Farlander

Before Berl left, he turned at the doorway, one hand gripped on the frame. 'Are you really training to be Rshun?' he asked.

'I think that is supposed to be a secret,' replied Nico. The boy nodded and stuck out his lower lip, while considering it. Then he closed the flimsy door behind him.

Nico lay back and closed his eyes. It helped him with the sickness a little if he did not look at the sloping cabin.

Already his life in Bar-Khos seemed an awful long way away.

*

The next morning he felt better. It was as though his body had exhausted itself of its traumas, and had decided to relax in spite of his many anxieties. Nico sighed with relief and rolled free from the sweat-soaked bunk.

The cabin was located at the rear of the skyship. A ledge ran beneath the shuttered window at the back of the room, supporting a sink, and beside it, in the corner, was a lid concealing the privy. Taking a deep breath he fumbled with the shutter until it opened. He blinked at a clear blue sky, a few white clouds sailing past at eye level. A faint breeze brushed his face, fully waking him. Despite himself, he was drawn to peer over the sill. Far below lay a green and tan landscape – an island by the look of its curving coastline – with roads threading to and fro between a few hazy towns before converging on a sprawling, walled cityport. The sparkle of rivers running down from forested hills to a variety of lakes and then on to the sea was dizzying to look at. Nico gripped the window frame, and commanded himself to remain calm.

He tossed the contents of the bucket down the privy, just to clear the room of its stench, then stripped off his filthy garments. Ash had bought him a bag of travelling gear before they had departed, and from it he now took out a bar of soap and scrubbed himself from head to toe, soaking the wooden floor in his exertions. Then he dug out a new covestick, removed it from its waxed paper wrapping, and brushed his teeth long and hard.

As he was donning the clean change of clothes – a soft cotton undershirt, tunic and pants of tough canvas, boots of leather, a belt with a hardwood clasp – he realized how desperately he was in need of food.

Walking in short, careful steps, Nico left the cabin and followed the corridor, and the smell of chee, to reach a large, low-ceilinged common room. Crewmen sat in groups around the tables scattered around the room, muttering quietly as they broke their fasts for the morning, the dim air already filled with pipe-smoke. A few watched him darkly as he walked to the far end where the galley hatch lay open and where the cook, a skinny bald man with the swirls of a moustache tattooed to his face, served out warm mugs of chee and platters of cheese and biscuits. Berl was working in the galley, too, busy feeding wood into the fire that burned within a brick hearth. The boy nodded Nico a greeting, though he did not pause in his work. Nico contented himself by piling food on to a platter. The cook set a cup of chee in front of him before returning to his kitchen work, which seemed to consist of banging pans, flinging sodden clothes about, sweating and cursing to himself. Nico sat at an empty table and ate cautiously, testing his stomach. He gazed at the cannon sitting by the gun ports along both sides of this warm communal area and tried to ignore the occasional hooded glance cast his way. He wondered if the rest of the crew were always this friendly.

When he was finished, he thanked the cook and climbed the stairs that led to the upper deck. He took each step slowly, his hands sliding up the rails with each upward push of his legs. Near the top he paused, collecting himself.

He rose on to the weather deck of the ship, and for a moment he pretended he was standing on any normal sea-going vessel, afloat on fathoms of water rather than drifting on air. For the Falcon's decks looked no different than those of any ship he had seen in the harbour: a high quarterdeck rose behind his back, a foredeck to the front. A group of crewmen sat nearby talking while braiding together lengths of rope. Another group on the far side of the deck played a game of bones; they were arguing amongst each other, while one man firmly held back another who seemed ready to pick a fight. In all, the crew seemed youthful to Nico: few of them being out of their twenties. They were notably thin, all sporting beards and wild hair.

It was strangely quiet save for the snapping of canvas, and he looked up to see the great gas-bag of white silk rippling in the wind, sheathed in a fine netting of rope and wooden struts. Its bulk cast a great shadow across the entire length of the deck. From the nose of the envelope an assortment of sails stretched taut between tiq spars; two great vanes of the same material projected like wings from its flanks. Men were up there, miraculously clambering over the lattice of rigging that confined the silk curvature. Their feet were bare, and their dirty pink soles skated along ropes that seemed too frayed to warrant such easy confidence. Madmen, thought Nico. Bloody lunatics.

At this great height, the air was cold. The breeze bit through his clothing and he felt the prickle of goosebumps rising on his flesh. For a moment he thought of returning to the cabin to fetch his travel cloak, but then he spotted Ash sitting cross-legged on the raised fore-deck of the airship. The man seemed deep in meditation, and was wearing his usual black robe.

Nico found that he could negotiate the deck so long as he did not look over the rail, and therefore simply maintained the pretence of being aboard a normal ship at sea. Keeping his eyes fixed on the decking, he reached the steps to the foredeck and climbed up to join the old man.

Ash's eyes seemed to be closed, though a glint of pupil could be seen between his lashes, his half-lidded gaze focused on a point that could be near or far away. The old man sat like stone: not even his chest rose and fell with his breathing.

'How are you?' Ash inquired, without moving.

Nico folded his arms for warmth. 'Better,' he replied. 'Thank you for your concern, old man.'

A dry chuckle. 'I am not here to mother you, boy.' And Ash finally opened his eyes wide, looked up at him, held out a hand.

Nico stared at it for a moment, the fingernails bright against the pinkly black skin around them. Then he clasped it, rough as bark, and helped the old man to his feet.

'If you are walking, then you are well,' declared Ash. 'So it is time we began your training. Lesson one: you are my apprentice. Therefore you will call me master, or Master Ash, never old man.'

Nico felt the blood rush to his face. He did not like the other's tone. 'As you say.'

'Do not try me, boy. I will strike you down where you stand if you show me insolence.'

He sounded like Nico's father sometimes had after becoming a Special, or like one of the idiots his mother had taken in. 'Then strike me,' said Nico. 'That would be a lesson I already know well.'

Nothing changed in Ash's expression, but from the corner of his eye Nico could see the old man's right hand clenching into a fist, and he tensed.

Instead of hitting him though, Ash exhaled deeply and said, 'Come, let us sit together.'

He knelt again on the decking, this time facing Nico. After a moment's hesitation Nico followed his example.

'Take a deep breath,' Ash instructed. 'Good. And another one.'

Nico did so, and felt the anger draining away.

'Now,' began Ash. 'You are Mercian. Your people follow the Dao, or what they sometimes call Fate. You must know, then, the ways of the Great Fool.'

The question was an unexpected one. 'Of course,' Nico replied with some caution. The old man merely nodded: it was clearly a prompt for more. 'I have been to temples a few times, and listened to them reciting his words. And on every Foolsday my mother used to make me sit beside her during her invocations.'

Ash's eyebrows pinched together, as if unimpressed. 'And tell me, do you know where the Great Fool was born?'