a set of brackets that might have once held torches (the mageservants bending the heavy iron with alarming ease to clamp the hose in place), and spread a thick putty normally used for sealing windows all along the back edge of the board. They placed the wood over the roaring hole in the chimney and pushed it hard against the brick. When they stepped away, Anton went over and felt along the edge of the board. He couldn’t feel as much as a breath of hot air escaping.
Instead, that hot air roared out of the end of the hose, creating a narrower, more focused plume of white as it met the cold air.
“It’s going to take a long time to fill,” Anton warned. “And at some point, our clever guard over there is going to get suspicious.”
“Let him,” Brenna said. She took the wand and went over to the nearest mageservant. What she told it, Anton couldn’t hear, though he did hear the beginning admonition that “these orders are for all mageservants within this courtyard.” The mageservants didn’t do anything different after she finished, but she came back to Anton looking satisfied.
“If we’re lucky, that’ll do it,” she said.
Anton didn’t ask any questions. Unbelievably, the time had come. He was glad Brenna had insisted they both dress as warmly as they possibly could before coming outside that day. There could be no going back for clothes or supplies… or water, he thought. Well, without the burner it would probably freeze solid anyway.
Anton took the hose from the mageservants and thrust it inside the envelope of the airship.
It filled with agonizing slowness. For a long time he thought it wasn’t filling at all, or that the air from that giant gas flame in the cellar wasn’t hot enough… but then the tip of the envelope twitched, and slowly, oh-so- slowly, began to swell.
The expansion seemed to pick up speed as it went along. The man-at-arms watched, obviously fascinated, but didn’t interfere.
Once the airship had begun filling, the mageservants had moved to other positions, as Anton had instructed Brenna to order them. Each had taken the end of a rope from the gondola and tied it around something: a bit of stonework, the railing of the steps, the handle of the gate. Inside the gondola, Anton had rigged the ropes with the same quick-release buckles used to drop the sandbags, spare ones he’d taken from the stores cabinet under the pilot’s bench at the stern, the only cabinet he hadn’t emptied in his frantic search for stuff to throw over the side during the descent from the top of the Anomaly, because the Professor’s feet had been in the way.
It wasn’t until the airship rose off the cobblestones and slowly, as though it hardly meant it, began to swell toward the sky, that the man-at-arms came down the steps toward them. “That’s amazing,” he said. He leaned over and said in a voice just for Anton, “and a little obscene, if you take my meaning.”
Anton grinned, but said nothing. He’d often had the same thought watching the long tube of silk inflate.
The envelope lifted completely free of the ground, and Anton had to scramble to make sure the hose remained pointed up into its interior. Leaving the guard behind, he climbed into the gondola. “Help me out here,” he said to Brenna, who climbed, much more gracefully, in beside him. “Getting close,” he said under his breath.
The man-at-arms continued to watch the airship grow with interest, rather than alarm. “Amazing,” he said again. “And here I thought all this talk of flying was a load of horse apples.” His eyes traced the ropes tied here and there. “Well, those make sense now,” he said. “Making sure you two don’t float away…” And then his eyes narrowed. “Hey,” he said. “You’ve proved you can fix this thing. I think you should stop now.”
“Got to be sure the envelope holds air,” Anton said cheerfully. “Can’t do that without full inflation.”
The man-at-arms looked up at the airship now towering above them. The gondola creaked and shifted a little. “It’s inflated now,” he said, his voice suddenly hard. “Out of there, both of you.”
“But the test isn’t complete-” Anton said.
The guard, it was clear, was having none of that. He drew his short sword. “Out of it!”
“Carry out my orders!” Brenna shouted to the mageservants.
One of the magical puppets stood no more than ten feet away. It suddenly sprang to life, closing the distance between it and the man-at-arms with impossible speed. One three-fingered wooden hand closed around the short sword, yanked it from the man’s hand, and threw it up and away so hard it sailed clear over the tool shed and disappeared beyond the courtyard wall. The other hand gripped the man’s arm. He cried out. The mageservant turned and walked toward the stairs, dragging the burly guard across the cobblestones as though he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes… a small sack, at that. The man-at-arms writhed, but to no avail, and he abruptly quit moving after his head impacted the bottom step… and then the next one. .. and then the next one…
Anton hoped to the God he didn’t believe in they hadn’t just killed the man. He glanced at Brenna, who looked white and a little sick, but she pressed her lips together. “How much longer?” she demanded.
Anton studied the envelope for a moment, then leaned forward to look at the ground. “We’ll lift in a couple of minutes,” he said, straightening, shouting to be heard above the roar of the hot air pouring out of the hose. “But we need to keep filling as long as possible. We need to drive all the cold air out the bottom so we get the maximum amount of lift.”
Brenna looked back at the mageservant as it opened the back door and tossed the guard’s limp body through it. Then it closed the door firmly and stood in front of it.
“What did you order them to do?” Anton shouted to Brenna.
“To let no one into the courtyard but us,” Brenna said.
“Can’t Gannick countermand your orders?”
“Only one at a time,” Brenna said. “And he has to touch them with the control wand to do it.”
Anton could hear shouting now from inside the house. The door opened and Gannick took a step outside, wand in hand, but the mageservant reached for him and he backed up so quickly he fell hard on his rear end, then scrambled backward out of sight, his feet, kicking desperately for purchase, the last of him to disappear.
For a few more precious moments, no one attempted to enter the courtyard, but Anton could imagine what was happening on the other side. Gannick would be calling the men-at-arms. They’d be seizing weapons, rushing through the house. And the mageservants-
The mageservants couldn’t stop them for long.
The back door flew open and the mageservant that stood there vanished in a blast of blue fire. The other mageservants raced for the door.
If they can use magic to destroy the mageservants, they can use it on us, Anton thought. “Time to go! Grab the buckles!”
He’d told Brenna what they would have to do. She seized the two buckles closest to her, he seized the others.
Another mageservant blew apart in a blast of blue flame.
“On a count of three,” Anton shouted. “One… two… three!”
Brenna released her buckles. Anton released his. Majestically, steadily, but oh-so-slowly, the airship began to rise.
Two more mageservants became kindling.
“Too slow!” Anton yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here. They’ll use magic-” He turned, grabbed another buckle on the inside of the gondola, hesitated only a moment-then, as the last of the mageservants shattered, opened the buckle; and, in quick succession, all of the other buckles as well.
The ropes on which the sandbags hung fell away, every sandbag plunged to the icy cobblestones, and the airship, like a tethered hawk suddenly set free, shot into the sky.
CHAPTER 14
The healer, when he came, took a look at Karl’s feet, ears, and cheeks, then checked his fingers for good measure, grunted, and said, “Going to have a blister on that one ear, nothing serious. Face is okay. Feet, I’ve got to do something with. Stay still.”
Karl did the best he could, though the pain in his feet seemed to intensify rather than ease as the Healer placed his hands on Karl’s ankles and closed his eyes in rapt concentration. But then, abruptly, the feeling changed. The pain diminished, replaced by what felt like a furious swarm of angry bees. That, too, dropped off rapidly, and
