And in the Professor’s case, they were right, he thought, another stab to his heart.
Falk sat back again. “Village,” he said. “Then there are not great numbers of people outside our Barrier?”
Anton shook his head. “Elkbone is the largest town I know of on the other side of the Barrier, and it’s only got three or four hundred people, cattle ranchers and coal miners, mostly-they ship cattle and coal down the Swift River by barge to the bigger towns to the west. There’s a saying that once you’re in sight of the Anomaly, you know you’ve reached the end of the world.”
“Anomaly?”
“The wall. The…” What had Brenna called it? “The Barrier.”
“I see. And these bigger towns to the west? How big are they, and how far away?”
The conversation-interrogation, really, Anton soon realized-continued in that vein. Anton answered as truthfully as he could, seeing no reason to lie and suspecting he wouldn’t get away with it anyway. Falk reminded him of the police sergeant he had known back in Hexton Down, a man who had the uncanny ability to see through any subterfuge… and a man who had the power to lock Anton away for a long time, if he chose, though he never had. Maybe it was because Anton had never lied to him, though he’d sometimes not told him everything he knew when he wanted to protect his friends.
Lord Falk, Anton had quickly realized, held his life in his hands. Minister of Public Safety, Brenna had called him. Men with titles like that not only enforced the law, they were the law. If Falk decided that Anton should disappear, that he and the Professor should never have arrived in Evrenfels at all, then that would be exactly what happened.
So he answered all the questions that were put to him, though just as with the police sergeant, he didn’t tell everything he knew.
When asked about the weapons available to his country’s military, for instance, he left out a few things, like steam-powered repeater guns and cannon that could hurl a shell five miles, though he was more than willing to talk about the other recent technological advances, from the pneumatic tube systems that provided rapid communication within cities to the smoking, bellowing motivators that ran, as many as a dozen wheeled carriages packed with people in tow, over the increasingly common railpaths stretching across the Union Republic.
“And who are your enemies?” Falk asked. “You have a military, so you must have enemies.”
“The Concatenation,” Anton said. “A dictatorial regime that would spread like a cancer across the world if we did not oppose it.”
Falk cocked his head. “Indeed? And does this… Concatenation?
… know of the Anomaly?”
“Everyone knows about the Anomaly,” Anton said. “But the nearest Concatenation settlement in the Wild Land is hundreds of miles east of here, on the other coast, and the Concatenation capital two thousand miles farther yet, across the ocean. Nor, as far as we know, have they yet developed airships. You won’t be seeing any of them any time soon.”
Falk smiled. “Ah, yes, your airship. I find it fascinating. Are there a lot of these airships in your world?”
“Not a lot,” Anton said. “There are a lot more balloons- just big bags filled with hot air or gas that float up in the sky as military observation platforms, allowing a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield. But Professor Carteri and a few others realized that you could make a balloon navigable if you changed its shape, added a rudder, and found a means of propelling it… turned it into a ‘ship of the air.’ They’re proving invaluable in mapping the world’s unknown regions. Stegra Eisfeldt down in South Molska used one smaller than ours to discover the ancient ruins of-”
“But how does it work?” Falk interrupted. “There is no magic in your world, you say. And yet you can fly.”
“It’s not magic, it’s just physics,” Anton said.
“I do not know that word. But go on.”
“Well, you know that hot air rises…” Anton did the best he could, though he realized he was a little shaky on the details himself as he tried to explain the principles behind the airship. Nevertheless, Lord Falk listened in silence, then nodded.
“Interesting,” he said. “And very clever. I’m surprised our own Commoners have not yet hit upon some such scheme.” He leaned forward again. “Can you rebuild this airship of yours?”
“I haven’t taken a good look at it,” Anton said. “So I don’t know for certain. The burner fell, and I don’t know what happened to the engine and propeller. If either are too badly damaged…”
“Never mind the damage,” Falk said. “Damage can be repaired… provided you have the required knowledge. Do you?”
“I know how all the pieces fit together. But-”
“Excellent.” Lord Falk suddenly pushed his chair back and stood up. Anton hurriedly got to his feet-and shot a startled look down at his leg.
It had quit hurting. His head, on the other hand… there was a feeling of… well, if it wasn’t inside his skull, he would have said bruising: a faint ache, getting stronger.
“Let’s get you started on repairing it, then,” Falk continued.
Anton looked up at him. “Now? But-”
“I am a busy man, Anton,” Lord Falk said. “I need to return to the Palace almost at once. I would like to see this airship of yours fly before I do so, so I can take a full report to the King and Council.”
“But, Lord Falk, it will take days, maybe weeks, to-”
“I doubt that very much,” Falk said. “Come with me, tell me what needs to be done, and we will do it.”
Anton could only shake his aching head as he followed Falk across the vast marble-floored Great Hall. Brenna, who had obviously been waiting for them to emerge, ran across the hall to join him. “Your guardian is… intimidating,” he murmured under his breath.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where’s your crutch?”
“Mother Northwind fixed my leg,” he said. “But she also…” He let his voice trail off, unsure how to explain what had just happened. “I don’t know. Something very odd.”
Brenna’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.” The pain in his head was increasing. “All I know is, my leg doesn’t hurt any more… but my head sure does.”
They passed through a set of double doors on the far side of the Great Hall that led into a broad corridor with doors on either side that ended in what was apparently the manor’s back entrance. Falk stopped at the last door on the left. “Gannick,” he said. “You’ve looked after Mother Northwind?”
“Having breakfast in the kitchen, Lord Falk,” came the reply in clipped tones.
“Excellent. Please call all the mageservants into the courtyard where we stored the wreckage of the flying machine.”
“Yes, Lord Falk.”
Lord Falk headed toward the end of the hall. Anton glanced through the door he’d just vacated, and saw a small, bald man wearing the same gray as Falk-some kind of livery, Anton thought-with his hands palm down on a simple wooden desk, eyes closed. A beam of light finding its way through the room’s curtained windows lit steam rising from the desk’s surface.
Magic, Anton thought again, and shuddered.
On the wall of the corridor next to the back wall hung several fur-lined coats; on the floor were several pairs of fur-lined leather boots. Anton found a coat and pulled it on; Brenna helped him tug on a pair of boots, and again he marveled at the complete recovery of his leg. He followed Falk and Brenna through the back door into the icy cold of an enclosed, cobblestoned courtyard, snow piled manhigh around its walls. In the cleared space in the middle lay Professor Carteri’s airship: gondola on its side, ropes tangled all around it, envelope a shapeless blue mass. The rudder and steering mechanism lay in a heap against a snow pile, and the burner rested on its side next to them. Falk gestured at the wreckage. “Well?” he said. “Can it be fixed?”
Anton momentarily forgot his headache as he hurried across the courtyard to the most important item, the burner, the one thing he did not believe could be fixed anywhere nearer than Wavehaven. He ran his hands over it. Though blackened and dented, it was intact, as was the rock gas tank. He turned his attention to the rest of the airship. The engine and its separate rock gas tank had miraculously remained in place inside the gondola, and the propeller appeared to be undamaged. He turned to the envelope. Of course it had the one large tear that had
