Twilight Voyage

  The waning of magic on Mani, on the other hand, is just as little spoken of, even in the Kystrean Mage Councils. Countless stories are told of feats that none in recent years have been able to perform using even the highest Authority. And many scribes have written over the last three centuries of the fact that with each generation, magic seems to slowly ebb away. Quietly, imperceptibly—like a woman’s hair whose length is robbed of just a mite every year, beneath her notice. Or a road to the nearest village that lengthens every year, though an old man not notice his walk from the farm growing longer and longer . . . .

  — From Secrets of Mani, by Sor the Lark

  (San’Hal 3, 997—Zenith)

  I eventually left them to their studies to search for Cort Flanning and Syneria Tolruin, the two mage scholars that Rhidea had brought with us to Randhorn three months back. Though I soon found out that Syneria was out on field study in the nearby town of Faliday. That left the blond menace, Cort. Why wasn’t that rascal helping Rhidea already?

  I found him in one of the studies near the scroll archives. He looked up as I arrived, and then brushed back a long lock of fine gold hair. “And what do you want?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “Cort! Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

  “Um, but you’re not old. I have old friends, but they’re mostly among the scholars.” He paused for a moment and then sighed. “All right, all right. I’m just messing with you. I’m glad you all got back safely.”

  I considered slapping the young man, but then I got a hold of my feminine impulses and remembered that, with my strength, I might accidentally hurt him. “Good to see you, too,” is all I said.

  He showed me what he’d been working on—some scientific research regarding air currents, something that Rhidea had set him on. After about five minutes of trying to understand it, I gave up and headed outside to find a good tower to climb.

  (San’Hal 9, 997—Sunset)

  Six days later, at the tail end of the Sunlit Cycle, Rhidea entered the rooms where Mydia and I were staying and announced: “Our preparations are complete. We are ready to head out to Scathii.”

  Mydia looked up from her desk where she studied her mother’s book, Secrets of Mani. “We’re finally ready? You mean to leave this morning?”

  The High Mage nodded. Her face, impassive as ever, looked so . . . old as she stood there in the doorway, leaning one hand on the oak trim. The lines of age on her face, usually so faint, stood out more, belying the face of an almost ancient woman, wiser than I could ever hope to be. How old was she, anyway? She looked so tired. “I had my colleagues working on a few bits of research for the trip.”

  She waved a few sheets of parchment in her free hand. “But now it’s ready. As ready as it can be. We don’t have much time to waste,” she added, before turning to walk away.

  My queen and I looked at each other. “You heard her,” she said unexcitedly.

  We packed up our things and made preparations to depart for the eastern coast. We met Kaen by the Palace entrance, where Cae Rhidea stood holding a large leather bag, talking with King Fenwel. As we strode up, she gave the King one last bow, and then slung the pack over her shoulder and turned half around to face us. “Let’s be off.”

  We said our goodbyes to the wonderful King Fenwel and followed after Lady Rhidea. Mydia whispered in my ear as we went, “How does she do it, Lyn? Looking so . . . cool? Stately, yet mature.”

  I chuckled softly. Queen research? “I have no idea, Mydia. She’s Cae Rhidea, so I’m not sure she’s really a regular human like us.”

  The mage turned her head as she led us down the East Road. “What are we whispering about, girls?”

  “Your old age,” I said evenly.

  Our teacher gave a snort. “Well, that’s not so bad. Not something I’m ashamed of. Age is wisdom, after all.”

  “Not all folks get wiser with age,” Kaen pointed out. “Some never learn.”

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  “That is true. But those ones usually don’t live that long in any case.”

  “Fair point.” Kaen squinted up at her as he walked. “Huh. Maybe you’re wiser than I thought.”

  Another snort, this time from Mydia.

  We arrived at the coast an hour and a half later, as the coast of the continent was little more than a five-mile hike from Randhorn. Sol lit us from behind, creeping closer toward the horizon as we crested the last hill and got our first view of the coast. I couldn’t help but gasp; nothing I had heard could prepare me for the sight. Grass of the palest green, no longer grey, stretched a half mile in front of us, down a gentle slope to an abrupt edge where the world dropped off. And beyond . . . beyond lay the great expanse.

  The Sea of Emptiness.

  Grey fog rose up from the depths, blending with the horizon, and rising above that were the majestic sky islands. They were scattered across the horizon, floating chunks of grey rock topped with more grass and buildings here and there. Sky ferries moved back and forth between them from station to station. One such station lay at the bottom of the hill before us. The East Road, which was more of a well-worn path now, led right down to it.

