rippling in the wind, sheathed in a fine netting of rope and wooden struts. Its bulk cast a great shadow across the entire length of the deck. From the nose of the envelope an assortment of sails stretched taut between tiq spars; two great vanes of the same material projected like wings from its flanks. Men were up there, miraculously clambering over the lattice of rigging that confined the silk curvature. Their feet were bare, and their dirty pink soles skated along ropes that seemed too frayed to warrant such easy confidence. Madmen, thought Nico. Bloody lunatics.
At this great height, the air was cold. The breeze bit through his clothing and he felt the prickle of goosebumps rising on his flesh. For a moment he thought of returning to the cabin to fetch his travel cloak, but then he spotted Ash sitting cross-legged on the raised fore-deck of the airship. The man seemed deep in meditation, and was wearing his usual black robe.
Nico found that he could negotiate the deck so long as he did not look over the rail, and therefore simply maintained the pretence of being aboard a normal ship at sea. Keeping his eyes fixed on the decking, he reached the steps to the foredeck and climbed up to join the old man.
Ash's eyes seemed to be closed, though a glint of pupil could be seen between his lashes, his half-lidded gaze focused on a point that could be near or far away. The old man sat like stone: not even his chest rose and fell with his breathing.
'How are you?' Ash inquired, without moving.
Nico folded his arms for warmth. 'Better,' he replied. 'Thank you for your concern, old man.'
A dry chuckle. 'I am not here to mother you, boy.' And Ash finally opened his eyes wide, looked up at him, held out a hand.
Nico stared at it for a moment, the fingernails bright against the pinkly black skin around them. Then he clasped it, rough as bark, and helped the old man to his feet.
'If you are walking, then you are well,' declared Ash. 'So it is time we began your training. Lesson one: you are my apprentice. Therefore you will call me master, or Master Ash, never old man.'
Nico felt the blood rush to his face. He did not like the other's tone. 'As you say.'
'Do not try me, boy. I will strike you down where you stand if you show me insolence.'
He sounded like Nico's father sometimes had after becoming a Special, or like one of the idiots his mother had taken in. 'Then strike me,' said Nico. 'That would be a lesson I already know well.'
Nothing changed in Ash's expression, but from the corner of his eye Nico could see the old man's right hand clenching into a fist, and he tensed.
Instead of hitting him though, Ash exhaled deeply and said, 'Come, let us sit together.'
He knelt again on the decking, this time facing Nico. After a moment's hesitation Nico followed his example.
'Take a deep breath,' Ash instructed. 'Good. And another one.'
Nico did so, and felt the anger draining away.
'Now,' began Ash. 'You are Mercian. Your people follow the Dao, or what they sometimes call Fate. You must know, then, the ways of the Great Fool.'
The question was an unexpected one. 'Of course,' Nico replied with some caution. The old man merely nodded: it was clearly a prompt for more. 'I have been to temples a few times, and listened to them reciting his words. And on every Foolsday my mother used to make me sit beside her during her invocations.'
Ash's eyebrows pinched together, as if unimpressed. 'And tell me, do you know where the Great Fool was born?'
'I was told he was born on one of the moons, and fell to Ers on a burning rock.'
The old man shook his head. 'He was born in my homeland, Honshu, six hundred and forty-nine years ago. That is the birthplace of Daoism. The Great Fool never set foot away from Honshu, despite all your legends to the contrary. It was his Great Disciple who brought the Way to the Miders, and it was because of her and her own disciples that it spread in its various forms across the southern lands, including your own. Now, tell me, do you meditate?'
'Like the monks?'
'Yes, like the monks.'
Nico shook his head.
'Hoh. Then you know nothing but religion, as I expected. In my order we are also Daoists, but we follow the teachings of the Great Fool without all this nonsense that has grown up around his words. If you are to follow his way, as you should do if you are to become a true Rshun, then you must forget all those things and focus on only one thing. You must learn how to be still.'
Nico nodded slowly. 'I see.'
'No, you do not, but you will begin to. Now, do as I tell you. Place your left hand in your right. Yes, like that. Now straighten your back. More so, you are still slouching. Good. Keep your eyes partly open. Choose a point in front of you and stay focused on it. Breathe. Relax.'
Nico breathed, perplexed. He could not see how this had anything to do with the business of Rshun.
'Observe the air as it enters your nostrils, moves through you, exits. Breathe deeply, into your belly. Yes, just so.'
'Now what?' Already his knees were beginning to ache.
'Simply sit. Allow your thoughts to settle. Let your mind become empty.'
'What is the point of all this?'
A slight rush of air from Ash's nostrils, but still a steady gaze.
'A mind that is forever busy is sick. A mind that is still flows with the Dao. When you flow with the Dao, you act in accordance with all things. This is what the Great Fool teaches us.'
Nico tried to do as the old man instructed. It was like trying to juggle three things at once: watch the movement of his breathing; keep his back erect; stay focused on a chip of wood on the rail in front of him. But he kept forgetting to pay attention to one or the other, and frustration began to build in him. Time stretched out till he was unable to tell if he had been sitting there for moments or hours.
It seemed that the more he tried to be still, the more his mind wanted to chatter to itself. His face itched, his straightened spine ached, and his knees throbbed with pain. It could easily have been a form of torture, and after a while he purposely set his mind to other things: where the ship was heading, and what was being served for dinner, anything that might take him away from his discomforts.
It felt like several hours had passed when a bell rang out to signal the end of the hour.
Ash rose with a soft rustle of his robe. This time it was the old man who helped Nico to his feet.
'How do you feel?'
He chose not to say the first thing that came to mind. 'Calm,' he lied, nodding. 'Very still.'
The old farlander's eyes lit up with humour.
*
Later that day the ship descended several hundred feet in the hope of finding a more favourable wind, and indeed she found herself in a stream of fast air bearing north-west. On the raised quarterdeck at the rear of the ship, his oiled black hair flapping over to one side of his head, the captain barked orders for the tailsculls to be trimmed and the mainsculls to be let out, his deep voice sending men scurrying into the rigging even before he was finished. Captain Trench was a tall man of perhaps thirty years of age, clean-shaven and gaunt in the extreme. His bony white hands rested in the pockets of a grey-blue navy overcoat of no visible rank; an affectation of sorts, or perhaps an indication of some earlier naval career, since his command now was of nothing more than a merchant vessel – though admittedly a rather remarkable one. His one good eye peered upwards at the envelope of gas keeping them aloft, which rippled ceaselessly along its windward side; while, on his shoulder, his pet kerido chattered in his ear as though in conversation, and shifted a leg for balance as he did the same beneath it. Like a fish, the Falcon turned, squirming, into the flow, her deck pitching over as she slewed around, still shedding height.
Nico gripped the rail with whitening fingers. He listened anxiously to the creaks of the wooden struts over his head that connected the envelope to the hull. The great curved mainsculls on either side of the envelope had caught the wind full now; next to the wheel, a crewman studying a spinning instrument called out the speed as the ship surged ahead.
They were leaving the Free Ports at last.
