CHAPTER ONE
Three humans sat around the table in the sky sailer Slicewind’s lounge, sipping poffee and waiting to go into action.
“Do you think Grace’ll recognize us?” Peg asked anxiously, pausing to check her knitting pattern before setting a marker and continuing.
“It’s a little late to wonder about that,” Meg replied with deceptive mildness. “We’ll be to Grace’s Mesa fairly soon. I suspect our companions would not take lightly being asked to turn around at this point. After all, you were extremely eloquent when you explained why we needed to rescue a monster—and sooner, rather than later.”
“I suppose I was,” Peg admitted, “and I still believe we’re doing the right thing. But what if she doesn’t recognize us?”
Meg opened her journal, tapping with the end of her pen as she counted off the days. “It’s been a bit over a week since we were last there. Vereez assures us that oothynn are quite intelligent.”
“I’m sure they are, I guess,” Peg said. She lowered her voice. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t just eloquent on Grace’s behalf. We hadn’t been back at the Library very long before, even with all the remodeling work to keep people busy, tensions started rising. I thought we’d better get some of the group away from there and let things simmer down.”
Teg smiled to herself, thinking how much better she understood each of her friends than she had when she, Meg, and Peg first met. That had been when their local bookstore, Pagearean Books, had announced that it was founding a book club. All three women had shown up for the organizational meeting and had continued to attend thereafter. Before long, they often went out for lunch after to continue the discussion.
Initially, Teg had been a little intimidated by Meg, for Margaret Blake, a recently retired librarian in her seventies, was the sort of person who could hush a noisy group of preschoolers with a glance. Very fair, neither tall nor short, slender, quietly elegant, even in casual clothing, Ms. Blake had immediately demonstrated a vast familiarity with a wide range of written works and, through them, with history, science, and even with Teg’s own field of anthropology. Meg was a widow, with a grown son and daughter. Her blue eyes, fading now to a pale sky hue, rarely missed anything that went on around her, but Meg often kept her observations to herself, as if the habit of library quiet had become ingrained, even outside of work.
Ebullient Peg Gallegos—who had immediately asked if she could call Margaret “Meg,” and had been very happy to be told that Ms. Blake preferred this form of address—was in many ways Meg’s opposite. Of Spanish and Irish descent, Peg looked as if she had magically kept the summer tan common to southern California, where she had lived until moving to Taima, Pennsylvania, to be nearer to her son, Diego, and several grandkids. Peg’s eyes were a green-brown hazel. Her dark brown hair was artistically streaked, not so much to hide the grey as to turn it into a statement.
Thrice married, thrice divorced, Peg hadn’t so much chosen not to have a career, as she had taken on marriage and child-rearing with an almost terrifying enthusiasm. Raising her kids, stepkids, and various friends of her kids had been an excuse to learn something new or take on a new hobby, so that, although in her sixties, Peg seemed not very different from the enthusiastic, idealistic young hippy who had run off to “find herself” in Haight-Ashbury in her early teens.
Teg—as Tessa Brown had been dubbed by her book club friends—was the only one of the trio who was still working, although this year she was on sabbatical from her position as an archeology professor at Taima University. She was also the only one of the three never to have married—or even to have been in a serious relationship. Teg had always felt she had good reason for this, having been the child of a marriage that had ended in an acrimonious divorce, leaving as its only legacy a quiet, self-contained child who, finding she fit in nowhere, gave up trying and focused instead on her career.
Teg was the shortest of the three, and the stockiest, this last a legacy of having done a lot of hard physical labor from her childhood on. Her skin was brown, her features reflecting a heritage that blended pretty much all the races of the world. Trying to discover where she “fit” had been what had drawn young Tessa Brown to anthropology; fascination with what she had learned made her truly happy in her career.
And yet now, Teg thought, I’ve come to suspect that I’m as much of a “holdback” as the three young people who summoned us Over Where to help resolve their issues. Well, now, at least I have people who will be willing—heck, eager—to help me figure out what I want to do with the personal side of my life.
She was sure of this, for the adventures she, Meg, and Peg had shared in the past few weeks—well, whether you said “weeks” or “months” had a lot to do with which world you were in—had bonded them as closely as family.
Closer, Teg thought, since I’m not in the least close to my bio family, nor is Meg. But if I could have chosen sisters, these two would be at the top of my list.
A melodious baritone voice broke into their discussion, just as Meg seemed on the verge of speaking.
“If I can interrupt your no doubt brilliant speculations,” said Grunwold, poking his head down the hatch from the main deck, “we’re coming up on Grace’s Mesa.”
