brought them down, and he thought there must be others, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.
Some ropes had snapped and would need replacing. The rudder and steering mechanism seemed, like the burner, beat up but not seriously damaged. The gondola was badly damaged, of course, from the encounter with the tree that had broken the Professor’s leg, but that could be fixed as well.
He felt a surge of relief. The airship could be made airworthy again…
… and then the relief faded. Yes, given skilled workers and enough time. But where would he find such helpers here?
The door opened. Anton glanced up, and a chill ran down his spine as a small army of mageservants emerged into the courtyard: clicking wooden limbs, faces blank but for the blue-glowing insignia, every movement unnaturally fast, every stillness unnaturally still. He counted two dozen in all as they lined up against the wall of the manor and froze in place, obviously awaiting further direction.
“Tell me what you need done,” Lord Falk said, “and they will do it.”
“I don’t know if I can explain well enough,” Anton said.
“Try,” said Lord Falk.
He didn’t seem to have much choice. With Brenna watching silently, he began pointing out to Lord Falk how the pieces of the airship went together, where ropes needed replacing, silk restitching, wicker patching. Lord Falk listened intently, asking questions now and then. “Very well,” he said. He walked over to the mageservants and stood in front of each of them in turn for about thirty seconds, a look of intense concentration on his face. When he had finished with the last one, he crossed back to where Anton and Brenna stood, faced the line of mageservants once more, and made a quick flicking gesture with his right hand.
As one, the mageservants came to life. As one, they moved away from the wall and advanced on the airship. And as Anton watched, openmouthed, they began the repairs he had detailed to Falk. Methodically, mechanically, never getting in one another’s way, they undid ropes, carried away the gondola, righted the burner, began rolling up the envelope…
“The repairs should be done by tomorrow morning,” Falk said. “If the mageservants discover something they cannot fix, or that their instructions are unclear, they will report to Gannick, who will fetch you to issue clarifications. There’s no need to watch. Let’s go back inside where it’s warm.”
Anton nodded and hurried after Falk, falling in beside Brenna again as they reached the back door. She shot a glance at him, but he said nothing to her, lost in amazement at what he had just witnessed.
What would an army of mageservants be like? he thought, and for the first time, wondered if, rather than the Hidden Kingdom fearing an airborne invasion from his world, his world should be fearing the sudden reappearance of the MageLords they had thought lost in the mists of history.
CHAPTER 9
Brenna, as she walked with Anton down the long back hall of the manor, led by Lord Falk, felt shaken and disturbed, like the still water of a pond a horse had just splashed through, leaving behind chaotic ripples and swirling mud.
She wasn’t sure exactly what Mother Northwind had done to Anton, but she was sure it hadn’t been anything as simple as a healing, even though he no longer limped. From his description, it sounded like.. .
But that’s forbidden! Lord Falk is Minister of Public Safety. He’s supposed to uphold the law. If a Healer used her power to steal memories and thoughts from someone, he’d arrest her. He’d…
Except, clearly, he had not.
Was that why Mother Northwind was sequestered on Lord Falk’s demesne? So he could use her for “unofficial” interrogations?
She felt furious at Falk, furious at herself for not realizing it sooner, and furious at the old hag, off somewhere having breakfast.
But she didn’t tell Anton what she suspected Mother Northwind had done. How could she? She was the ward of Lord Falk, Minister of Public Safety of the Kingdom of Evrenfels, the direct representative here of King Kravon himself. If the Minister of Public Safety believed that knowing what Anton knew was important enough to resort to that kind of mind-rape, who was she to argue with him?
She was his ward. Anton wasn’t the only one over whom he had the power of life and death.
So she walked with Anton in silence, trailing Falk.
But it wasn’t only what Falk had done to Anton that troubled her. It was also what Anton had told her.
The… technology, to use Anton’s word… of the Outsiders (as Brenna had begun to think of them) seemed capable of doing without magic almost everything the MageLords did with magic; indeed, as the airship in which Anton had arrived demonstrated, technology could already do things that magic could not. A civilization of Commoners, no MageLords to rule over them… even thinking such a thing seemed subversive.
But she wanted to know more about that amazing world, and she wanted to hear it from Anton, not predigested and preselected by Falk. She glanced at him. Surely he would now rush off to talk to Mother Northwind…?
He didn’t disappoint. “I will leave you in the care of Brenna,” Falk said as they reemerged into the Great Hall. “We’ll talk again later.”
“Of course, Lord Falk,” Anton said.
Falk nodded to Brenna, then strode toward the doors into the kitchen.
Brenna smiled at Anton. “Shall we find somewhere to sit down? I’d like to talk to you some more about-”
Her voice trailed off. Anton’s face was quite pale. “My head,” he said. “I’m sorry, I think… I think I’d better just go back to my room and lie down.”
“Of course,” Brenna said. “I’ll walk with you.” She took him back up the stairs, with him showing no sign of a limp, said good-bye to him at the door to his room, then stood in the hallway, feeling almost as pale and shaky as Anton had looked.
The more she thought about what she thought Mother Northwind had done, the more it frightened and infuriated her. But maybe I’m wrong, she thought. I don’t know everything about Healing. Maybe what she did was entirely harmless. Maybe she was trying to help him in some way.
Maybe. Or maybe not.
She had to know. And so she headed off to do something she had never in her life dared to do before: confront her powerful guardian.
She knew he was in the kitchen with Mother Northwind. The shortest route was down the servants’ stairs. As she reached the bottom, though, she froze, because some quirk of the corridors allowed her to hear, as clearly as though she was sitting with them, the conversation between her guardian and the witch.
“… boy told you the truth,” Mother Northwind was saying. “But not the whole truth. He held back information about the weapons of their military, for instance: things called repeater guns, powered by steam… I confess I don’t understand how such a thing works, but they seem to hurl pieces of metal with great force and rapidity, hundreds per minute. Very nasty.”
“Magic can deal with anything this Commoner technology can create, if it comes to that, though it will be good to be prepared,” Falk said dismissively. “Never mind their weapons. What about their intentions? Is Anton telling the truth about him and this dead Professor of his being lone adventurers? Is there truly nothing on the other side of the Barrier but a few tiny communities?”
Mother Northwind snorted. “He was telling the truth. From the images in his mind, his Professor was considered by most at best a crank, at worse a lunatic. And he believes that if he does not return to tell the outside world what happened to them, no one will make the attempt again for years, convinced the Barrier destroyed them. For all their talk of ‘technology’ and ‘natural laws,’ many of the Outsiders seem to regard the Barrier-the Anomaly, they call it-with superstitious awe. Anton does not seem to be religious, but there are those who see the Anomaly as the work of… they call it God, but I suppose you would call it the SkyMage… and believe that any attempt to circumvent it is sacrilegious.”
“Excellent,” Falk said. “We will emerge to find scattered and terrified Commoners who will quickly submit to
