enough for me to repair the damage on the original constructs. Then she can let them fall back in place. Picture a chocolate cake with sugar icing and almond paste in between in each layer-”
“For God’s sake, sir, make him stop!” Dag pleaded.
Miri looked at Rodrigo in helpless confusion. “Is that even possible?”
“Oh, yes.” Rodrigo gave a firm nod of his head.
“I’ll go talk to her.”
She entered the hatchway leading to the cabin where the two sisters berthed. Doctor Ellington was either bored with sentry duty or hoping to persuade Miri that he was a cat deserving of smoked fish. He bounded off Dag’s shoulder and ran after her, his tail frisking.
“You’re a damn liar, aren’t you, Rigo?” said Stephano. “Moving layers of magic around is not remotely possible.”
“Anything’s possible,” said Rodrigo, shrugging. “Just not very probable.”
Stephano sighed. Dag muttered beneath his breath. Rodrigo hummed a few bars of a sonata. At last they heard footsteps. They turned to see Miri coming on deck, followed by Gythe with Doctor Ellington.
“She’ll do it,” said Miri. “But she doesn’t think it will work.”
Gythe affirmed this with a shake of her head. She was wearing a long fur cape with a woolen dress and flannel petticoats for warmth. She had wrapped Doctor Ellington in the fur cape, holding him close, her chin nestled into the top of his head. Engulfed in the cape, warm and happy, the cat gazed at them, eyes blinking drowsily.
“Imagine that you are playing your harp,” said Rodrigo. “The magical protection constructs are the strings. You pluck one, then another, then another…”
Gythe stared at him, her blue eyes widening. Her hair, damp from the mist, straggled down out of the snug hat she wore. She rubbed her face in the cat’s fur. Doctor Ellington began to purr loudly, a low rumble in his chest. Keeping fast hold of the cat, Gythe walked over to Stephano. She touched his lips with her fingers, then touched his heart.
“She’s telling you to keep her secret,” said Miri.
“As God is my witness, I swear,” said Stephano.
Gythe did the same with Rodrigo, who readily took the oath. She went to Dag and touched his lips.
“You know I’ll keep your secret, Girl dear,” said Dag.
Gythe gave the Doctor a kiss and then placed him on Dag’s shoulder. Dag and Doctor Ellington returned to sentry duty. Rodrigo and Miri and Gythe debated for a moment where to begin, finally deciding to start with the brass helm.
Stephano trailed after them. “Is there anything I can do?”
“You can hold the lantern,” said Rodrigo magnanimously.
Seeing the dour look Stephano gave him, Rodrigo added, “Honestly, I need someone to hold the lantern!”
Stephano took the lantern. Rodrigo posted him beside the helm and showed him where to shine the light.
“Explain to me what’s going on,” said Stephano. “In words of a single syllable.”
Rodrigo gestured to the helm. “The constructs set in the brass allow the helmsman to control the amount of magical energy sent to the lift tanks and the balloon. Internal constructs arc that energy through the lift gas ‘charging’ it, creating buoyancy. Braided leather cables, set with additional constructs, act as conduits leading from the helm to the lift tanks and the balloon. Each of these symbols inscribed on the panel allows the helmsman to control a different part of the boat. You could increase the amount of lift in the tanks by sliding your finger up the arrow symbol on the panel, decrease it by sliding your finger down. The surge of magical energy caused by the bullet disrupting the magic blew up some of the sigils that form the constructs. I can repair them, but I have to physically touch and reconstruct them. And these are buried at the bottom of the chocolate cake.”
“They’re Trundler magic,” said Stephano. “You said you’d never seen some of them before.”
“True, but I spent most of yesterday studying them. With Miri’s help, I think we can get the boat up and running again.”
“When?” asked Stephano.
“Dag has fixed the propeller,” said Rodrigo. “Once we can reach the constructs, repairing them shouldn’t take too long. It all depends on Gythe,” he added somberly.