Slicewind’s captain was a tall young man in his early twenties. It said something about how accustomed to Over Where Teg had become that she no longer saw his stag’s head as any more notable than she did physical characteristics that set her two human friends apart from each other.
In this, Teg realized she’d come to embrace the way people Over Where viewed each other. Although the head was the most immediately visible of the animal traits, and the tail the second, the natural coloration of the animal extended to the human-style body that began somewhere in the vicinity of the neck, as a gradual transition rather than a line. Hands clearly showed this blending of traits, with those types that were “hoof stock,” like Grunwold, having thicker, heavier nails than the average human, while those whose animal type had claws had sharper, pointier nails that, in some cases, even retracted.
For all his abrupt, often rude manner of speech, Grunwold was probably the kindest of the three young people who had initially summoned Meg, Peg, and Teg to the world Peg had dubbed “Over Where.”
Grunwold went on, “Peg, last time we came here, you handled Slicewind’s wheel when we went through the vortex. I was wondering if you’d stand by, just in case I have any trouble with the winds.”
“Sure,” Peg said, tucking her omnipresent knitting away before rising and retrieving a jacket from the pegs on the portside wall, preparatory to following him above decks. “Given your rapport with Slicewind, I’m sure you’ll be able to read the air currents just fine but...”
Her voice trailed away as she clambered onto the upper deck.
“Is it my imagination,” Teg said to Meg after the pair were safely out of earshot, “or is Grunwold more careful about Slicewind now that he’s on the way to owning the ship? Sort of like the kid who’s careless about the family car, but hovers over his first junker like it’s made from gold and diamonds?”
“Not your imagination,” Meg agreed, “although I think that Grunwold’s additional care has as much to do with the realization that he and Slicewind share a mystic bond, than that he may be its sole owner in the not-too-distant future. Although it’s possible that Grunwold could develop a similar rapport with another sky sailer, the process might take him as many years as he’s already invested in Slicewind. He started working with her when he was hardly tall enough to handle the wheel.”
“I was a little surprised when Konnel didn’t just give Grunwold the ship,” Teg mused, “given that Grunwold basically saved Konnel’s life, but this rent-to-own agreement is much better.”
“For both of them,” Meg agreed, “since Grunwold can appeal to his father for financial aid if Slicewind has some unexpected maintenance issue. I suspect that a large part of Grunwold’s care for the ship is that he doesn’t want to ask for help. Shall we go above and see if we’re needed at our posts?”
“Sure,” Teg said, dropping her pipe into a pocket of the tunic she was wearing over sturdy trousers of local make. “At the very least, we can cheer the others on. I need to use the head. I’ll follow you up.”
“Put my book in the cabin?” Meg asked. “I’ll rinse and rack the poffee bowls.”
“Sure, and thanks.”
Teg accepted Meg’s much-loved hardcover of The Wind in the Willows and headed for the stern cabin she shared with the other two humans. The tidy space had doubtless been intended for Grunwold’s parents, Konnel and Sefit, since there was only one bed, about the size of the standard full-sized. Since one of the humans still routinely shared a watch, all three of them were rarely in the cabin at the same time. When they were, it could get a little crowded, but they’d adapted.
After all, both Meg and Peg shared space with husbands and kids. As for me, compared to some of the field camps I’ve lived in, Slicewind’s accommodations are positively roomy—and as a bonus, there’s a real toilet and shower.
Teg tucked Meg’s book into the appropriate portion of the many-pocketed storage bag that hung on the cabin wall. It was of local manufacture, but Peg’s design, an adaptation of the shoe bags back in their own world. Teg could practically hear Peg’s perky explanation as she tacked the storage bag onto the cabin wall.
“I got the idea from something my Tabitha came up with for her kids. So much easier for them to stash their smaller things and find them again.”
As a self-described “mother-of-many,” Peg had somehow retained an infinite capacity to include in-laws, stepkids, stepgrandkids, and other, harder to define relations in her life. Nonetheless, she had been interested, even eager, to continue visiting Over Where after they’d finished assisting their inquisitors to reach solutions to their various inquisitions.
So here we are, getting ready to rescue a monster, mostly because Peg’s heart is big enough to take in a walking pipe organ with crab claws. I just hope Grace has gotten over her sinus infection. That was seriously disgusting.
When Teg came on deck, Slicewind was sailing above heavy cloud cover through which occasional mountain peaks showed like islands in a sea of cottony white. In the middle distance, the clouds were shaped something like a whirlpool. She leaned against the starboard rail, enjoying the purposeful bustle, which reminded her more than a little of one of her field crews getting ready to leave for a project site.
