A freezing rain was falling. Everything was glazed with crystal
ice. “Looks like a warm snap,” I said.
She was without a sense of humor that night. It took an effort
to overlook my remark. She led me to a carpet. It had a crystal
dome covering the forward seats. That was a feature recently added
to Limper’s craft.
The Lady used some small magic to melt the ice off. “Make
sure it’s sealed tightly,” she told me.
“Looks good to me.”
We lifted off.
Suddenly I was on my back. The nose of the fish pointed at
unseen stars. We climbed at a dreadful rate. I expected momentarily
to be so high I could not breathe.
We got that high. And higher. We broke through the clouds. And I
understood the significance of the dome.
It kept in breathable air. Meaning the windwhales could no
longer climb higher than the Taken. Always chipping away, the Lady
and her gang.
But what the hell was this all about?
“There.” A sigh of disappointment. A confirmation
that a shadow darkened hope. She pointed.
I saw it. I knew it, for I had seen it before, in the days of
the long retreat that ended in the battle before the Tower. The
Great Comet. Small, but no denying its unique silver scimitar
shape. “It can’t be. It isn’t due for twenty
years. Celestial bodies don’t change their cycles.”
“They don’t. That’s axiomatic. So maybe the
axiom makers are wrong.”
She tilted the carpet down. “Note it in your writings, but
don’t mention it otherwise. Our peoples are troubled
enough.”
“Right.” That comet has a hold on men’s
minds.
Back down into the yuck of a Barrowland night. We came in over
the Great Barrow itself, only forty feet up. The damned river was
close. The ghosts were dancing in the rain.
I sloshed into the barracks in a numb state, checked the
calendar.
Twelve days to go.
The old bastard was probably out there laughing it up with his
favorite hound, Toadkiller Dog.
A freezing rain was falling. Everything was glazed with crystal
ice. “Looks like a warm snap,” I said.
She was without a sense of humor that night. It took an effort
to overlook my remark. She led me to a carpet. It had a crystal
dome covering the forward seats. That was a feature recently added
to Limper’s craft.
The Lady used some small magic to melt the ice off. “Make
sure it’s sealed tightly,” she told me.
“Looks good to me.”
We lifted off.
Suddenly I was on my back. The nose of the fish pointed at
unseen stars. We climbed at a dreadful rate. I expected momentarily
to be so high I could not breathe.
We got that high. And higher. We broke through the clouds. And I
understood the significance of the dome.
It kept in breathable air. Meaning the windwhales could no
longer climb higher than the Taken. Always chipping away, the Lady
and her gang.
But what the hell was this all about?
“There.” A sigh of disappointment. A confirmation
that a shadow darkened hope. She pointed.
I saw it. I knew it, for I had seen it before, in the days of
the long retreat that ended in the battle before the Tower. The
Great Comet. Small, but no denying its unique silver scimitar
shape. “It can’t be. It isn’t due for twenty
years. Celestial bodies don’t change their cycles.”
“They don’t. That’s axiomatic. So maybe the
axiom makers are wrong.”
She tilted the carpet down. “Note it in your writings, but
don’t mention it otherwise. Our peoples are troubled
enough.”
“Right.” That comet has a hold on men’s
minds.
Back down into the yuck of a Barrowland night. We came in over
the Great Barrow itself, only forty feet up. The damned river was
close. The ghosts were dancing in the rain.
I sloshed into the barracks in a numb state, checked the
calendar.
Twelve days to go.
The old bastard was probably out there laughing it up with his
favorite hound, Toadkiller Dog.