At least, he thought, as Falk continued talking, I don’t actually have to remember any of this.
He would deliver a message, all right, but the message would be, “Be ready. The Anomaly is falling. And not everyone on the other side wishes us well.”
“Tell them to send for your military, or take up arms themselves, or make whatever preparations they need to defend themselves,” Mother Northwind had told him. “I hope it won’t be necessary. If my own plans are successful, the MageLords will be powerless, the magical weapons their army depends on disabled, and the Commoners in revolt against them. If the Barrier falls within the month, Anton, that is what will have happened.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Anton had asked.
“If the Barrier is still in place within a month, I will have failed,” Mother Northwind had said, her voice harsh. “The next thing to watch for will be the Barrier falling in the spring. If that happens, then the MageLords retain power, Falk is King, and an army will ride out of Evrenfels intent on conquering every community close to the Barrier, as a first step to sweeping across the world in the years to come.”
“We have weapons they don’t know anything about,” Anton had said.
“And they have weapons you can’t even imagine,” Mother Northwind had countered. “Falk destroyed City Hall in New Cabora with a flick of his hand. The army is equipped not only with swords and spears and bows, but enchanted weapons that can throw flame, crush skulls, and spray killing needles of ice.”
Anton pictured an army of magicians advancing, striking down their enemies with lightning from on high… could the Union Republic’s army stand against that? The sheer impossible terror of it would wreak havoc. Men would break and flee. And once Falk’s army had faced the weapons the Outsiders could bring to bear, they would know how to counteract them next time.
“I’ll warn them,” he had said, and so he would. But will they believe me?
“Good.” Mother Northwind had paused. “There is one other possibility. If my own plans go awry, I may still be able to thwart Falk’s. In which case the Barrier will remain in place, with the MageLords safely locked behind it… for now. Eventually, someone may rediscover what Falk and I have learned, but I do not think that will happen soon. And the Barrier won’t fall on its own for another two centuries.”
“Just what are your plans, and Falk’s?” Anton had asked. “Brenna seems to be crucial to them both. What are you going to do to her?”
“I?” Mother Northwind had raised her hands, palms out. “I mean her no harm at all. Far from it. For my plans to succeed, she must remain unharmed.” She’d leaned closer. “But let this drive you even more to get the Outside world ready to stand against Falk if he succeeds. For his plans to be fulfilled… Brenna must die.”
“What?” Anton had found himself standing, with no memory of having jumped up. “He can’t-you have to stop him!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do, boy?” Mother Northwind snapped. “I told you, I need her alive. Of course I’ll stop him, if I can. There’s nothing you can do about it, at any rate. But just keep that little fact in mind should you be tempted to betray me to him!”
“Not a chance in hell,” Anton had said, and meant it.
“… think you can do that for me, my boy?” Falk said, finishing his instructions.
“Yes, my lord!” Anton said. “It will be a great pleasure.”
“Good. Well, then, the first thing is to make sure that this airship of yours is still working. And this time we’ll see about finding you whatever it is you need to get these propeller engines of yours working…”
The next couple of days went by in a blur as Anton supervised the process of getting the airship airworthy once more. He had thought rock gas might be impossible to get, but in fact it was used for heating in the wealthier parts of New Cabora, where some Mageborn lived in their own walled enclaves. No pipeline brought it. The well it was drawn from had been drilled by magic a hundred miles to the southeast, and the enchanted wellhead magically transported the gas from there to the homes that burned it. Anton shook his head at that, but it was only one wonder among many he had seen, and hardly the greatest. As long as the gas was there and could fill his fuel tanks, he didn’t care how they got it.
The airship could not be launched from inside the Lesser Barrier, obviously, and Falk, equally obviously, did not have any interest in letting it be widely known that he was in contact with the Outside. And so the repair work had all been done five miles outside the city, in the walled yard of a Mageborn-owned horse farm. Every morning Anton rode out there in a horseless magecarriage with two Royal guards. Every evening the magecarriage returned him to the Palace.
Until, on a still, bitterly cold morning three days after his interview with Falk, Anton stood in the gondola once more, the envelope filled with hot air, burner and propeller engine fully fueled, a full complement of sandbags strung along the gondola’s rim.
He was not alone. Falk had insisted on sending an “assistant” with him, a Mageborn guard named Spurl who, Anton suspected, was proof that Falk did not quite trust him as much as Mother Northwind had assured Falk he could be trusted. Well, let the guard come, Anton thought. Once we’re Outside, I’m quite sure I can handle a single guard, magic or not. If magic even works outside the Anomaly.
They’d soon see.
The airship, fully inflated, tugged restlessly at the ropes belayed to four posts around the courtyard, watched over by guards who stared uneasily up at the huge blue balloon as though afraid it might topple over on them at any moment. Spurl, in full uniform with a heavy blue cloak added for warmth, clutched the edge of the gondola, already looking as though he was thinking about being sick.
Falk stood a few feet from the gondola. “The SkyMage protect you,” he intoned. “Carry out my wishes, Anton, as you love me.”
Keep acting, Anton thought, although after that, he thought he was closer to throwing up than Spurl was. Keep acting. “I don’t know if I can ever repay you as you deserve, my lord,” he said, and that, at least, was truth. “But perhaps this will be a start.”
He leaned out of the gondola and shouted to the men standing ready by the ropes, “Cast away on my mark! One… two… three… mark!”
The ropes were let slip. The airship began to rise. Spurl gasped and gripped the edge of the gondola so tightly his gloved knuckles audibly popped.
Coward, Anton thought contemptuously. Brenna was less frightened than that.
Brenna. He wished he’d had a chance to talk to her. What would she think when she found out he’d gone back Outside? What had she been told? Did she think Mother Northwind had really twisted his mind to make him Falk’s puppet?
Did she know that Falk meant to kill her?
Anton felt helpless… but that would change. He would deliver his message to the Outside world, but he wouldn’t stay to see how that world reacted to it. As soon as he could, he would be coming back across the Barrier… without you, he thought with a contemptuous glance at Spurl… and he would find a way to protect Brenna.
He had never been in love. He didn’t know if he was now. All he knew was that he was willing to risk his life to do everything in his power to keep Brenna from being hurt.
Sounds like a good working definition of love, he thought. He seated himself in the pilot’s seat, took the wheel, and opened the throttle of the propeller engine. The big blades began to spin, and the airship began to move. Spurl gasped again and sat down hard in the bottom of the gondola, hiding his face.
Anton ignored him, and set a course for the Anomaly… and the Outside.
CHAPTER 24
Locked in her palatial prison, Brenna waited for Falk to come interrogate her, both fearing it and wishing he would get it over with. She went back and forth on the question of telling him that the men his guards had killed had been taking them to Mother Northwind. On the one hand, it might sow confusion between the two of them. On the other hand, why should she help Falk? If Mother Northwind were working at cross-purposes to Falk, why not let her work?