Grunwold and Peg were consulting by the wheel. Peg’s right hand moved in a series of decreasing circles, so she was probably describing the air currents. Apparently eager to take part in the discussion, Grunwold’s pet xuxu, Heru, soared down from his perch on the mast to land on the captain’s shoulder. Heru somewhat resembled a raven-sized pterodactyl, although Teg devoutly hoped that Heru’s eye-searing combination of lime-green upper and violent-orange underbody had not disturbed what she liked to imagine as the tranquil skies of prehistoric Earth.
Over near the port rail, lion-headed Xerak and fox-headed Vereez were admiring the lift harness that Kaj—who had the head of an African painted dog—had designed and sewn. The dynamic between the three of them was peculiar, but not for the reasons that a new arrival from Teg’s world might have thought.
A new arrival would be wondering about all these different heads—as well as skin colors, fur, and tails. Wondering if these were different tribes or groupings, whether ostensibly herbivorous Grunwold would be worried at being on the same ship with all these apparent carnivores. I remember trying to figure all of that out. Instead, this dynamic is one of those “tensions” Peg was talking about.
Soft-voiced, Meg said, “The three of them seem to be getting along fairly well. I think Vereez might even be mooning less over Kaj. I’m less sure about Xerak, though. He’s rebounding badly from being rejected, yet again, by Uten Kekui. I hope he doesn’t set his heart on another unattainable fellow.”
“I was having similar thoughts,” Teg admitted. “I don’t think Uten Kekui so much rejected Xerak ‘again,’ as that even the heroic measures Xerak went to in order to find his master didn’t change Uten Kekui’s view of Xerak as much as it should have done. For all he praised Xerak’s determination...”
She trailed off, partly because she was aware how acute the hearing of their four local companions was, and because she didn’t want to risk being overheard criticizing Uten Kekui before his adoring apprentice, as Xerak still seemed to consider himself. Meg, however, apparently either felt they were safely out of hearing or didn’t care what Xerak overheard.
“Uten Kekui now, Dmen Qeres then, has/had an inflated view of his own importance. We’re going to have trouble with that sense of entitlement before we can settle just who owns the Library of the Sapphire Wind. Perhaps we were unwise to bring Uten Kekui and Cerseru Kham there.”
Teg nodded. Only a few days had passed since they had returned from the Roots of the World with the senior wizards, Uten Kekui and Cerseru Kham, augmenting their company. At that time, the Library had seemed the most logical place to go, but now she agreed that Meg had a point.
“But could we have kept them away?” Teg replied. “And, remember, for all its dangers and strangeness, the Library welcomes us as its saviors.”
“True. By contrast, I’m not at all certain,” Meg said tartly, “that the Library feels anything particularly welcoming toward either Uten Kekui or Dmen Qeres. There is the question of who actually owns the place. Maybe we should have resolved this before retrieving Grace.”
Teg was about to reply when her attention was caught by something rising into the cloud-shrouded skies from one of the mountain peak “islands” off to starboard. She reached for her binoculars. Like many archeologists, she had acquired the habit of hanging numerous items from her belt: knife, compass, holster, trowel sheath, and the like, a habit she had adapted for her new life Over Where. In addition to getting rid of her cell phone case, since electronics didn’t function here, Teg had substituted a small binocular case for the holster in which she’d carried a .22 loaded with snake shot. As with electronics, even primitive firearms didn’t work in Over Where. Now she snapped the case open, extracted the binoculars, and put them to her eyes in one easy motion. What she saw made her adjust the focus, because she couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing. However, sharpening the focus only clarified the improbable image.
At first, Teg had thought she was seeing distant hot air balloons. Even in the clarified image, there was definitely some similarity: the large, bulbous shape above, cables hanging down, a basket beneath. But that was where similarities ended. The bulbous shape wasn’t rounded; instead, it was plumply ovoid, closer to that of a zeppelin. Moreover, there was something very weird about the basket.
The others had noticed Teg’s action and were now looking in the same direction. Grunwold had taken out a very nautical telescope. Trusting Slicewind to keep her course, he was now studying the approaching flotilla.
“Flight of the Hindenburg?” Peg said, groping in her jacket pocket for her own binoculars, and coming to stand next to Teg.
“Take a closer look,” Teg replied. “No zeppelin has been flanked at the endpoints by wings. And there’s something weird about those wings. They look like huge leaves, the sort of heart-shaped type.”