Gythe looked uncertainly at Miri, who gave her an encouraging smile. “Like playing your harp,” she said.
Gythe drew in a deep breath. She placed her hands, fingers spread, on the brass panel and began to sing.
Stephano had heard Gythe sing before, mostly when she was singing softly to Doctor Ellington, sometimes when she was puttering about the houseboat or at his house, helping Benoit peel potatoes or washing dishes or in the park for money. She had a sweet voice, perfect pitch. He had come to recognize some of the tunes over the years, for they were simple and easy to remember, and she sang the same ones over and over. He’d often catch himself humming one or two of them.
The song she sang now was far different from her “Doctor Ellington” song or her “housework” song. This song was ancient, primitive and wild, harsh and discordant, plaintive and sorrowful. A song of yearning and seeking and finding. A song of power that Stephano could feel in his own body, a tingling, shivering sensation that went through him in waves, raising the hair on his arms.
Dag stopped dead, turned to stare. Rodrigo gazed at Gythe in slack-jawed astonishment. Miri watched her sister with fond pride. And then Stephano saw the magic. He saw what he’d always longed to see. He saw sigils, simple and complex. He saw the lines connecting them, myriad lines, myriad sigils, blue-and-purple shining lights, dazzling and beautiful. And confused. Like a spider spinning web over web over web…
Down below the blue-and-purple spiderwebs, he could see sigils set into the brass helm and the sigils with the lines connecting them dancing along the braided leather cord. These sigils were brown in color, nothing pretty about them. They were working sigils. He saw large gaps between some of the sigils. No lines ran between them. These sigils were damaged.
As he watched, awestruck, Gythe reached out with her hands and, still singing, she took delicate hold of one strand of blue-and-purple shining magic between her fingers, like plucking a harp string, and lifted it up into the air. Letting it hang, shimmering with light, she picked up another and another. Stephano counted seven in all. They arched over the brass panel, quivering and fragile as a rainbow.
Miri nudged Rodrigo with her elbow. “You can get to work now.”
Rodrigo blinked his eyes and drew in a deep gulp of air. “Right. Sorry. Forgot to breathe there for a moment. Now, let’s see what we have here.”
He bent over the helm, with Miri working to channel the magic when he instructed her. Gythe continued to sing, her voice sweet and sad, young and lovely, old and wise. Stephano noticed Dag wiping his nose and brushing his sleeve across his eyes. Stephano felt his own eyes burn and a lump in his throat.
Rodrigo touched the brass panel, drawing sigils with his fingers at Miri’s direction. He waited a moment for the sigils to sparkle to life and when they didn’t, he swore softly in frustration, deconstructed them and began again. This time, the magic worked. The sigils began to gleam beneath his hand. He gave a whoop of joy and flung his arms around Miri, who laughed delightedly.
Rodrigo quickly returned to his work and, now that he knew what he was doing, he drew a great many sigils in rapid succession. He spoke several words and drew lines connecting them. As these began to glow, Rodrigo performed a few dance steps in celebration and went to work extending the sigils along the braided leather.
Gythe stopped singing, perhaps for lack of breath, but the magic continued to shine. She held the blue-and- purple arrays of lines and sigils and they floated out from her hands and drifted over the boat like radiant banners, encircling the balloons, sparkling on the sails, glimmering on the propeller blades.
Stephano watched, fascinated. The bright light of the flaming sigils illuminated the night. He might have worried that they were now a well-lit target, but Gythe’s song seemed to ease the disquieting feeling that there was something sinister out there in the mists.
Rodrigo flung off his coat and began to climb the mast to reach the sigils on the balloon.
“Where did you learn to climb like that?” Stephano asked him.
“Crawling up trellises to reach ladies’ bedrooms,” Rodrigo returned.
“I’ve never seen the like,” said Dag in solemn tones. “If a man didn’t believe in God, he would surely believe
