When Anton woke again, in the bright light of a wintry morning, the young woman-Brenna-he had seen in the night was there, this time accompanied by a thin, neat man wearing a dark-blue tunic and trousers. Something indefinable about him made Anton think, “Doctor.”
Brenna confirmed his guess, nodding to the man. “Thank you, Healer Eddigar. You may leave us.” Although her accent was as thick as ever, the fog in his head seemed to have lifted, and he found it easier to follow than when he had first heard it.
Healer Eddigar nodded. “The guards are right outside if you need anything,” he said, his accent as thick as Brenna’s. He gave Anton a cool, dispassionate look. “His leg should heal normally now. He may rise with a crutch when he is ready.”
I’m right here! Anton thought. Probably thinks I can’t understand him.
Well, then. “Thank you, Healer,” he said.
Eddigar started, but did not reply. He just gave Anton a hard look, then nodded to Brenna and swept out through the inner door. A moment later Anton heard the outer door open and close.
“Good morning,” Brenna said to him then. “Do you remember meeting me last night?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “You introduced yourself then. Brenna, right? And then you said-” And suddenly, so fast and hard that, like a punch to the stomach, it drove a sob from his throat, he remembered what else she had said. “The Professor-”
Brenna pressed her lips together and her eyes turned bright. “I’m afraid it’s true.” She reached out and covered his hand, lying on the coverlet, with her own. “I’m so sorry. He was dead when I saw him. There was nothing anyone could do. But you are lucky to be alive yourself.”
He knew that. A crash into the trees was every airshipman’s nightmare. Only an in-flight fire was more terrifying. But he didn’t feel lucky. He felt… lost. What do I do now? Professor? What am I supposed to do now?
No answer came floating through the ether from beyond the grave. The Professor had believed in no gods, no soul, no hope for life beyond that enjoyed in this world in the physical body. Anton shared, or thought he shared, that same hard-nosed, practical belief… or lack of belief. But now he wished the Professor had been wrong, and that, as the god-followers claimed, words of comfort from the newly dead could truly be heard if only he prayed hard enough.
Brenna cleared her throat and said gently, “Your name is Anton?”
He blinked away the tears that had fogged his vision and said, “Yes.”
“That’s all? Just Anton?”
He felt his face flush, but she couldn’t be expected to know that in Hexton Down his single name was a mark of shame, that with no known father he could not take a family name until he was twenty-one years of age.
But then, he wasn’t in Hexton Down anymore, was he? And though he was still three years from his age of majority, he knew already what name he would take. “Anton… Carteri.” That’s for you, Professor, he thought. I always meant to take your name when I came of age. I just did it a little too early…
… and a little too late. His eyes stung with fresh tears.
“Well, Anton Carteri. You are in the manor of Lord Falk, Minister of Public Safety for His Royal Majesty Kravon, King of Evrenfels, Holder of the Keys to the Lesser and Great Barriers.”
Anton blinked. None of those names or titles meant anything to him. “Congratulations,” he said. “You managed all that with one breath.”
She grinned, her nose crinkling and her eyes twinkling and her apparent age suddenly dropping several years. “I practice a lot,” she said. “Well, Anton Carteri. Would you like to join me for breakfast? As you heard, Healer Eddigar said,” she managed a credible impersonation of the Healer’s rather pompous tone, “you may get up if you use a crutch.”
As soon as she mentioned breakfast, Anton realized he was starving. “Would I!” He started to fling back the covers, realized something, and hesitated. “Um, Brenna? I’ll, uh, need some clothes.. .?”
Her grin widened just a bit; there was something mischievous about it. “Of course, Anton. Lord Falk… my guardian… summoned a tailor from the village. He’s waiting outside with a selection of clothing. I’ll send him in.”
“Thank you,” Anton said.
“Don’t mention it,” Brenna said. “You are our guest here. Whatever you need, you have only to ask.” She turned and went out through the door, closing it behind her; a moment later it opened again to reveal an elderly gentleman in a plain black tunic and leggings, arms laden with clothes.
The man offered him underwear, then turned his back while Anton swung his legs out from under the covers. He glanced down at the injured one. It bore an angry red scar, and certainly it was sore.. . very sore, he realized when he tried to put weight on it… but how had the wound closed so rapidly? Without a single stitch?
Puzzled, he pulled on the underwear, then let the elderly gentleman measure him.