“Are those bean leaves?” Peg said, sounding astonished. “My grandson, Timmy, grew beans for his kindergarten project. And the balloon’s cables...those aren’t cables. Those are vines! The balloon’s basket is made from the vines, too.”
Grunwold, son of a gentleman farmer, made a noise indicative of agreement. “Right the first time. Those are beti-teneh, which fall into the bean family. Don’t you have them in your world?”
“No,” responded the three humans in chorus.
“Okay,” Grunwold said, using the English word. “Quick briefing then.”
Grunwold hadn’t lowered the telescope from his eye, and, as he spoke, he continued assessing the increasingly large flotilla. Teg counted at least three of the largest of the winged zeppelins, but there were smaller variations as well.
“And I’d better talk fast,” Grunwold continued, “because I’ll bet just about anything you want that we’re about to be raided.”
“Raided?” Vereez said sharply, her voice coming out closer to a fox’s bark than to a spoken word.
“Sharp-eared as ever,” Grunwold said, managing to sound laconic, though the way his large ears flickered back and forth indicated how nervous he actually was. “First thing you need to know about beti-teneh. They have three basic attacks: the vines are mobile and can entangle; the pods can shoot seeds; the interiors hold a really smelly gas.”
Meg had pulled out her own binoculars and was studying the beti-teneh. “They seem to be different sizes. Is this some sort of herd?”
“Not precisely,” Grunwold replied. “In nature, beti-teneh are rarely much larger than this.” He drew a shape about the size of a golf ball in the air with the hand that wasn’t holding the telescope. “But a long while back, some genius wizard got the idea of taking advantage of their natural ability to fly and created larger ones. The largest beti-teneh can actually carry a passenger or two.”
“I thought I saw people in the baskets,” Teg said, wanting to be wrong.
“You probably did. Good news is that the beti-teneh carrying passengers are going to be slower and less agile,” Grunwold went on. “That’s the reason they’re usually escorted by the smaller version. Those serve as skirmishers. The idea is that while we’re distracted dealing with the skirmishers, then the larger members of the fleet will move in, tangle the ship, and well...You get the idea.”
“I count three of the larger bean balloons,” Peg said, renaming the creatures as was her habit. The flexible translation spell that the humans had been gifted as part of their being summoned tended to adapt to these, which Teg’s anthropologist’s mindset found fascinating. “And then there are the ones about the size of a basketball, then some softball and baseball types, as well as the golf balls. Is it too much to hope that these bean balloons are as stupid as beans?”
“Far too much to hope,” Xerak replied, coming to join Peg and Teg at the rail. He was trying for casual confidence, but Teg noticed that his hand remained firmly wrapped around his spear staff. “The wizards who enhanced the beti-teneh—according to my master’s teaching, the process took numerous generations and a great deal of refinement of the basic concept—felt the beti-teneh would be useless if they could not understand basic commands. On average, they’re about as smart as draft lizards.”
“Not smart as xuxu,” put in Heru, tooting a triumphant fanfare on his crest. “Not as smart, but many, many more than Heru. Heru cannot fight them all.”
“And Heru won’t need to,” Grunwold assured him, stroking the xuxu along his back. “Those pirates don’t know what they’ve taken on. They see a nice sleek cruising yacht, unarmed...”
He paused after the last word. Konnel’s refusal to arm Slicewind until Grunwold had done enough jobs to offset the expense was a sore point with his son.
“...and apparently defenseless.”
“I doubt they will assume we’re completely defenseless,” Kaj countered somewhat diffidently, “given our destination. We’re heading toward a major mana wellspring, and those are only of use to wizards.”
“Point,” Grunwold agreed, “but not all wizards are as adept at violence as Scraggly Mane over there, and Vereez has proven herself pretty good at magical fighting, too. With that in mind, Xerak, I’m going to put you in charge of attack. Will you need both Teg and Kaj?”
“Teg can assist Vereez,” Xerak replied promptly. “I shouldn’t need an assistant. I stored quite a bit of mana in my staff, just in case we needed magic to deal with Grace. If I run through that, and we stay close to the mesa, I might be able to tap one of the channels that feed the mana wellspring.”
“Excellent,” Grunwold said. “Kaj, I want you to join me in repelling boarders. That’s certainly going to involve cutting vines, so let’s get some machetes out. Peg, I’ll turn the wheel over to you. Meg, it’s a lot to ask given that we’re dealing with aerial attackers, but can you take the crow’s nest? I’ll assign Heru to guard you.”
