She’d waited for him to help disguise his weakness.
His speed diminished and he was only three flights from the top when he was forced to slow to a regular climb, his thigh muscles on fire, his chest heaving.
Everyone stood at the top watching, waiting.
When finally he staggered up onto the docking platform, Dameon leveled a sober stare at him. He didn’t say anything. Everyone else was composed, and only Leonis and Zala had broken a light sweat.
Scorio bent over, hands on his knees, and fought mightily to catch his breath.
“We’re all here?” Dameon’s question was painfully rhetorical. “Let’s get moving.”
“Good job,” whispered Lianshi.
Scorio bit back his first answer. “Thanks.”
He trailed after the group as they crossed the platform. It was made of truly huge planks of wood, each several yards wide, their surface dented and worn by the passage of countless years. Scorio straightened, and wonder replaced his chagrin: two whale ships were docked, each bobbing lightly in the wind, one bearing Kraken’s insignia on its main sail, the other a burning eye.
Both were small and meager compared to The Celestial Coffer, but still, they inspired awe; the whale’s skeletons were more pronounced and all the more grisly and grim for it. There were few sailors in evidence, but sentries stood at the prow watching them with indolent curiosity, and cargo was being unloaded from the Kraken ship and moved to the wheel cranes.
“There she is,” said Simeon with obvious pride, and that’s when Scorio saw The Sloop. It was a far smaller vessel, only some thirty feet long, complete with its miniature whale skeleton and a tidily constructed deck. Its black sails were small in comparison, but the central one had a golden lion standing rampant, one batwing extended, with a strange tail terminating in a stinger curled overhead.
A slender woman sat on the platform before its mooring ropes, feet kicked up on a bollard to which the bow lines were tied, a book in her lap. Her head was shaven so that the angular architecture of her skull was painfully visible through the light fuzz, and her features were sallow and sunken, as if she was recovering still from a long-term illness.
But for all that she was striking; Scorio would have easily picked her out in a crowd, her eyes dark like those of a bird, her features androgynous, her presence tremendous.
“We’ve returned,” said Dameon, smile wide, but it was Simeon into whose arms she rose and kissed deeply as if they’d not seen each other in months.
For a moment everyone but Manticore stood in awkward silence; Evelyn and Davelos leaped lightly aboard The Sloop, and Dameon just crossed his arms and grinned at the new crew as if saying: what are you going to do?
“Ydrielle?” Dameon gestured. “Meet our new recruits. A more promising crop I’ve not heard of in years.”
Ydrielle looped her arm around Simeon’s waist and studied them without expression, her eyes large and somehow innocent, as if she were a child watching her mother greet strangers at the door.
Dameon rattled everyone’s name off. “Anything worth hearing before we set out?”
“No.” Her voice was distinctive, a crystalline chime. “Is all well with the world below?”
Simeon smiled down at her upturned face. “The White Queen is gone, the Autocrators have signed onto her Queen’s Accord, and the whole of the Plains sighs as it settles into a new reality. I doubt much will change for us.”
“New work?”
“Yes,” agreed Dameon lightly, “but we’ll speak of that later. First, we need to get moving.”
Ydrielle stared fixedly at Dameon as if trying to puzzle him out, then flicked her glance at Scorio and his fellows, then disengaged herself lithely from Simeon to step neatly onto The Sloop.
Simeon grinned. “She takes a moment to warm up to people. Come on. Time for your first whale ship ride.”
“Why is it so small?” asked Leonis artlessly as he leaped over the empty yard between the dock and the prow.
“Because,” said Naomi acidly as she followed, “it’s the skeleton of a baby air whale.”
“I’m afraid that’s right.” Dameon waited to board last. “Grim but true. The ship’s almost four centuries old, however. A crime from the past that we would be fools to concern ourselves over. With The Sloop, we can reach the Fiery Shoals in days and avoid all manner of trouble when crossing the Plains below. As you all well know.”
The deck had seemed roomy enough at first, but with twelve of them on board, it quickly grew crowded. Jova staked out a spot at the very front, Zala by her side, while Scorio faded to the bow where he, Leonis, and Naomi claimed a bench. Lianshi and Juniper stood at the railing to one side, and Ydrielle claimed the steering wheel even as Davelos and Simeon worked the rigging. Dameon undid the mooring ropes, casting them onto the deck, and with an easy leap followed after.
The sensation was akin to floating, and Scorio felt a wondrous sense of rightness as they bobbed off into the air. Ydrielle was deadpan as she adjusted the sail, The Sloop easing out into the air, and then gave curt commands; two masts were lowered over each side and locked into place with great collars of iron so that they extended down diagonally, with strange, web-like sails unfurling and utterly failing to catch the air currents.
With easy skill, Ydrielle turned them about then bid the sails be let out; they filled with the breeze and The Sloop scudded forward into a great and graceful curve, leaving the Wall behind as it sailed out over the Ash Belt.
Scorio moved to the portside railing and leaned out. The world was splayed before them, the subtle hues of the mana desert rippling in beautiful patterns toward the horizon, where he thought he could make out a subtle smudge of the Rain Wall. The wind picked up and The Sloop dipped, turned slightly so that the new members all grasped at railings and benches in alarm, then righted itself and doubled in speed.
“Safety rules!” cried Simeon, emerging from the hold with a mass of leather harnesses looped over one arm. “While on the deck you never remove these, and always make sure you are clipped to a safety line. That’s the thick wire you see running around the inside of the railing and up the masts. Other points will have eyebolts for you to clip into. It’s rare but a rogue gust can cause The Sloop to roll; we don’t have the mass to ride out the small storms and gales like the bigger ships do. If you’re not clipped you’ll go over, in which case you’d better pray you can survive a several hundred-yard drop.”
He showed them how to buckle their harnesses on, which not only went over the shoulders and around the waist but also strapped around each thigh. Helped them adjust the buckles, double-checked their clipping, and then declared himself satisfied.
“It’s smooth sailing for now, but even a little Coal or Iron turbulence can cause The Sloop to buck or suddenly drop a dozen yards. Ydrielle will call out warnings when she can, but it’s on you to pay attention. There’s no such thing as true downtime onboard.”
Everyone nodded, mildly alarmed.
Simeon smiled. “Doesn’t mean you can’t relax a little. Enjoy the view. We should reach the Chasm by tomorrow night. It’s just about diametrically opposite the Fiery Shoals on the far side of Hell.”
Lianshi raised her hand. “Can you ride The Sloop down into the Chasm’s depths?”
“Oh ho,” grinned Simeon. “We’ve got an intrepid spirit here. The Sloop’s bones navigate Copper best, though they can sink with effort through Iron. Can’t descend through stronger mana, however; imagine trying to drown a full-grown tree.”