders and the Tolounnese soldiers, in the broken towers, among buckling walls and shattered ceilings and falling stones. He swallowed. “Don’t you have
any
soldiers?” he asked Ceirfei.

Ceirfei shook his head. “Real soldiers, soldiers meant to do more than keep order in the streets on a wild festival day? Soldiers meant to stand up against the likes of that? No.”

“We’ll fight,” Genrai said. He, too, was grim. “Soldiers or not.” He looked around, as though he might find a sword, or at least a club, waiting conveniently close at hand.

Trei could just imagine what professional Tolounnese soldiers would do to a lot of Islanders armed with knives and clubs. Then he tried hard, and unsuccessfully,
not
to imagine it. Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe the Islanders would surrender quickly. But Genrai had said,
We’ll fight,
and Trei knew they would try. A lot of Islanders would die, and then they’d be defeated anyway, and Trei could hardly stand to think of either the deaths or the defeat. He knew, for the first time with a visceral certainty, that he’d really meant it when he’d insisted to Genrai,
I would stop them if I could.

Genrai glanced at Ceirfei and suddenly left the balcony.

“Where’s he going?” Tokabii asked, astonished.

“I don’t know,” Ceirfei answered. He looked at Trei, his eyebrows raised, but Trei could only shake his head.

Genrai came back in and said curtly to Ceirfei, “The wingmaster wants you.”

Ceirfei stared at the other boy, outraged. “What, you suggested he tuck me away somewhere safer still?”

“Yes,” Genrai snapped. He was very pale, but determined. “Though I shouldn’t have needed to! You ought to have the sense to know when to step back on your own account! Now, Wingmaster Taimenai expects you: will you keep him waiting?”

For a moment, Trei thought Ceirfei might blaze into a rage none of them had the time—or the ability—to withstand. But then the young prince simply turned on his heel and stalked out. His furious temper was plain from the stiffness of his back. But he went.

“I didn’t think of that,” Trei said shakily to Genrai.

Genrai gave him a wry look. “The wingmaster had already sent to tell us we’re
all
supposed to fly over to Kotipa, quick while we can still reach good air. We haven’t much time. Kojran, you and Tokabii lay out the wings. Trei, run get the thing your cousin gave you—you
are
willing to do this? You’re quite sure?” He gave Trei a steady look, meaning he’d guessed what Trei already knew: that no one, no matter how skilled in the air, would find it very easy to fly down to a close-guarded Tolounnese furnace, throw something into it, and then just fly away.

“Yes,” Trei whispered. Then he said it more strongly. “Yes, I’ll go. But you—”

“We’ll all go at least partway. I’ll go all the way. In case … Well, we should have somebody to … to be a second chance.” He meant that he would throw the egg into the furnace if, at the last moment, Trei couldn’t or just wouldn’t.

Trei said, “Someone needs to stay here and explain to … explain. In case.”

Genrai shook his head. “They’ll figure it out if we succeed. And if we fail, what will it matter? We’ll get everything else ready. Go. Run!”

Trei did run. He wrapped the dragon’s egg up in a blanket, tied the blanket across his chest like a sling, and ran back to the balcony.

All the others were already wearing their wings. Trei made sure the egg was secure and struggled into his. He seemed especially clumsy now, when speed mattered. Genrai helped, his face taut with effort as he struggled to do up Trei’s buckles without raking his own wings against the floor or walls. But at last it was done, and they could all let themselves drop off the balcony and catch the wind, working hard to get lift before they could fall into the dead air below.

“Up!” shouted Genrai. “Up and out!” Then an arrow cut through the feathers at the tip of his left wing, and he shouted in startled terror and clawed for height.

There were more arrows—somewhere close by, someone screamed—then a man Trei didn’t know, a kajurai with fire-gold wings, cut between him and the ships, perilously close to the region of dead air. The gold-winged kajurai flung something down at the ships below, and the archers stopped shooting at Trei and started aiming at their attacker. The kajurai flung something else and then rose sharply, his wings beating hard as fire bloomed below.

Trei didn’t stay to watch. He found Kotipa in the distance, took his bearings, and flew north and east. Someone flew way over to his right: Rekei, he thought at first. But then something about the way that figure flew told him it was not Rekei, but Kojran. He looked for Rekei—found Genrai instead. There was no sign of Rekei. He remembered the arrows, someone screaming; he didn’t want to believe it had been his friend, but if it hadn’t, where
was
Rekei? Trei looked around once more.

A kajurai dropped out of the heights: the second-ranked kajurai Rei Kensenè. He slid down to balance on the wind next to Trei, their wingtips only a foot apart. “Get over to Kotipa!” he shouted. “Fool! You can’t help here: you haven’t the strength or the training! Did Ceirfei come out here?
Did you bring Ceirfei out here?
”

Trei shouted, “No! Genrai got him out of the way before we came out!”

“Thank the generous Gods! Get over to Kotipa!”

“Yes, all right! Did you see Rekei?”

Rei hesitated. Then he shouted, “No!” and slipped the wind abruptly through his wings, wheeling back toward Milendri.

Trei let himself slide down a curve of wind, dropping toward Tokabii and Genrai. Kojran closed up on their other side. The trailing edge of his right wing was ragged; more than one arrow had gone through his wing, Trei guessed. It was only by the grace of the Gods none of the arrows had hit somewhere worse. He cried, “Did you see Rekei?”

“No!” shouted Kojran, and Genrai echoed him, “No!”

“He was hit! He fell into the bad air, but I think another kajurai might have caught him!” shouted Tokabii.

They all flew on in silence for a moment. Trei, at least, was thinking about how impossible it would have been for any kajurai, no matter how strong and skilled, to carry a wounded boy through that unnaturally heavy air.

“What did Rei say?” Genrai shouted over at last.

“He said to go to Kotipa!” Trei answered.

“We’ll head for Bodonè instead!” Genrai answered. “That way! It’s on the way to Teraica! We can land there to get water!”

Trei was surprised that the other boy still seemed to assume they were actually going to head for Teraica. After whatever had happened to Rekei, Trei felt himself almost wanting to just obey orders and head for the Island of Dragons.

But, with Genrai leading, they all climbed instead into a rising spiral. When they turned, they could see Milendri. The Island was far behind them now, yet the flashes of light and fire were still clearly visible. The heavy air was visible, too: from this distance, it looked darker and more solid than any air ought to.