Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Nine - Geomagnetic Wandering

For lunch, we had crackers (or maybe they were just good hardtack?) with a bit of goat cheese on them. The crackers were cut a bit crooked, and the blocks of cheese weren’t any better. Still, that’s what Awen and Amaryllis placed on the table when the time for lunch came around.

The meal didn’t even begin to match the pile of dishes in the sink, but I chose not to ask why it took three pans to make crackers with cheese.

I had my lunch atop the aftcastle while hanging onto the ship’s wheel with one hand. The wind was still as strong as ever, blowing in from the east and making it a bit hard to navigate in a straight line, but I was confident in my skills.

“Captain,” I heard someone ask.

I turned around in time to see Bastion climbing up to the forecastle. He looked to be at-ease, even after our sparring earlier. That was probably because he didn’t take so much as a single hit. The sylph was surprisingly agile, and a decent teacher when he felt like it.

“Hey Bastion,” I said. “How’s it going?”

He smiled and gave me a firm nod. “It’s going well enough. The Beaver isn’t the largest ship, but the crew is small enough that it doesn’t feel cramped at all. It’s a far cry better than some ships I’ve been aboard.”

“Did you serve on ships before?” I asked. Then I realized that I didn’t know much about his work. “Do paladins serve on ships?”

He laughed and walked up to the rails at the front so that he had something to lean on. “Some do. Most ships have at least one member of the Inquisitorial Guard aboard. But the paladins are sort of a... I suppose you might consider us a side branch of the main body.”

“I really don’t know much about that,” I said.

“Ah, I suppose not. I don’t want to bore you with the details,” he said.

I shook my head. “No no, please tell me everything. Being at the wheel has only been good for freezing my fingers and the tips of my ears off.” I would need to find some gloves, and some socks for my ears. I’d left my earmuffs in my cabin like a big dumb dork.

“If you want,” he said. “The Inquisition was made to watch over both the Church of the World and the rest of the population of Sylphfree on behalf of the royal family. As such their duties are rather wide. Most of the work can be dull, actually. A lot of bookkeeping and verifying that people are paying their dues, that donated gold goes to where it’s meant to, and ensuring that political promises are kept.”

“Huh,” I said. “I thought it would be more religious.”

“Not really. We’re affiliated to the Church, but more to keep an eye on it. There was an incident some time ago. A dark part of our history, where some clergymen grew too big for their wings. The royal family instituted the Inquisition to prevent that from happening.”

“And the paladins are part of that?” I asked.

“They are now. The paladins are an order of knights tasked with the protection of the royal family and its interests above all else.”

“Like an army?”

He shook his head. “No, not quite. There are only a couple hundred paladins, for one. And our hierarchy and duties are entirely different to the army’s. A paladin wouldn’t show up on a battlefield unless a member of the royal family were there. On the other hand, a paladin might be sent on dangerous missions alone. Sometimes as couriers; sometimes as powerful, lone warriors.”

“That sounds really cool!” I gave him a thumbs-up, then plopped another cracker in my mouth and chewed fast so that I could talk more. “I bet there are a lot of kids that want to grow up to be paladins!”

“Hah! There are. I was certainly one of them.” He crossed his arms so that only his elbows touched the rails. He seemed lost staring out ahead. “It’s an interesting job, I’ll give it that.”

“Do you like it?”

He took a moment to respond. “I do. I don’t like how we’ve become so tied at the hip with the Inquisition. I’d rather be chasing down ruffians and criminals over chasing down taxation reports, but I suppose that if that’s what they said in all the stories, we wouldn’t have as many recruits wanting to join.”

“That does sound a bit less fun than being a knight in shining armour and all,” I said.

“Perhaps. I’m quite fortunate to be in my position. Sylphfree might pride itself on being a meritocracy, but the truth of it is that despite the claim, rising to the top is usually done by those who began a step ahead.”

“So you’re not a noble or anything?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m not,” he said. “More of an uplifted gutter rat than anything.”

I snorted. “Neat! We can both have poor origins together, then!”

We spent a moment doing nothing as I hung onto the wheel and felt the wind pushing me from behind, my hair whipping out ahead of me as it escaped my hat.

Bastion pushed himself off the rails and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “I think I’m going to go down below, Captain,” he said.

I grinned over. “Enjoy yourself,” I said. “It’s only just midday, but if you want to take a nap or something, now’s the time.”

He shook his head. “No, I think I’ll do a bit of studying. Fly us safe.”

I saluted him, then caught the wheel as it began to turn on its own.

Bastion left, and I found myself alone atop the forecastle. The wind picked up from behind us, and soon we were hurtling forwards at a decent clip. A glance at the altimeter showed that we were more than high enough, and the compass... was wobbling a bit.