Half an hour later, dressed in plain black trousers and an open-necked, rather puffy-sleeved white shirt (the tailor having promised to provide him with a wider selection of clothes within a day or two), and also washed, shaved, and combed, Anton found himself sitting down to breakfast in a flower-bedecked breakfast nook filled with rainbows from the sun streaming through the chiseled edges of the many tiny panes of glass above and all around.
Brenna, who had stood as he hobbled in with the help of the crutch he had found leaning against the foot of his bed, sat opposite him, took her napkin, and delicately spread it on her lap, the linen, white as the snow outside, in brilliant contrast to the thick red velvet of her dress.
Anton wondered if he’d hit his head harder than he’d thought when he crashed. That was not the sort of the thing he usually noticed.
But then the food arrived, and he forgot everything else. In fact, he was so focused on the fresh bread, butter, honey, scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage piled on his plate, that it took him a moment to realize the servant who had put it before him had only three fingers, made of jointed, polished wood. He started, his first bite of sausage halfway to his mouth, and looked up.
The servant had no face, either: just a round wooden head emblazoned with a symbol in paint that glowed faintly blue. A chill air flowed off of it, as though it were made of ice.
He gaped at it, sausage momentarily forgotten. “What-?”
“Hmm?” Brenna had calmly taken a bite of bread and honey. She followed his gaze. “Oh, the mageservant. We have quite a few; more of those than the human kind, actually. Lord Falk likes them. Now, please try the eggs, they’re from our prize-winning-”
“It doesn’t have a face!”
“Of course not. What would it do with one?” Brenna cocked her head to one side. “You’ve never seen a mageservant before?”
“No.” Now that he was over the shock, Anton was fascinated. He put down his fork. “So how is it done? Is it like a… a marionette? Does it have a motor inside? Or clockwork? How on Earth can you give it instructions to do something as complicated as serving? Perforated tape, or-?”
“Motor? Perforated tape?” Brenna frowned. “I don’t know what those words mean. No, it has nothing inside. Though I suppose you could think of it as a marionette, except of course it’s moved by magic, not strings. Its duties are written into the spell that motivates it, and can be changed as need. The spell is renewed once a week or so.”
Anton stared at her. “Magic? You… the people here… you believe in magic?”
From the expression on her face, you’d have thought he’d suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. “Do we ‘believe in magic?’ What an odd question. It’s like asking, ‘Do you believe in the sun?’ There’s not much choice, is there? I mean, it just is.”
Anton felt like a shipwrecked sailor floundering in a tossing sea. “But… magic… it doesn’t exist. Not where I come from. There are legends from long ago, and some people enjoy reading magical-adventure novels or going to the wonder plays, but those are just stories. You’re saying that here magic is real?” The mageservant stood by, impassive. Anton suddenly got up and limped around the mannequin, looking for strings or pulleys. “It’s not a trick?” He reached out a finger toward the glowing blue symbol on the mageservant’s “face.”
“Don’t-” Brenna said sharply, but not before Anton’s finger contacted the blue-glowing paint. He jerked it back at once.
“Ow!” For a moment he thought the symbol had been hot, and he’d burned himself; but when he examined his fingertip he saw a dead-white patch and realized it had actually been intensely cold; he’d frozen the skin.
“-touch it,” Brenna finished. She sighed. “Most children learn not to touch symbols when they’re toddlers.”
“I can see why.” He shook his hand ruefully. “You can actually use magic!”
“Not me personally,” she said softly. “I am a Commoner, not Mageborn. But Lord Falk, whose house this is… and whom you’ll meet shortly… is a very powerful mage. And this house is built on one of the veins of the Evrenfels magic lode, and above a great source of energy, an eternally burning rock gas flame deep in the cellars. Falk has more mageservants than any other MageLord in the Kingdom, I’ve been told. More than the Palace, in fact, where they prefer to use Commoners.”
The mageservant, which had stood as still as furniture while Anton examined it, suddenly came to life, making Anton jump back. It turned on its spindly wooden legs and clattered on oversized wooden feet to the sideboard, where it filled a glass with red-purple juice from a moisture-dewed crystal decanter. It brought the glass back and held it out to Anton. As he took it gingerly from the three-fingered hand and stared again at the convoluted glowing symbol on the blank wooden head, he thought, Magic is real.
