the paper. The construct is broken. No more magic. Ordinarily, a crafter would repair the break by redrawing the line, or a channeler would bridge the line. With the magic on board the Cloud Hopper, the crafter did not repair the break. The crafter bypassed the break altogether by adding more lines and sigils. So that now we have not only A and B, but also C, D, E, and F.”
Rodrigo drew sigils all over the page and lines that ran every which-way. “All very original. I’ve never seen these types of sigils before. Some of them actually elevate the magic to the level of genius,” said Rodrigo in admiring tones. “But the crafter who laid down the magic was not trained in the art, and now our boat is burdened with such a mishmash of magical sigils and constructs that I have no idea how to untangle them. If the crafter who did this was on board, I might possibly-”
“The crafter is on board,” said Miri flatly.
They all stared at her.
“Not me,” she said, raising her hands. “Heaven forefend! I’m a fair channeler. I can channel the magic through my hands from one construct to another. But I cannot create a sigil.”
She glanced at Gythe, crouched beneath table. “My sister is a crafter and she has a rare gift for the magic, or so I’ve been told.”
“But she’s never been trained,” said Rodrigo.
“She was trained,” said Miri. “By our parents. By my uncle.”
“Drop it,” said Stephano beneath his breath.
Rodrigo ignored him. “Trundler magic…”
Miri rounded on him angrily, her fist clenched. “And what do you mean by that remark, sir?”
“Told you to drop it,” said Stephano.
Rodrigo tried to reason with her. “All I meant was that Gythe never went to school-”
“And who needs bloody schooling!” Miri cried, seething.
“Judging by the confused mess I’ve found on board this boat…”
Miri seized a belaying pin.
Stephano grabbed hold of Rodrigo. “Apologize!”
“What? Why?”
“Before she cracks open your skull! Apologize!”
“Ah, yes, well, I apologize, Miri,” said Rodrigo. He gave her his best charming smile. “I meant no offense. Truly. Tell me about Gythe and the Trundler magic. I need to understand so that I can fix this.”
Miri grew calmer. She lowered the belaying pin, much to Rodrigo’s relief, and glanced anxiously at her sister, who was still hiding beneath the table.
“Gythe loves to work the magic. Nothing makes her happier, except maybe playing the harp. She sings to herself while she works. She has such few pleasures. I encourage her. The magic soothes her, like the music.”
“Do you know what she is doing with the magic?” Rodrigo asked.
Miri shrugged. “I assumed she repairs broken constructs. I couldn’t see that she was doing any harm. Like I said, I’m no crafter.”
The mists of the Breath were gray, shifting and whirling around them. The damp clung to their clothes, made them feel cold and clammy.
Rodrigo wiped his face.
“She was not doing any harm,” said Rodrigo. “Far from it. These magical constructs are meant for protection. Over and over, she laid down constructs designed to protect this boat and those in it. From stem to stern and back and again, the Cloud Hopper is festooned with webs of magical protection constructs.”
Miri’s eyes shimmered with tears. Her lips trembled. “My poor sister.”
“But protection magic is good, isn’t it?” Stephano argued.
“Yes and no,” said Rodrigo. “Yes, because the protection magic is what kept the propeller from being shot to bits. No, because there are so many layers of spells I can’t figure out how to unravel them in order to repair the damage. Our situation is this: we have no way to operate the sails or the rudder or energize the gas that keeps the balloons inflated and the lift tanks working. Soon the gas will start to cool and lose its magical energy. The balloon will deflate and the lift tanks will fail and we will sink into the Breath. The mists of the Breath grow thicker as one descends, the temperature drops. It is theorized that eventually the Breath at the lowest altitudes turns to a liquid form, which means we will all drown. Though by that time it won’t matter, since we will have already frozen to death.”
Stephano regarded his friend grimly. “There must be some way you can get this boat up and running!”
“I might be able to repair the constructs enough to get us as far as Westfirth, but only if Gythe helps me,” said Rodrigo. “A lot of these sigils are new to me and, trust me, I know my sigils. This is Trundler magic”-he glanced apprehensively at Miri-“no offense, Miri.”
She shook her head, too alarmed at the terrible prospect they were facing to angry.
“We have always kept our magic a secret,” she said.
Stephano glanced over at Gythe. “This goes back to what happened to her, doesn’t it? The reason she won’t speak. Miri, you need to tell us what happened. Maybe we could help her. I know you don’t like to talk about it-”
“I vowed I would never talk of it,” said Miri fiercely. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, staring stubbornly down at the deck. “My uncle made me take an oath. He said if we talked about it, it would only make things worse for us. People call us thieves and swindlers. If they knew that something out there in the Breath was killing our kind, they’d say the horror came because of us and they’d set fire to our boats and drive us out…”
Miri began to cry. She tried to stop, but she couldn’t help it. Stephano put his arm around her and drew her close.
“We won’t tell anyone, Miri,” he said. “We’ll keep your secret. We’ll take any oath you ask of us.”
She smiled bleakly and hurriedly dashed away the tears. Dag fished out his handkerchief and handed it to her. His big, ugly face was soft with concern. She blew her nose and cast Dag a grateful glance and, slightly flushing, squirmed out of Stephano’s grasp.
“Swear by our friendship,” she said. “That will be good enough for me.”
Each of them made the promise. Miri gazed around at them and swallowed. “There’s not much to tell. My sister and I were away visiting my uncle and his family. He has children our age and all of us cousins grew up together. We lived as much on his boat as we did on ours. When it was time to join up with our parents’ houseboat, we knew immediately something was wrong.
“Our boat wasn’t at the meeting place. We waited, but our parents never came. My uncle, thinking there might be a problem with the boat, sailed out to search for it. We came across our boat not far off, adrift in the Breath, like we are now.
“Our father and mother should have both been on deck, working to fix whatever was wrong. But they weren’t. There was no one. The deck was empty…”
She was shivering. It was cold out here on deck, with the mists of the Breath closing in. Dag draped a coat about her shoulders, and she drew it around her. The coat was huge on her and the shoulder yellow with cat fur. She nestled into it and found the courage to finish her tale.
“My uncle guessed that something terrible had happened, and he tried to stop us from going aboard. But we were kids and didn’t know anything. The world was all sunshine to us then. Before he could catch her, Gythe had jumped from his boat onto ours. She was light as a bird and seemed to almost float through the air. She landed on the deck and shouting, “Mam” and “Pap,” she ran down into the hold.”
Miri paused, then said in a low voice, “I will hear her scream until the day I die. She only screamed once and then she never spoke a word after. My uncle tried to make me stay on board his ship, but I would have fought a bigger man than him to reach Gythe, and at last he let me go with him.
“Our snug cabin, where we all had lived so happily, was awash in blood. The blood was so deep it sloshed back and forth with the movement of the boat. Gythe was standing in it, staring. Just staring. We never found the bodies. Not whole bodies. Only… pieces…”
“I guess we know the reason for the protection spells,” said Rodrigo somberly.
Dag awkwardly patted Miri’s shoulder. She gave him a wan smile of thanks. “Pirates,” he said.
Stephano shook his head. “Why would pirates attack a Trundler houseboat? It’s not like they’re stuffed with gold…”
