position, reaching almost back to the massive extra fuel tanks that were responsible for its range.
In the wake of the storm, the chateau complex was subdued. The damage was remarkably minor, with flying debris having caused most of the destruction. Aubrey was pleased to see the black dog strutting about as if it had been solely responsible for seeing off the invaders.
Their departure wasn’t so precipitous that some preparations hadn’t been undertaken. General Apsley wasn’t prepared to rely on a single ornithopter to get the news to Albion, so he had organised the dispatching of motorcycle riders to relay the news to the Directorate and the Prime Minister.
In the meantime, while the ornithopter was readied, Aubrey found a satchel of maps to which he added the notes he’d been accumulating. He also scrambled together some magical items he hoped would be useful. George and Sophie busied themselves in readying for their flight as Caroline was briefed on the new flying machine.
George hefted his rucksack. ‘You can fly this, Caroline?’
Her eyes were bright. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure I can.’
Sophie peered through goggles. ‘I have never flown in an ornithopter before.’
‘You’re in for an experience.’ George flung open the door and together they leaped into the back seat, where, to Aubrey’s mind, they spent an inordinate amount of time becoming untangled.
Caroline vaulted into the pilot’s seat, slammed the door and tied back her hair while she studied the controls. They looked familiar enough to Aubrey, but he noticed that the wing tilt indicator and oil pressure gauge had swapped position. He swallowed and peered at the dials, switches and knobs. What else was different?
‘We’re fully fuelled,’ he announced, having found the appropriate indicator.
‘Excellent,’ Caroline murmured. Without taking her eyes from the panel in front of her, she snapped her seatbelt around her waist. Aubrey didn’t have to be told; he quickly did the same and he heard two similar metallic catches from behind him.
Aubrey could fly an ornithopter, and fly it very well if his instructors could be believed. He knew, however, that he wasn’t a patch on Caroline. He enjoyed the flying experience; she loved it, and her love translated into a sublime ability to pilot the notoriously cranky machine as easily as if it were a kite.
She leaned forward, and a tiny tip of her tongue protruded from a corner of her mouth. She paused for an instant, then flipped a switch. The engine coughed twice, then decided it was well enough to lurch into action. It roared and the noise of the storm was drowned out. Caroline’s hands ran across the panel, engaging and testing components of the fiendishly complicated machine she was about to shepherd into the sky. Tiny lights winked on and off, and Aubrey felt flares of magic awaken from the various enhanced aspects of the ornithopter.
Caroline grasped the controls and used a thumb to open the switch on the right-hand panel. Instantly, the earth was left behind.
George cheered, but the launch was always Aubrey’s least favourite part of any ornithopter flight. In any take-off, it felt as if his stomach were left well behind on the ground and then had to spend some time clawing its way back to reunite itself with the rest of his body. He swallowed to equalise the pressure in his ears. The thrashing of the great metal wings managed the impressive task of drowning out the roar of the engine, where all the pistons were labouring with the effort of hurling the bulk of the machine skywards.
The ornithopter spiralled, seeking its best flying altitude. Aubrey consulted a map.
‘A heading, Aubrey?’ Caroline glanced at him, her lip quirked upward.
‘Two hundred and sixty degrees,’ he said, surprising himself with such lucidity in the face of a Caroline lip quirk.
‘Let’s see if we can beat that skyfleet to Trinovant.’ She adjusted the wing attack angle and the metal bird lurched, canted, then set off in pursuit of Dr Tremaine.
W ITH THE AFTERNOON SUN MOVING WESTWARD, the glare made seeing difficult, but Aubrey thought he could make out a far-off line of dark cloud. As it was directly between the Albion capital and them, this tended to confirm Professor Mansfield’s claim that Trinovant was Dr Tremaine’s target – especially as Aubrey had felt the rogue sorcerer’s presence as the skyfleet passed overhead.
George tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Since we missed lunch, I thought some making up might be in order.’
‘Rations?’
‘Superior rations,’ George said. ‘After all, the chateau has been hosting Bertie. We’ve got good ham, cheese, proper white bread, smoked chicken. And I’m not quite sure how this chocolate cake made its way into my sack, but I’m only glad that I managed to slip it into a tin before it did.’
Sophie offered Aubrey a bottle. ‘Ginger beer?’
Aubrey carefully opened it. ‘What was ginger beer doing in a Gallian chateau?’
George considered this. ‘In some ways – the ginger beer department, for example – that place was a little bit of Albion in the middle of Gallia.’
‘The best of both worlds,’ Sophie said and she passed a rough slice of bread to Aubrey. It was wrapped around some ham and cheese and he realised he was ravenous.
‘Er… do you have a glass?’
‘Drink from the bottle, Aubrey,’ Caroline said without turning her head. All her attention was on the windscreen and the control panel; she was constantly trying to coax a little more speed out of the ornithopter, trimming the wings, levelling the flight. ‘Then hold it up to my lips, would you? I’m parched.’
The next hour was spent on a precarious meal while they pursued Dr Tremaine’s skyfleet. Aubrey divided his time between accepting morsels from Sophie and George, and popping them into Caroline’s mouth as she continued her piloting of the aircraft. After they were done and cleaned up, as best they could in the confines of the cockpit, the day stretched out in the same way the countryside did below them.
Abruptly, Caroline asked Aubrey a question: ‘Have you deduced why Dr Tremaine is going to Albion yet?’
‘It’s been much on my mind.’
‘I’m sure. Any conclusions?’
‘Many. None of them particularly cheerful.’
Caroline considered this for a moment. ‘Why Trinovant?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Why is he going to Trinovant? Why not Lutetia?’
Click. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That was the perfect question.’
‘And you have the answer?’
‘I’m getting there.’ He chewed his lip, briefly. ‘Bear with me here, but the overwhelming thing that distinguishes Trinovant from all other cities is its size.’
‘You’re being needlessly obvious again.’
It was close. He nearly had it. ‘It’s magical theory, Caroline. Magic is generated by the interaction of human consciousness on the universe. The more people, the greater the potential magical field.’ Gigantic click. ‘That’s it.’
‘Explain, Aubrey.’
The potential catastrophe made Aubrey hesitate before answering. ‘Dr Tremaine wants to harness the greatest potential magical field in the world.’
‘I see. That’s all we need. A more powerful Dr Tremaine.’
Aubrey hardly heard. ‘Remember the way I used the collective consciousnesses around no-man’s-land? Imagine Dr Tremaine using all Trinovant to propel his spell. He’ll be able to work the Ritual of the Way without the blood sacrifice we all assumed he needed.’
‘Which is a good thing.’
‘The lack of blood sacrifice is definitely a good thing. An immortal Dr Tremaine is a bad thing.’
Aubrey knew he’d have no argument from Caroline on that score. After killing her father, Dr Tremaine was irredeemable in Caroline’s eyes.
‘It sounds as if Dr Tremaine is desperate,’ she said. ‘You’ve upset his plans for battle for who knows how long, so he’s resorting to this.’
‘Perhaps.’ Aubrey was unwilling to believe that Dr Tremaine was driven to anything. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if this had been his plan all along. After all, the Ritual of the Way had never been undertaken successfully, despite the horrors some magicians had wrought in their attempts. As Aubrey had