He could almost see the Professor’s scowl. “No, it is not,” he would have said. “There is a rational explanation. We just have to find it.”
Just as he had been convinced that the Anomaly must also have some natural explanation, Anton thought. But then, if magic works… and it obviously does… than I suppose it is natural. By definition: anything that exists is natural. He smiled a little sadly. Though it had been his thought, that had sounded very much like Professor Carteri.
The Professor would have been the first to admit that natural philosophers did not yet know all the secrets of the workings of the universe. Confronted with the undeniable, he would have made room within his beliefs for magic… and then he would have set about learning everything he could about it.
Grief, momentarily forgotten, crashed in again. Professor Carteri was dead. Anton was alone, utterly alone, in a place far stranger than either of them had ever dreamed of finding inside the Anomaly. Anton stepped away from the bizarrely animated wooden figure and sat down hard in his chair. Head down, he blinked furiously to clear the embarrassing evidence of weakness from his vision, then raised his eyes to see Brenna looking at him compassionately… and curiously
… from across the table. She smiled, and a bit of the strangeness receded. At least he seemed to be a guest, not a prisoner, in this strange new world… and to have found a most pleasant guide to its mysterious ways.
And at least they weren’t going to starve him. The delectable smells wafting from his plate drove away his fears and doubts, at least for the moment, and he gave himself over to filling the deep, empty pit his stomach had become while he slept.
When the need to eat had become a little less urgent, Anton began to ask questions. The answers he received sounded like they came straight from one of those cheap magical-adventure novels he’d mentioned to Brenna. He would have dismissed it all as ludicrous fantasy if not for the unmistakable, solid fact of the mageservant, quickly and efficiently clearing away the dishes while Brenna talked.
What she told him boiled down to one astonishing fact. Within the mysterious Anomaly he and the Professor had come to this remote part of the world to investigate lay a hidden Kingdom where magic worked-a Kingdom, in fact, ruled by magicians: the MageLords.
Anton had never been very good at history back in Sutton Sterling’s Preparatory School, even before he’d run away and taken to the streets of Hexton Down. He’d focused most of his intellectual powers on the considerable challenges of evading the unwelcome attentions of the older boys, and sneaking off the school grounds to run wild through the streets. But he’d learned a few things during his apprenticeship with the Professor over the past three years, and he’d always been a voracious, if indiscriminate, reader. “MageLords” was a word he had come across before; it was the name given to the tyrannical rulers of an ancient empire that had once held sway over the great island now known as Krellend and a large portion of the west coast of the First Continent, including what was now the city of Hexton Down but had then been a tiny fishing village.
The MageLords had been driven from the mainland to Krellend, pursued by an army, retreating at last to their capital city of Stromencor. Presumably there had been a siege, and perhaps even a final battle. Stromencor might have fallen, or the MageLords might have rallied to push back the attackers. No one knew, because the city, the MageLords, and the surrounding armies of Commoners were all destroyed by an enormous natural disaster of some kind, a vast explosion-presumably volcanic-that had reduced the city to rubble, flattened forests and fields with a scorching wind, and burned every living thing caught within it to charred bones and drifting ashes. To this day, nothing grew on Krellend, where the very soil had been turned to glass and cinders.
On the mainland, the alliance against the MageLords had been short-lived. Petty kings had arisen and fought, towns were built, laid waste, rebuilt, abandoned. Gradually larger kingdoms had coalesced; and finally, some two hundred years ago now, the Union Republic had been forged from a dozen of those squabbling kingdoms. After a couple of civil wars, a new era of peace had unleashed a golden age of science, philosophy, art, and history.
From the very beginning of their study of the MageLord Empire, historians had been divided over exactly who or what the MageLords had been, and what the old records meant by “magic.” Since, self-evidently, magic was not real, the MageLords could not really have been the powerful wizards of the old stories. The prevailing opinion was that the MageLords had somehow leaped past their neighbors in technological know-how, their greater ability being interpreted as magic by those they conquered. The successful rebellion had supposedly been led by someone calling himself “The Magebane” (obviously a nom de guerre), who apparently stole the MageLords’ own “magical” technology and outfitted his own armies with it, allowing them to use their superior numbers to overrun the kingdom. The final cataclysm had simply been a coincidence, an astronomically (or perhaps geologically) unlikely coincidence, but a coincidence nonetheless.