Strange, but maybe that was normal. I’d have to ask Clive about it.

The sky turned a little cloudy, and soon the Beaver charged headlong into a sea of white. For a little stretch I couldn’t even see the deck, but then we burst out the other end and continued sailing until we hit the next cloudbank.

Just in case, I adjusted the gravity engine and gave us a bit more altitude to fly over the clouds.

When they next cleared, I saw that that had been a mistake. We’d been in the lower part of the cloudbank earlier, now we were in the middle. There was plenty of room below, so I adjusted the engine again and we slowly dipped under the cloud sea.

It was nice to just stretch my head back and look up into a sky that felt so close that I could almost touch it.

Time passed, marked as I switched hands. One was always squeezed up in my armpit to thaw while the other held the wheel. It was just too bad I couldn’t do the same for my ears.

“Ahoy there, Captain,” Clive said as he climbed up the steps to join me.

“Hey there, Clive,” I said.

“Sun’s starting to set,” he said while pointing off to the orange sky. Then he frowned and looked out ahead of the ship, then back to the sun. “Captain, any reason why we’re heading due south?”

“Huh?” I asked.

A look at the compass showed that it was spinning one way, then the other.

“We’re heading south?”

“Unless the sun decided that it wants a change in resting places, then yes.”

“Ah,” I said. “What do we do?”

Clive moved over to the edge of the ship and looked down. His expression wasn’t reassuring. “We’re over the Darkwoods.”

“Oh, I’ve been there before,” I said.

“You’ve flown over before?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Dangerous. Real dangerous. There’s a lot of magic in those woods, some of it’s corrupt and foul. Some, ancient and primordial. Sailing over the woods is a bad idea. The winds don’t help any. Currents come from the east, but they swing around the mountains near Mattergrove, and you have warm tides coming in from the desert too.”

I felt the Beaver drop out from under me, as if we’d just lost a whole lot of altitude.

“We’re going to need the maps!” Clive said as he jumped behind the wheel. With a few flicks he changed the pitch of the engine and deployed some sails. “Get the boys up on deck too.”

“R-right!” I said before running off.

I’d made a big mistake, it seemed.

Bursting into the kitchen, I found Steve and Gordon chatting around the table. “We need you on deck,” I said. “Amaryllis, where are the maps?”

Amaryllis poked her head out of her room. “What? What’s going on--” she cut herself off as the Beaver lurched again.

“Maps!”

She was quick to give me a folded map, one with our route traced out across it in red. Our projected route, the one I’d slipped us out of.

I didn’t have time to thank her properly as I followed the boys up and onto the deck, then ran up to the top of the forecastle to join Clive.

“I’ve settled him into a steady flight,” Clive said. “Wind’s at our back, so the prop’s just idling.” He took the map when I handed it to him and looked at it for a moment before staring around us. “Harpy Mountains are over there, we can see the lighthouses for Port Royal way off to the north.”

I turned northwards and could, in fact, make out some lights near the mountains over there. “Can’t ships go to Port Royal with no problem?” I asked. I’d flown aboard ships to and from there before. Also a dragon, but that didn’t count.

“Aye, but Port Royal isn’t in the darkwoods. It’s just shy of it, but not in it. Perfectly smooth flying around there.”

“But not here?” I asked. We were flying pretty smoothly now.

“We’re coasting with it, not fighting against the winds. We’re going to need to push hard south and hope we can fly out over the Empty Sea near Needleford. Should be calmer there.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. That was reassuring. We were off course, but by the looks of it, we would end up pretty close to where we were meant to be. Only an inch off on the map.

Clive hummed. “I don’t like the idea of flying here at night.”

“We can’t exactly just... stop flying,” I said.

He barked a laugh. “Fair. Captain, I’d suggest that we come in for a landing. Find a nice flat plot of land to settle down on for the night, somewhere our anchors can reach. These woods are dangerous, but we’ll be high enough off the ground to keep safe, and we can keep a rotation out to scare off any critters.”

I nodded after just a moment’s hesitation. Clive knew better than I did. “Sure. Where do you think we should land? I know a few places in the woods.”

“Hrm. Hard to tell. I think maybe once we’re past the main body of trees,” Clive said. Less trees, farther from water. We’ll probably find fewer critters out to get us.”

The Beaver spun a little underfoot as a gust battered him aside. “Let’s do it,” I said. “The sooner the better. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

What followed was a hectic hour of Clive calling out orders that I tried to follow as best I could. Amaryllis and Awen joined eventually, pulling their weight as we wrangled the ship into flying in a more or less proper way.

The ground, when I looked over the edge sometimes, was approaching in fits and starts.

I only hoped that the Darkwoods would be as kind to us now as it had been to me before.

***