“If I might borrow one of your lighter spears,” Meg said, “and some pruning shears, if we have any such aboard, I would be delighted.”
Each one of us, Teg thought, as she moved starboard with Vereez, learned a great deal during our travels first to the Library of the Sapphire Wind, then to the Creator’s Visage Isles, and finally to the Roots of the World. The most important lesson was how to trust each other. Not even two weeks ago, if you’d told Grunwold he’d be asking Kaj to fight alongside him, he would have scoffed.
“Do those beti-teneh have any vulnerable points?” Vereez asked, only the flicking back of her sharp fox ears showing that she was at all nervous. “I’ve never had close contact with the magically enhanced type, only the natural seeds. How about those wings? They look fragile. I could target them.”
Xerak coughed a very leonine laugh. “The wings do look fragile. By all rights they should be, since the originals were leaves, but the wizards who created the larger beti-teneh didn’t overlook that vulnerability. The wings are more like leather than leaf and, sadly, fire resistant.”
“Sadly,” Teg thought, because your favorite fire spells are going to be of more limited use. She touched the sun spider amulet which now rested in a neat little pocket on her belt. I wonder if I can generate Spidey silk fast enough to catch something in the air?
“Tough leaves,” Vereez repeated. “Got it. Any suggestions, teacher?”
“We’ve been practicing with your summoning wind,” Xerak replied. “See what you can do with that, but keep your channels tight or the overdraft could mess with Peg’s ability to steer Slicewind. If you can push back the beti-teneh, even just slow them, I just had what might be a brilliant idea. However, it’s going to mean borrowing Kaj from you, Grun.”
“And I get to deal with any boarders all by my lonesome,” Grunwold retorted dryly, not quite refusing to hand over his assistant. “Not that I don’t appreciate your faith in me, but can you explain?”
“No time,” Xerak said, his gaze getting that distant look that meant he was quite probably inventing a spell on the fly, “but if this works, you should be fine.”
“Well, I did ask you to handle counterattack,” Grunwold grumbled. “Take Kaj.”
“Is it countering,” Peg asked worriedly, “if we start before they do? I mean, will this make us the attackers, the pirates?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Xerak said, motioning for Kaj to join him. “I know that you’ve said that in your culture something happening ‘like magic’ usually means instantly, but both Vereez and I are going to need time to prepare. I think it’s very likely that any doubts we have as to the intentions of the beti-teneh fleet will be resolved before then.”
He turned his back and began to speak to Kaj in a low voice.
From where they stood looking at the advancing flotilla, Vereez spoke, pitching her voice so only Teg would hear. “Teg, promise me that you’ll keep an eye on the beti-teneh while I focus. I don’t think I could concentrate if I was worrying that something might start spitting seeds at me or flinging vines or whatever.”
Teg nodded her understanding and patted Vereez on one shoulder. She’d spent many hours practicing both how to focus her mana and to feed it to others, but she still felt very vulnerable in the half-dream state she had to put herself into in order to do so. In Teg’s more recent lessons, Xerak had insisted that she practice storing mana against emergencies.
“Face it,” he’d quipped. “I don’t look very good if you keep collapsing on me.”
Xerak had said Teg was doing well, but as she watched the beti-teneh rhythmically flap closer, she felt less confident than she had the first time she’d used the sun spider amulet.
Because then, she thought to herself, I thought of the amulet more as a tool, like a cell phone or even a handgun. Now I realize that getting the best out of the amulet depends as much—maybe more—on me as on it.
But Teg didn’t mention her uncertainties to Vereez, only pulled the amulet out of its pouch, draped the cord on which she’d strung it around her wrist, and nestled the amulet into the palm of her left hand, saying as she did so, “You can count on me, Vereez. Get ready to blow up a storm.”
In response, Vereez unsheathed one of the two magically enhanced, copper-bladed curved swords that served her much as Gandalf relied on his staff: not only as weapons, but as a focus for her magical ability, as well. “With those things flying at us,” she explained, “I feel a lot better having a sword in hand. I’d like to have two, but I’ll need a free hand for my fan.”
In her left hand, Vereez held up a folding fan, the fabric of which was a deep golden brown that contrasted well with her fur. It was painted with images related to that most invisible element: ships with sails belled out, windmills turning, trees bending before the force of a gale, waves rising to crests.
“Xerak’s had me use this to direct wind in our lessons,” Vereez continued. “Much as I’d like to have both swords, I think this isn’t the time to experiment.”