  “Welcome,” Rhidea said grandly, gesturing toward the vast drop-off and the island-dotted sky beyond, “to the Sea of Emptiness.” Then she admitted, “Actually, I have only been here once, and it was long before any of you were born. I hardly remember the place. My, what a sight.” She stood admiring the view along with us for a minute, before proceeding down the long hill. “Come on. Let’s see about getting ourselves a ferry out to the islands.”

  It was a gate town of sorts. We entered on the East Road and strode in nonchalantly. Some of the buildings looked to be residential houses while others were warehouses, shops and other businesses. The local workers mostly lived on the Sky Islands, apparently, and took the ferries to and from home. I couldn’t wait to see how these ferries worked. I was pretty sure that Rhidea’s plan for crossing the chasm had something to do with those ferries and hovering ships which were able to traverse the open air. Marvelous technology, that.

  The street terminated at a section labeled “Docking.” Indeed, there were docks stretching a hundred yards to either side, with their skyships, small and large, moored here and there. A couple of the smaller ferries were just coming in from the nearest island, which was one of the biggest. I heard a couple of the workers call it Noduin.

  Rhidea stopped and asked one of the dockworkers about passage to Noduin, but they all but turned her away. Irritated, she set about searching for the man in charge. Kaen used this chance to show his way with people, especially workers of this type, and proceeded to coax some helpful advice out of one of the swarthy men.

  “Ye looks loike outsiders to me,” said the sky sailor. “But if you go through the roight channels, ye can find passage to wherever you’d loike.” He pointed at a run-down shack on the far-right side of the docks. “Old Carth knows people.”

  We found the man in the shack as promised, an old man who looked like he got washed, wrung out and hung up to dry repeatedly. He sat drinking a pint of ale in an old wicker chair. “Whaddya want?” he called grumpily from the back of the cabin.

  “Passage,” Kaen said. “Passage to Noduin.”

  “What fer? Ye don’t look like locals ta me. Nor do ye look like yer in the cargo business.” He lifted his head back and squinted at us. “Highfalutin folk, eh? Well, if ye want passage, you’ve come to the right place, because Old Carth doesn’t ask many questions. Do ye have coin?”

  Kaen looked to me, and I tilted my head to one side briefly. “Enough.”

  Old Carth gave a grunt. “A’ight then. Follow me.”

  We met up with Rhidea outside, and in short order, Old Carth’s men were readying a ferry for us. “How?” she asked in some frustration.

  I grinned and pointed at Kaen.

  “I have my ways,” he said. “I guess your old-timer persuasion skills just don’t cut it sometimes.”

  We paid up to Old Carth, and one of his men motioned for us to board the small wooden boat. It was perhaps fifteen feet long and six feet wide, with a thin, light hull made up of leather-overlaid boards with bracers running in between at intervals and long fins sticking out of the sides almost like wings. We all stared wide-eyed at it, watching it rock gently from side to side. The ferryman laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said in his accented voice, though his was lighter than that of the other men we’d talked to. “She’s quite safe. Last person who fell and died off my boat was a man called Ferriman, and that was years ago.” His face was completely straight. When he saw that his words weren’t helping us, he added, “That was because he was a fool and leaned out over the side. You’re supposed to stay in the boat.”

  We stared at him for a minute, and he added, “He was also drunk.”

  Mydia gulped audibly. “How far down is it?”

  “Mighty far. We think it’s infinite. Most folks think you will just keep falling and falling, though some think there’s a bottom where you’ll eventually just splat like a large fruit.”

  The Queen winced, turning her head and squeezing her eyes and mouth shut in one of the most painful grimaces I’d ever seen. “Th-that’s . . . that’s not the image I needed right now.”

  Rhidea climbed stoically into the boat, stiffly but steadily. The boatman took her hand in a gentlemanly way and helped her to her seat toward the front of the boat. She crossed her legs and looked at the rest of us with forced relaxation. “It’s . . . not so bad.”

  Kaen went next, and then me, and lastly Mydia. The boatman helped each of us to our seats, seating Mydia right up against Kaen in a comical scene. He looked as uncomfortable as I’d ever seen him, almost strangely so, as she clutched his arm for support.

  I realized suddenly that the boatman was speaking to us.

  “—The railing, because you can’t rely on it too much. Just stay still in your seat and you’ll be perfectly safe. It will be about fifteen minutes to Noduin.”

  Rhidea’s attention was fixed very tightly on the man as he started the boat moving, her discomfort giving way to fascination. It seemed to hover completely on its own. The sailor used a long oar to shove off after untying the ropes that held the craft to the dock, and we were moving. Then he went back to the front of the boat and said, “We’re off.”