“Very good, sir,” responded Lieutenant Bothar’in. The crimson had drained from his face, leaving him livid with suppressed anger.
None of the other crew members dared catch the lieutenant’s eye. It was absolutely unheard-of for the second in command to be sent down to the galley during a descent. The captain himself always took this hazardous duty, for control of the wings was essential to the ship’s safety. It was a dangerous place to be during a descent—their former captain had lost his life down there. But a good captain placed the safety of ship and crew above his own, and the elven crew—seeing their lieutenant descend into the galley, their captain remaining at ease up top—could not forbear exchanging dark looks. The dragonship dipped down into the storm. The winds began to buffet it about. Lightning flared, partially blinding them; thunder roared, nearly deafening them. Down below, the human galley slaves, wearing the body harnesses that connected them by cables to the wings, fought and wrestled to keep the ship upright and flying through the storm. The wings had been pulled in as far as possible to lessen the magic in order for them to descend. But the wings could not be drawn in completely, or else the magic would cease to work completely and they would plummet down, out of control, to crash upon Drevlin below. A delicate balance had to be maintained, therefore—not a difficult task in fair, clear weather but extremely difficult in the midst of a raging storm.
“Where’s the captain?” demanded the overseer.
“I’m taking over down here,” answered the lieutenant. The overseer took one look at the lieutenant’s pale, tense face, the clenched jaw and tightly drawn lips, and understood.
“It probably ain’t proper to say this, sir, but I’m glad you’re here and he ain’t.”
“No, it is not proper to say that, overseer,” replied the lieutenant, taking up his position in the front of the galley.
The overseer wisely said nothing more. He and the ship’s wizard, whose job it was to maintain the magic, glanced at each other. The wizard shrugged slightly; the overseer shook his head. Then both went about their business, which was critical enough to demand their full and complete attention. Up above, Captain Zankor’el stood spread-legged, braced upon the heaving deck, staring through his spyglass down into the swirling mass of black clouds. His geir sat on a deck chair beside him; the wizard—green with sickness and terror—clung for dear life to anything he could get his hands on.
“There, weesham, I believe I can see the Liftalofts. Just a glimpse, in the eye of those swirling clouds.” He offered the spyglass. “Do you want to take a look?”
“May the souls of your ancestors forbid!” said the wizard, shuddering. It was bad enough he had to travel in this frail and fragile contraption of skin and wood and magic, without having to look at where he was going. “What was that?” The wizard reared up his head in alarm, his sharply pointed, beardless chin quivering. A crash had sounded from below. The ship listed suddenly, throwing the captain off his feet.
“Damn that Bothar’in!” Zankor’el swore. “I’ll have him brought up on charges!”
“If he’s still alive,” gasped the pale-faced wizard.
“He better hope for his sake he isn’t,” snarled the captain, picking himself up.
Swift glances flashed about the crew, and one rash young elf actually opened his mouth to speak, but was nudged in the ribs by a fellow crewman. The midshipman swallowed his mutinous words.
For a terrifying instant the ship seemed to be out of control and at the mercy of the swirling wind. It plunged down sickeningly, was caught by a gust, and nearly flipped over. An updraft swept it high, then dropped it again. The captain screamed curses and contradictory orders in the direction of the galley, but took care never to leave the safety of the bridge. The geir crouched on the deck and seemed, by the expression on his face, to wish he had gone into another line of work.
At last the ship righted itself and sailed into the heart of the Maelstrom, where it was peaceful and calm and the sun shone, making the swirling clouds around it that much blacker and more threatening by contrast. Down below, on Drevlin, the Liftalofts winked brightly in the sunshine.