“Good thinking,” Xerak called from the other side of the deck, where he had apparently concluded his conference with Kaj. Next, he turned to Peg. “Peg, we’re going to need you to keep Slicewind not only away from the raiders, but out of the vortex of winds that protects Grace’s Mesa, without taking us too far away, in case I need to tap the mana. Can you do that?”
“Aye, aye,” Peg replied perkily. “I wish we could lure the raiders into the vortex, but I guess that if they’ve staked out this area, they know it’s there.”
“Right,” Xerak agreed, “and we can’t rule out that they have a wizard or wizards among their number who have more practice than I do tapping the mana wellspring.”
“Oh, joy,” muttered Grunwold, pacing restlessly back and forth. “It’s my ship at risk, and I feel completely useless.”
“Take the helm for now,” Peg suggested. “We can trade if close fighting is necessary.”
Grunwold accepted her offer gratefully.
“I wonder,” Peg mused aloud, “if I have time to go get a bandana to tie over my head, pirate style.”
“If you’re serious about doing that,” Meg called down from the crow’s nest, “you probably do. The flotilla is closing slowly, probably assessing us, just as we are them.”
But when Peg came back from below, she wasn’t just wearing a bandana tied pirate style. She was also wearing the light sword she’d used to good effect in a few prior battles. She had brought up Grunwold’s long sword and took the wheel while he belted it on. Then, her hand lightly resting on the hilt of her sword, Peg moved to the starboard railing and joined the increasingly tense group watching the various-sized beti-teneh as they flapped closer.
“Good tactics on their side,” Meg commented from above. “The beti-teneh aren’t staying on one plane, but are moving in at various levels.”
Heru gave a derisive honk. “Not worry, Meg. I watch you, so you watch them.”
“Lots of the smaller bean balloons seem to be aiming for higher up,” Teg added. “When they hit Slicewind, I think the attack’s going to be from the top of the mast on down.”
The raiders have done this before, Teg thought, and since no one has reported them, I guess that means they left no survivors. Maybe they count on the rumors of the dreadful monster that guards the mana wellspring to take the blame for vanishing ships. Poor Grace.
After what seemed like an interminable period of time, but was only about ten minutes by the mechanical watch Teg wore clipped to her belt, she became aware of a stirring in the air from where Vereez stood.
“Tighten your angle down,” Teg suggested. “Remember, you don’t want to interfere with the wind Slicewind is using.”
“Right,” Vereez said, adjusting the fan so that the wind she created went upward, as well as toward the approaching fleet. Since she was used to fighting two-handed, she was, if not precisely ambidextrous, more accustomed to working with her off-hand than many.
“Good,” Teg said, checking through her binoculars. “I can see some of the lighter tendrils being blown around. You might be pushing back the smaller beti-teneh. If you can increase the wind’s intensity?”
“I’ll try,” Vereez said. “It’s harder to direct it then, but...”
She trailed off, sinking into concentration.
Teg tightened her fingers enough that the sun spider amulet bit into the skin of her palm. Xerak said that if this amulet hadn’t been damaged in the destruction of the Library, it might be able turn into an actual sun spider. I wonder what it would take to fix it? I’d love to be able to send a spider, or a herd of spiders, running up the sails right now.
Out in the sea of clouds, Vereez’s increasingly powerful gusts of wind were definitely making it harder for the smaller beti-teneh to approach, which was good, since these were the fastest moving. However, the gusts barely fluttered the leaf-wings of the basketball-sized bean balloons, and had no effect at all on the three large ones that carried the passengers. These had chosen to lose a bit of altitude, thereby avoiding the wind that targeted their smaller associates.
I hope that whatever Xerak has in mind will work against those big ones. If there are wizards among the raiders, that’s where they’re riding.
Teg turned to see what the boys were up to. They’d moved to the starboard rail, closer to the stern. Kaj was kneeling on one of the benches, which let him look over the side while bringing him down low enough that Xerak could stand behind him with his hands on his shoulders. Xerak held his spear staff in the crook of his right arm. Teg noted that the obsidian point at its head was glowing a deep grey. A matching deep grey thunderhead was growing with unnatural rapidity, rising from the puffy white clouds like some sort of demon castle.
I don’t think it’s just luck that a storm seems to be building right where it will be most inconvenient for the attackers, Teg thought gleefully. Kaj has an affinity for water, sure, but I don’t think he’d be able to do this without Xerak’s direction.
Her musings ended suddenly when a group of basketball-sized beti-teneh began flapping their leaf wings harder and raced toward Slicewind.
“Incoming!” Meg yelled from the crow’s nest. “Five of the basketball-sized beti-teneh. I think they’re using some sort of jet for additional speed.”
