researched the dark magic, the more he’d come to suspect that several battles in ancient times had been manipulated to achieve the level of sacrifice believed necessary to perform the spell.
Aubrey suspected that Dr Tremaine had been working on this alternative method for a long time. If he were able to couple a substantial collection of magical artefacts with a Universal Language of Magic, while tapping into the magical field over Trinovant, the Ritual of the Way could be within his grasp.
The thought did little to cheer him. He wondered if he wasn’t overlooking something, something that could make a difference.
He turned, looking for some common sense from George, to find that he and Sophie had managed to fall asleep.
Sleep was a stranger to Aubrey. The roar of the engine set his teeth vibrating, and the constant ‘thump- swish’ of the wings was jarring. Besides, he wasn’t about to sleep when Caroline couldn’t, but when he tried some inconsequential chat, her monosyllabic responses didn’t encourage him to keep it up. She was locked on course as much as the ornithopter was.
This gave him more time to think, to prepare for a confrontation where the future of the world was at stake. His mind went to the magical connection that he shared with Dr Tremaine.
During his vigil in the cave overlooking Dr Tremaine’s stronghold, Aubrey had felt the connection come and go, as was its wont. Intrigued, he’d spent time pondering the implications of the connection and its composition. He had an inkling that the Law of Entanglement and the Law of Division could shed some light on it, so while their pursuit wore on, he took out his notebook and immersed himself in a number of formulations suggested by these laws to see what light they could shed on the mysterious phenomenon.
When he became aware of the world again – some time later – the skyfleet had vanished over the horizon. With no glimpse of it, not even the thunderheads, it felt as if they were making no headway.
‘Can we catch them?’ he asked Caroline. He kept his voice as low as he could to avoid waking Sophie and George.
‘I doubt it,’ she said, ‘but we’re not giving up. If Tremaine’s devil fleet falters, we’ll have them.’
Aubrey tapped his chin. ‘What if we had some assistance?’
‘You have something in mind?’
‘As the skyfleet was approaching the chateau, I was constructing a spell to deflect any bombs. It occurs to me that I could rework such a spell to provide us with some impetus.’
‘Providing impetus to an aircraft in motion sounds as if it might involve some level of danger.’
‘I wondered about that.’ Aubrey hummed a little, to himself. ‘I’m thinking that I might be able to conjure a tailwind.’
‘Go on.’
‘If I can displace sufficient air in the right place, other air will rush in to fill the gap. Air rushing in a particular direction sounds just like wind to me.’
Caroline pursed her lips for an instant. ‘You understand that ornithopters are temperamental at the best of times, don’t you? And since the best of times means stable, calm conditions, your plan would suggest that we’ll be flying an ornithopter in the worst of conditions.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Sounds like a challenge. When do we start?’
‘Do you think we should wake Sophie and George first?’
Caroline rapidly ran a hand over the switches, adjusting dials and knobs. Their speed dropped noticeably. ‘I’ve tucked the wings into a stable climbing position. The nose configuration is now well trimmed.’ She glanced into the back. ‘Let them sleep. They’ll wake up soon enough.’
64
Caroline was flushed and breathing heavily. She pushed back hair that Aubrey thought was wonderfully wild and free. ‘Let’s not do that again soon, shall we?’ she said huskily.
Aubrey had to agree. The Gallian landscape was a pretty thing, but not when it was screaming toward them as it had been just a few minutes ago.
‘And no more upside down, please,’ Sophie added in a small voice.
‘We can do without that twisty rolling, too,’ George added. ‘Quite lost my appetite there for a while.’
‘I’ll do my best in the future,’ Caroline said, ‘but I thought both manoeuvres were preferable to breaking up and being strewn across farmland.’
George pushed his head forward between Aubrey and Caroline. ‘I say, is that the coast?’
‘And I’m sure that wall of cloud ahead is actually what we’re after,’ Aubrey said. ‘Are we still gaining?’
Caroline craned her head to catch a glimpse of the countryside they were skimming over. ‘I’d say so. Not as much as when your magic wind had us in its clutches, but we should pass the skyfleet within the hour.’
‘Over the straits,’ Aubrey said carefully. ‘Since we’re doing so well, what do you all say to a slight detour?’
I N THE DYING LIGHT, D R T REMAINE’S SKYFLEET WAS SPREAD across nearly a mile in a V-shaped formation, the most gargantuan of the warships in the vanguard. It had slowed as it left Gallia behind and this had allowed the ornithopter to close on it more quickly than anticipated.
Realising this, Caroline sent the aircraft climbing, gaining altitude until the line of cloud-formed ships was stretched far beneath them, flanked by the wall of storm clouds. She had to wrestle for a moment with the starboard wing, which had developed an annoying grinding, but from this position, with the help of binoculars Sophie produced from her rucksack, Aubrey was able to study Dr Tremaine’s fleet.
This was worth the time, he told himself. Gathering information about the disposition of the skyfleet might be vital in deciding how best to combat it. The Directorate, the military, needed as much intelligence as it could get.
The flagship would have been the largest battleship in the world, if it had been on the sea. Aubrey judged it to be at least twice as long as the Impervious, the pride of the Albion fleet. The three turrets of twin mounted guns, fore and aft, were unheard of. Despite the fact that the ship was made of cloudstuff magically wrought to mimic the steel and iron of real battleships, it was a frightening beast. It looked as if it could destroy a city by itself.
It was accompanied by more than a dozen lesser battleships and a score of destroyers, cruisers and attendant craft. It was a terrifying fleet, correct in every detail apart from one.
‘Not many crewmen,’ George muttered.
Aubrey scanned the walkways and decks of all the ships but saw no-one. The gun turrets were unmanned, the catwalks were empty, the stairs were abandoned. In ships of this size, fully underway, Aubrey would have expected to see dozens of crewmen at work on the hundreds of tasks required to keep a ship steaming along happily.
Another puzzle.
He motioned Caroline to halt their advance.
Aubrey had thought, while crawling, exposed, through no-man’s-land, that there had to be a Better Way. When being seen was such a life-threatening handicap, a method of avoiding notice was greatly to be desired. He knew that the Directorate, under Commander Craddock’s guidance, was experimenting with approaches to disguise troops, military hardware, and even buildings, but nothing had been forthcoming.
With Sophie’s talent in the area of illusion and seeming, Aubrey wondered if they might be able to approach the stormfleet and not immediately be blown out of the sky.
He looked over his shoulder. ‘Sophie, how much work have you done with the Law of Familiarity?’
Sophie shrugged. ‘Most disguising spells use it. When Caroline and I entered Dr Tremaine’s factory in Stalsfrieden, the spell I used made the guards think that we belonged there.’
‘Exactly. But have you ever used it to disguise something that wasn’t human?’
‘An animal?’
‘What about something non-living, like a machine?’
‘Ah, you want to disguise this ornithopter!’