But if Brenna spoke truth, the MageLords had been exactly what their name implied: lords of magic, with inborn abilities to manipulate matter and energy simply by force of will. They had used that power to create and then rule an empire. Cruelly, according to the history Anton had been taught; benevolently, according to Brenna. She claimed those long-gone MageLords had used their magic to help the nonmagical “Commoners” they ruled live happier and healthier lives. According to her, the uprising had not been against oppressive government, but based on religion. A new cult had sprung up that saw magic as a tool of the King of Demons, and had used the latent resentment of the MageLords among the various conquered peoples to eventually ignite the revolution that forced the MageLords to flee for their lives.
Anton had never heard of such a religion, but said nothing.
The conflagration that had destroyed Krellend, Brenna said, must have been the backlash of the enormous energy the MageLords had expended in transporting themselves and their loyal followers instantly to the other side of the world… here!… where they had founded the Kingdom of Evrenfels, and hidden themselves safely behind the Great Barrier.
That Barrier, Brenna said, would stand for at least another two centuries, then the MageLords would emerge peacefully into the larger world once more, a world hopefully purged of the superstition that had driven them into hiding, and once more bend their magical abilities to the betterment of all humanity.
“At least, that’s what I was taught,” Brenna said as she finished. Anton looked at her sharply-was that doubt in her voice?-but her expression was smooth and with her accent, he couldn’t be sure. He reached for another scone, wondering if Brenna shared his feeling that they were both skating on thin ice, circling the open water of the fact that he was descended from those who had driven the Mageborn into exile, and that his presence here meant the Mageborn were no longer safely isolated from their former enemies; and the fact that Brenna, though not herself Mageborn, was the ward of one of the most powerful MageLords in the kingdom.
And then someone came into the breakfast nook from the hallway outside, and Anton suspected the ice had just given way.
Tall, thin, with a sharp-edged face and hair the color of frosted steel, the new arrival wore a gray tunic and trousers, boots so highly polished they might have been covered with glass, and a similarly polished belt into which a pair of black leather gloves were neatly tucked. Around his neck he wore a plain disk of gold on a fine-linked chain.
A cool draft seemed to follow him in from the hall, as though winter had accompanied him into the room. Brenna, seeing him, got to her feet at once. Anton didn’t know why, exactly, but he copied her a heartbeat later, though his leg twinged beneath him.
“Anton,” Brenna said, “Allow me to present my guardian, Lord Falk.”
Anton wondered if he should bow, but settled for raising his hand. “Hi,” he said, sounding incredibly lame, even to himself.
“Welcome to my home,” said Lord Falk. “And to the Kingdom of Evrenfels.”
“Um… thank you.”
“Did you enjoy your breakfast?”
Anton glanced at the all-but-empty table. “Very much,” he said truthfully.
“How is your leg?”
“Still a little sore, but I didn’t expect to be able to walk for a week, so I can’t really complain.”
“I’ve asked for another Healer to examine you. Not that Eddigar is not very good, but Mother Northwind has exceptional skills. Possibly she can relieve the pain you are still feeling.”
Anton glanced at Brenna, who wore a puzzled frown.
Falk indicated the door. “She’s waiting in my study, if you’d care to accompany me?”
“Uh… sure,” Anton said. He didn’t exactly feel he had a choice. He took his crutch from where it leaned against the breakfast table and limped out in the wake of the tall gray figure. Brenna started to follow, but Lord Falk stopped. “I don’t think you need to accompany us, Brenna,” he said. “Mother Northwind may want privacy for her examination.”
Brenna stopped. “I’ll talk to you again later,” she called after Anton, who gave her a quick wave with his free hand.
To Anton’s relief, Falk’s study was on the same floor as the breakfast nook, just inside and to the left of the big front doors. He’d managed to descend the stairs with his crutch, but he wasn’t looking forward to the return trip.
Dark wood panels covered those few parts of the study’s walls not hidden by locked, glass-fronted bookcases lined with tomes Anton would dearly have loved to get a good look at. He had not donned shoes that morning, and his stockinged feet sank into thick, dark-red carpet. That color repeated high above on the ceiling, showing between crisscrossing beams of dark wood, in the upholstery of the chair behind the desk… and in the armchair in the far corner, right beside one of the two tall, narrow windows, where a figure, half-hidden in shadow, awaited them.
