The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein) Read Free Page B

frequently to hand them back up to their companions or to just get them pointed in the right direction. “It’s not the ones who are still trying to move you’ve got to worry about,” he commented to Tremaine, hauling himself out onto the stone pathway again, dripping with the stagnant water and with his arms and chest stained with moss. “If they have to be carried, there’s more chance they might go dead later.”
    Tremaine grabbed the shoulder of his shirt, more to steady herself than him, since he was far more surefooted on the slippery stone. “What do you mean ‘go dead’?” Her knowledge of Syrnaic having come from a spell rather than studying the language, she found she actually did know some of the local idiom, but this one escaped her.
    Ilias pushed to his feet, tossed the wet hair out of his eyes and moved after the others. “It’s when someone’s been caught or had their village cursed by a wizard, and they just never get over it. They won’t talk, won’t recognize their family, won’t eat or drink unless you make them. You’ve seen that before?”
    “Yes, I know what you mean.” Tremaine digested that, not liking the implications. If the other Syprians were really that affected by exposure to magic, then that didn’t bode well for a future contact between the cities of the Syrnai and Ile-Rien’s government-in-exile. The Andrien family had accepted them, but then they had felt obligated by all the mutual lifesaving that had gone on between Tremaine, Florian and Ander when they had been stranded in the underground city searching for Gerard, and Ilias, who had been likewise searching for Giliead. And Giliead’s mother Karima had managed to reconcile herself to having a son who was a Chosen Vessel, so getting used to the idea of wizards as allies probably wasn’t as hard for her as the others. Tremaine had noted that Halian’s son Nicanor, the current lawgiver of Cineth, had barely deigned to look at them.
    “Anything I should know?” Basimi asked, glancing cautiously back at them. The conversation had been in Syrnaic and he hadn’t understood it.
    He was a hard-faced wiry man who was one of the few who had volunteered to follow Ander back to this world to infiltrate the Gardier base. Tremaine knew nothing about him except that he probably wasn’t a traitor like Rulan. “Just chatting,” she told him.
    The first of the refugees must have reached the cove long before them. As they finally climbed up the canal’s embankment near the bluff, Tremaine foundered in the sudden high wind. Following the last of the stragglers, Basimi staggered under the burden of the wireless. Ilias stopped, looking worriedly up at the cloud-heavy sky. “This isn’t natural,” he muttered. Tremaine was uncomfortably reminded of the spell-driven storm that had swamped the Pilot Boat when they had first been stranded on the island.
    She stumbled around the rocks to see the little sandy cove and the even more welcome sight of two motor launches moored in the shallows. They were sturdy boats, each almost forty feet long, painted gray to match the Ravenna ’s war camouflage, with steel hulls, diesel engines and canvas canopies to protect the occupants from the weather. The surf rolled in around them, white and frothy, and the wind lifted the sand in stinging sheets. Another boat already packed with people fought the waves between the tall rocks, heading for the safety of the larger ship anchored somewhere in the heavy mist outside the cove. At least Tremaine hoped the Ravenna meant safety. She couldn’t see Niles, but Gerard and a couple of men in short jackets of the red-trimmed dark blue of undress Rienish naval uniforms were helping refugees onto the first launch. Florian was at his side.
    Tremaine trotted across the sand, the wind tossing her hair, and got there in time to hear the other girl say, “Gerard, is this an etheric storm?” Florian squinted up at the streaming clouds overhead, her face white and