Peg trotted across the deck to take the wheel from Grunwold, who relinquished control without hesitation. He glanced with concern over to where Xerak and Kaj remained nearly motionless.
“Teg, we’ve got to cover those two until they get their spell launched.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Teg replied.
She let the sun spider amulet drop to dangle at her wrist, removed one of the smaller boathooks from its clamps, then moved to take up a position to the right of the pair. Grunwold drew his longsword and positioned himself to the left.
Whoever was directing the beti-teneh had chosen their targets well. Three of the basketball-sized creatures headed toward Kaj and Xerak. Another began to rise, aiming for Meg in the crow’s nest. The final one moved toward the gap between Vereez and Teg, possibly heading toward Peg at the wheel, or maybe intending to go after Vereez.
Usually, Slicewind seemed a little crowded with seven aboard but, at that moment, Teg would have been glad for twice the crew, no matter if they had to sleep in hammocks ranked into the British Navy regulation fourteen inches accorded to crew, something she’d learned from reading the rest of the Patrick O’Brian novels, after they’d read Master and Commander for the book club.
What would Jack Aubrey do? she asked herself inanely. Say something about going right at them. Okay then.
Teg swung the boathook, baseball bat style, at the nearest of the beti-teneh. The hardwood shaft impacted with a satisfying thump against the creature’s somewhat rubbery body. If the bean balloon wasn’t hit out of the park, at least it rocked back. Its left wing looked crumpled, too.
Teg couldn’t stop to enjoy her little victory, because while she’d been walloping her target, another of the beti-teneh had flapped over the side. Turning somewhat awkwardly, she jogged off to intercept it. She wasn’t certain if its target was Vereez or Peg, but she could put herself between it and Vereez, and give it fewer options. Peg, at least, had the wheelhouse for some cover.
Overhead, she heard Heru tooting and whistling. A green tentacle thumped to the deck on one side of her. Refusing to be distracted, Meg continued calling updates as calmly as she might have explained to someone about overdue book fees.
“Vereez, you’re definitely keeping the smaller ones back. Keep the wind good and steady. Peg, start taking Slicewind up. The boys are building a storm, and we’ll want to be above it when it breaks. Grunwold, the basketball you sliced in half is definitely out of action, but the one Teg hit is heading back.”
Another tentacle, then a wing hit the deck, indicating that Heru and Meg were doing their part. At that point, Teg lost any sense of the larger conflict, because she had to focus on her own problems. The beti-teneh that had gotten over the rail was poking a few pod-laden tendrils in her direction. When she shoved at them with her boathook, the pods twisted, firing a small fusillade of beans. Most of these bounced off Teg’s jacket, but a couple caught her in the face, hard enough to sting.
Teg said something very impolite she’d learned from a Tewa colleague, and swung again at the beti-teneh, this time aiming for the body. She missed all but a few leaves, but her near hit made it decide to go after Peg.
Peg might have her tidy little sword belted at her waist, but she needed both hands to handle Slicewind: one for the wheel, the other to handle the lever that controlled elevation. If Peg was distracted, the consequences might only mean wind dropped from the sails, but with the vortex so close by they could find themselves running on rough seas.
Teg swung again, this time trying to tangle her boathook into some of the sturdier tendrils. She succeeded, but rather than trying to pull away, the beti-teneh took advantage of this to grip Teg’s boathook and begin methodically wrapping it in green. Teg started to wrest the boathook free, then had an inspiration. She waited until the beti-teneh had firmly anchored itself, then hauled back with both arms. She might be past her first youth, sure, but she’d done as much archeology in the field as she had in the classroom, and there was a lot of strength in her broad shoulders and stocky frame.
For its part, the beti-teneh was certainly stronger than one would expect from a bean with wings, but it had to be relatively light in order to fly. Teg jerked it back, hard, then swung her boathook to the side and slammed the bean balloon into the mast. The impact broke the central bean body, releasing an unpleasant-smelling gas that made her cough, but otherwise didn’t seem to have any negative effect.
Teg had to hope that this beti-teneh wouldn’t be up to much more, at least for a while, and moved as quickly as she could toward the starboard rail. En route, she encountered another of the basketball-sized beti-teneh crawling on the deck. Its wings had been shredded, and several major tendrils cut clean off. Using its remaining tendrils, it was creeping feebly along the deck toward Vereez, oozing guts and gas. Teg paused long enough to whomp the central bean with her boathook, heard it pop, and kept moving starboard.