Falk sat behind the gnarled desk. It appeared to have been carved out of a massive tree stump, the polished top revealing several centuries of rings. The only things on that desk were a stack of fresh white paper, a fountain pen, and a bottle of ink. Anton was relieved to see that not everything in this strange place was done by magic.
Falk gestured to the two armchairs, identical to the one in the corner by the window, facing him across the desk. “Please, be seated,” he said.
“Thank you… Lord Falk.” It felt odd and archaic to be calling someone “Lord,” but when in Evrenfels… With a glance at that shadowy figure in the corner, which had yet to speak or even move, he seated himself carefully, leaning the crutch against the arm of the chair.
“Allow me to present Mother Northwind,” Lord Falk said, nodding to the seated figure. For the first time it moved, raising its arms and pulling back the hood that had shrouded its face, then leaning forward to reveal…
… the kindly face of an old woman who could have been Anton’s grandmother.
Not that he knew who his grandmother was.
The reality was so much less ominous than the foreboding born of light and shadow that Anton almost laughed out loud.
“Good morning, young man,” said Mother Northwind. “Welcome to Evrenfels.”
“Thank you… um, Mother?” That felt even odder in his mouth than “Lord,” and he wondered if it was the correct greeting, but it seemed to be. Mother Northwind did not correct him.
The old woman got to her feet, joints audibly creaking. “Now, then, young man,” she said. “If you’ll just take off all your clothes
…”
Anton gaped, not knowing what to say, and Mother Northwind laughed a long, cackling laugh which for some reason earned a raised eyebrow from Lord Falk. “Well, it was worth a try,” she said. “Just joking, youngster. You can stay dressed.”
“Um… thank you,” Anton said. “I’m afraid I would get chilly, otherwise.” He hadn’t been around old people very much… well, not at all, really… and was a little shocked at her sense of humor, but he found himself liking Mother Northwind-even more so when she laughed again.
“All I need to do is touch you for a few minutes,” said Mother Northwind.
“Touch me where?” Anton said dryly.
Mother Northwind chuckled. “Your hands will do, young man… for now.”
“All right.”
Mother Northwind sat down in the other chair in front of the desk, then leaned toward Anton, holding out her hands, palms up. Anton placed his hands in hers, and her fingers, dry and bony, closed around them.
“Close your eyes,” Mother Northwind said. Anton did so. “Now…”
Something… happened. The sensations were sudden, disorienting. A feeling of pressure, then of dizziness; a rushing sound, a smell of burning; a sense of cold, then heat, then tingling; images, snatches of conversation; a moment’s heart-stopping pain, gone almost before he registered it…
Anton found himself slumped in his chair, bathed in sweat. He blinked and shakily straightened. “What-”
Mother Northwind stood over him, a strange expression on her face. “You’re perfectly healthy, young man,” she said. “Healer Eddigar has done his work well.” She glanced at Lord Falk.
“Thank you, Mother Northwind,” Lord Falk said. “If you’ll see Gannick, I’m sure he can find you some breakfast. I’ll talk with you a little later on.”
Mother Northwind nodded and went out without another word.
What just happened? Anton thought. He remembered the strange feeling he’d had when he’d awakened in the night to find Brenna in his room, that feeling of something outside himself pushing down at his consciousness. This had been similar, only far more intense-something from outside that had somehow found itself into his inner being. Magic! he thought. He was beginning to hate the stuff. No wonder his ancestors had revolted.
“I’m pleased Mother Northwind has found you healthy, Anton,” Lord Falk said. “I apologize if there was any discomfort.”
Anton still felt a little shaky, but the feeling was fading quickly. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’m just… unused to the way you do things here.”
“Ah, yes. Magic. Well.” Lord Falk leaned forward and rested his elbows on the edge of his desk. In anyone else it might have seemed casual, almost friendly; in Falk it was more intimidating than anything else. “We are equally unused to the way you do things outside the Kingdom, it seems. You flew into our Kingdom in a… machine. Something we have never seen before. So… I need reassurance from you. I need you to reassure me that you are not a scout for a planned aerial invasion of our Kingdom.”
Anton blinked. He hadn’t expected that. “I’m not, sir,” he said. “Uh, Lord Falk. In fact, most of the people back in Elkbone-the village the Professor and I launched from-thought we were crazy. They certainly weren’t preparing to follow us. They thought we were committing suicide.”
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 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.