Having been purposefully built by the Mangers to be always directly in the eye of the ever-raging storm, the Liftalofts were the one place on the continent where the Gegs could look up and see the sparkling firmament and feel the warmth of the sun. Small wonder that, to the Gegs, this was a sacred and holy place, made even holier by the monthly descent of the “Welves.” After a brief interval, during which breath came easier and color returned to pale faces, the lieutenant made his appearance on the bridge. The rash young midshipman actually had the temerity to let out a cheer, which brought a baleful look from the captain, letting the young elf know that he wasn’t likely to be a midshipman much longer.
“Well, what havoc have you wreaked down there, besides nearly killing us all?” demanded the captain.
Blood trickled down the lieutenant’s face, his fair hair was clotted and matted with red, and his cheeks were ashen, his eyes dark with pain. “One of the cables snapped, sir. The right wing slid out. We have jury-rigged a new cable now, sir, and all is under control.”
Not a word said about being slammed down onto the deck, about standing side by side with a human slave, both fighting desperately to drag the wing back in and save all their lives. No words were needed. The experienced crew knew of the life-and-death struggle that had been waged below their feet. Perhaps the captain knew too, despite the fact that he had never previously commanded a ship, or perhaps he saw it reflected in the faces of his crew. He did not launch into a tirade against the lieutenant’s incompetence but said only, “Were any of the beasts[15] killed?”
The lieutenant’s face darkened. “One human is very seriously injured, sir—the slave whose cable snapped. He was dragged off his feet and hurled into the hull. The cable wrapped around him, nearly cutting him in two before we could free him.”
“But he’s not dead?” The captain raised a finely plucked eyebrow.
“No, sir. The ship’s wizard is treating him now,”
“Nonsense! Waste of time. Toss him overboard. There’s plenty more where he came from.”
“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere to the left of his captain’s shoulder.
Once again, the almond eyes of the elven crew slid glances at each other. In all honesty, it must be admitted that none of them had any love for their human slaves. There was a certain amount of grudging respect for the humans, however, not to mention the fact that the crew perversely decided to like anyone their captain didn’t. Everyone on the bridge—including Zankor’el himself—knew that the lieutenant had no intention of carrying out that order. The ship was nearing its point of rendezvous with the Lifeline. Captain Zankor’el did not have time to make an issue of this now, nor could he really do so except to go below and personally see to it that his order was obeyed. To do that would lessen his dignity, however, and he might get blood on his uniform.
“That will be all, lieutenant. Return to your duties,” said the captain, and, spyglass in hand, he turned to look out the portals, gazing upward to see if the waterpipe was in sight. But he had neither forgotten nor forgiven the lieutenant.
“I’ll have his head for this,” muttered Zankor’el to his geir, who merely nodded, closed his eyes, and thought about being violently ill. The waterpipe was at last descried, descending from the sky, and the elven ship took up its position as guide and escort. The pipe was ancient, having been built by the Sartan when they first brought the survivors of the Sundering to Arianus, whose water was plentiful in the Low Realm but lacking on the realms above. The pipe was made of metal that never rusted. The alloy remained a mystery to the elven alchemists, who had spent centuries trying to reproduce it. Operated by a gigantic mechanism, the pipe dropped down a shaft that ran through the continent of Aristagon. Once every month, automatically, the pipe descended through Deepsky to the continent of Drevlin. Although the pipe was capable of lowering itself, an elven ship was necessary to guide the waterpipe down to the Liftalofts, where it had to be connected to a huge waterspout. When the two were hooked up, the Kicksey-Winsey, receiving some sort of mysterious signal, automatically turned on the water. A combination of magical and mechanical forces sent the liquid shooting up the pipe. Up above, on Aristagon, elves guided the flow into vast holding tanks. Following the Sundering, elves and humans had dwelt in peace on Aristagon and the surrounding isles. Under the guidance of the Sartan, the races shared equally in the life-giving substance. But when the Sartan disappeared, their fond dream of peace shattered. The humans claimed the war was the fault of the elves, who had fallen increasingly under the control of a powerful faction of wizards. The elves claimed it was the fault of the humans, who were notoriously warlike and barbaric.