know the enemy’s somewhere around, but I don’t know where.”
“Yeah, I’ve been feeling the same,” said Stephano, staring into the thick and heavy darkness, into the ghostly mists that flitted past the lantern light. “I keep thinking about that story Miri told, about what happened to her parents.”
“It sounds crazy, sir. If it hadn’t been Miri telling the tale, I wouldn’t have believed her.”
Stephano knew what he meant. Sailors and Trundlers down through the centuries had told tales of monsters lurking in the Breath, reaching up gigantic tentacles to snatch the unsuspecting sailor off a deck or dragging down entire ships. Stories of ghost ships sailed by dead crewmen and ships simply vanishing.
He had never put much stock in such tales. But then, he’d never before been stranded in the dark in the Breath. He’d never felt it closing in around him, moving and shifting like a restless spirit, dampening sound, muffling voices, causing the boat to rock and lurch unexpectedly.
Dag reached up his hand to pet Doctor Ellington, who was also standing guard duty, his claws dug into the padding on Dag’s shoulder. The cat’s eyes gleamed gold in the light.
“The Doctor hears things, too,” said Dag.
The cat kneaded his claws into the padding and looked very fierce.
“What time is it?” Stephano asked. He could have looked at his own watch, but he wanted to change the subject.
Dag pulled out his pocket watch, opened it, and held it to the lantern. “Nineteen hundred hours, sir. Five more to midnight.”
Stephano hunched his head into the high collar. “Seems a lot later. Like it should be two in the morning.”
The two walked the deck together in companionable silence, instinctively marching in step. They were comfortable with each other. Stephano glanced sidelong at Dag: big, stalwart, an excellent shot, confident in his ability to fire a weapon, if in nothing else.
Once an officer, a leader of men, Dag had made a decision, given an order in battle that had cost the lives of men who had trusted him. Dag blamed himself. The next battle, he found he couldn’t give an order at all. He’d frozen, unable to move or speak. He had been brought up on charges of dereliction of duty and drummed out of the mercenary company in disgrace.
Depressed and caring nothing about where he went or what he did, Dag had ended up in Westfirth, a city where it was easy to hide one’s past. He had fallen in with one of the local criminal gangs, whose business enterprises included operating opium dens, houses of pleasure, gambling and prostitution, and selling local shopkeepers protection. He’d been a bodyguard and helped to collect gambling debts and protection money. His criminal career had ended the night he had been forced to kill his partner.
Dag and a new partner had been sent to “persuade” a shop owner to pay his debt. Dag had gone on such missions before. A punch in the kidney, a black eye, a bruised jaw, and the shopkeeper usually found the silver. Unfortunately, this time, Dag’s new partner had turned out to be a bloodthirsty maniac. In order to keep his partner from beating the victim to death, Dag had broken his partner’s neck.
Dag had carried the shop owner to his rooms, which were above the shop. Dag sent for a physician, who examined the man, said there had been extensive internal damage and there wasn’t much he could do. Dag nursed the shop owner, day and night, to no avail. The man eventually died, but not before he had forgiven Dag and asked him a final favor-take care of his beloved pet cat. Dag had made the promise. He and Doctor Ellington had since been inseparable.
Dag had resigned from the gang, only to find that the boss wouldn’t accept his resignation. The gang came looking for him. He moved to Evreux and went to work on the docks, loading and unloading cargo. He had met Stephano five years ago, after extricating Benoit from a fight with the dockworkers over perceived negligence in regard to a shipment of wine. Dag had escorted the old man home and been introduced to Stephano, who had invited Dag in for a glass of the aforementioned wine. The two former soldiers had fallen to talking of past battles, only to discover that they’d both been at the Siege of the Royal Sail, though on opposite sides. Stephano had offered Dag a job with the Cadre of the Lost.
No one knew the full history of Dag’s past except Stephano. The others knew only that Dag was a former soldier and small-time crook, now reformed.
He asked Dag about how the repairs to the airscrew and propeller were coming. Dag had good news. The repairs were finished.
“That shot Piefer made was one hell of a shot, sir. You said he was using one of those muskets with the new rifled barrel. I’d love to see one. What did it look like?”
Stephano replied that he hadn’t really gotten a close look at it, but from what he had seen, it looked similar to a musket except the barrel was thicker, which would make sense; the grooves were cut directly into the metal. They spent the next hour walking back and forth to keep warm, discussing modern weaponry. Neither lowered his guard, however, and when they heard footsteps on deck, both whipped around, reaching for their guns.
“Don’t shoot!” said Rodrigo, lifting his hands in the air. “I surrender!”
“You sound awfully damn cheerful,” Dag grumbled, lowering his blunderbuss.
“That is because I have a solution to our predicament,” said Rodrigo. He was wearing a coat made of sheepskin with the woolly fleece on the inside for warmth, and matching sheepskin gloves. “I dreamed of chocolate layer cake.”
“What does cake have to do with anything, except remind me that I’ve had nothing to eat but smoked fish for the last two days and not much of that,” Stephano said irritably.
Dag grunted. “I’ll toss him overboard, if you want, sir.”
“It wouldn’t do any good. He’d only come back to haunt us,” said Stephano.
“I’ve been going about repairing the magic in the wrong way,” Rodrigo explained. “Gythe placed layer after layer of protection spells over the ship, one on top of the other, like the layers of a chocolate cake. Now, any professor at the University will tell you that magic simply does not work this way. Her spells should have gotten all mixed up with the construction spells laid down by her uncle when he was building the boat. In other words, we should have chocolate pudding, not cake.”
Dag’s stomach rumbled loudly.
Stephano could almost taste the chocolate, and his mouth watered. “I don’t suppose you could use a different analogy.”
Rodrigo grinned. “This is the only way I can explain it to you lay people so that it will make sense. Gythe’s protection spells are stacked on top of the original magic. In order to reach that magic, I’ve been trying to punch a hole through the layers. That doesn’t work. What I need to do is to have Gythe remove the layers, take them off one by one until I can reach the constructs underneath and repair them.”
“Can that be done?” Stephano asked.
“Not according to the textbooks,” said Rodrigo blithely. “According to the so-called wise, what Gythe did can’t be done. And yet, she did it. I have reached the conclusion, my friends, that our Gythe is a savant.”
Dag glowered. “Is that an insult?”
“Far from it, I assure you,” Rodrigo said hastily. “The term ‘savant’ refers to a crafter who is a genius in magic, someone who ‘has magic in the blood, not just in the fingertips’ as one of my professors termed it. Savants are very rare in this world. And that is why she was able to create a veritable layer cake of magic.”
“Did I hear someone mention cake?” Miri asked eagerly, opening the hatch and coming out on deck. She was wearing a wool hat and a thick wool coat over pantaloons made of soft, supple lambskin tied at the ankles so as not to get tangled in the rigging.
“Only in regard to magic,” said Stephano.
Rodrigo explained his plan. Miri listened, her head cocked to one side.
“It might work,” she said. “The problem is Trundler magic is secret. We don’t let Outsiders see or hear how any Trundler casts spells.”
“We’re not Outsiders, Miri,” said Stephano. “We’re friends.”
“I trust you. I would tell you if I knew. But the magic is Gythe’s
…” Miri hesitated.
“And by the looks of these protection spells, she doesn’t trust anyone. She’s terrified of removing them,” said Rodrigo. “But that’s the beauty of my plan. She won’t have to remove them. All she has to do is pick them up long