Over near the stern, Xerak was now chanting something unintelligible, which Teg took as an indication that whatever spell he was working was nearing completion. Assisted by Heru, Grunwold was slicing into smaller, softball-sized beti-teneh. There were none larger in sight, which was a good sign, but victory was far from certain. The three largest beti-teneh were now close enough that Teg could make out that each basket carried a crew of two, one wizard-robed, and one aiming something like a crossbow, apparently waiting to get into range.
Worse, from the increasingly labored strokes of her fan, and the way she had let her curve-bladed sword drop to the deck, Vereez was clearly getting tired. If she had to let her wind abate, then they would be swarmed by the smaller beti-teneh, targets that Grunwold’s sword would be much less effective against.
Dropping her boathook without a second thought, Teg flipped the sun spider amulet into her hand as she ran over to Vereez.
Okay, thingy, she said to it, I’ve got you charged up. This time I need you to help me get hooks into Vereez, not into any enemy. Got it?
She thought it did, because moments later, Teg felt a sharp prickling at the exposed skin of her wrist. She fought her first impulse, which was to slap at it, and instead wrapped both hands onto Vereez’s neck, feeling how the silky fox fur of the younger woman’s head grew less dense as the head merged into the more human torso.
“We’re here with mana for you.” Teg kept her voice soft, so as to not startle Vereez. “You should feel it in just a moment.” As she finished speaking, Teg felt Vereez wince as the amulet dug some of its hook-ended legs into her skin.
Teg forced herself to relax and concentrate on directing the mana to Vereez. Closing her eyes was almost impossible to do, knowing that the most dangerous of their enemies was approaching, but Teg knew she had to shut out any distractions. Behind the darkness of her eyelids, she saw something not unlike the floaters that had started showing up in her twenties, but these drifting shapes were less random and had a slight glow to them, warm and somehow, although colorless, seeming silvery-goldy, shiny bright. She recognized this as the mana she had stored in the sun spider.
Pretty stuff, Teg thought. Then she tried not to think, just to reach out, to merge with Vereez, to make sure that some of the mana was directed where it would restore the reserves Vereez had drained, not just to fuel the spell. After all, fuel would do no good if Vereez collapsed and couldn’t transform it. Teg sensed when the wind from Vereez’s fan rose in intensity, and heard Meg’s cheer.
“That pushed them back!”
The sound of the wind was muffled as Xerak’s chanting rose toward a crescendo, deep and sonorous, just a little rough at the edges. As was usual when the young wizard vocalized a spell, the syllables were not translated. Nonetheless, the sounds were no less powerful, maybe even more so, like listening to someone singing in a foreign language. The air grew damp and slightly chilly. Then there was the rumble of not-so-distant thunder.
Teg couldn’t help it. She had to peek, even if just for a moment. Out where the largest beti-teneh hung, rain mixed with hail pelted down in a silvery-grey curtain. Almost immediately, there came the odor of bruised vegetation, made slightly sickening by being mingled with whatever gas it was that the beti-teneh kept inside. Deeply satisfied, Teg let her eyelids drop.
Grunwold was calling Heru to him, then Xerak shouted something holding the rasping gruffness of a lion’s roar. The hail increased in force, and Teg felt Vereez letting her wind drop.
But stay with me, came the unspoken request. If there is thunder, there are lightning shadows, and I want to make certain they are not turned against us.
Teg understood. They’d encountered lightning shadows—oehen-serit—guarding the floating mountain that held the Roots of the World. The creatures weren’t very smart, but they could be very dangerous. Worse, any that manifested in this storm would not be restricted by the wards as had the lightning shadows they’d encountered before.
Teg decided to sneak another look at what was happening. The storm that Xerak and Kaj had created was hovering over the three largest, and now seriously battered, beti-teneh. These were sinking down into the cloud field below, trailed by the remnants of their skirmisher flotilla. Rain was falling down in dark, almost solid sheets, reminding Teg of the virgas she’d seen when working in New Mexico: isolated rainstorms that dropped rain with incredible vigor over one small area.
The rumble of thunder was fading. Soon after, Vereez opened her eyes and sagged against the rail, almost dropping her fan over the side before she remembered to tuck it back into the sheath on her belt. Teg maintained the contact between them until she was certain Vereez wouldn’t faint, then with wordless thanks she let the sun spider amulet know that they were done.
For now. We’re going to need to recharge all you held. She felt her own knees sag, and she sank down onto the deck. We’re going to need to recharge me, too.
She didn’t faint that time, though, and felt proud of herself.