Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [161]
But the light from his bedroom already outshone all others, and was growing brighter still.
Maskelyne drifted out across the valley, enjoying the cold, pine-scented air. Acres of dense woodland swept by under his feet. To the east he could see the mercurial ribbon of the Irya gleaming faintly among patchwork fields, with the dark mass of the mountains towering behind. His flight path would take him directly over a Guild army camp, but that couldn’t be helped. He had to hope that any spotters would have their telescopes fixed on the palace by now.
The light from his gem lantern was blazing like a small white sun. Even from this distance he found it difficult to look at directly. The feedback mechanism couldn’t last much longer. Maskelyne knew it had to fail, and fail soon.
Any moment now . . .
The light flickered. And then a fireball bloomed in the heart of the palace. A heartbeat later, the sound of the concussion reached Maskelyne: a sharp crack, followed by a prolonged rumble. The blast wave punched through the air around him, pushing him onwards with a noticeable jolt. A cry came from one of the military camps down below, followed moments later by the rising-falling cycle of an attack siren. Maskelyne drifted onwards, out into the night, a single tiny mote among billions of stars.
The higher he rose, the colder and thinner the air became. It soon felt like ice in his lungs. The harness was starting to chaff and pinch under his shoulders. He blew into his hands and rubbed them constantly to try to keep the blood moving through his veins. His lips and face already felt completely numb. After a while, he unbuckled one of his harness pockets and released a chariot stone, which duly shot up and away to be lost forever in the heavens above. Maskelyne wondered how many there were, floating up there in the vacuum between worlds. He began to descend again, more rapidly than he would have liked, so he opened one of the sandbags and scooped out handfuls of ballast until his descent slowed.
On he drifted, over fields and hedgerows and hayricks, floating through the darkness like some strange wandering sorcerer. He passed over a farmhouse with bright windows spilling firelight across an empty yard. No one was around to notice him. He crossed the River Irya and followed a country lane for a short while, before the breeze carried him back out over the water and the farmland beyond. At one point he sailed above a clump of woodland, his boots skimming the tops of the trees, while he frantically bailed out more sand.
Eventually, he came within half a mile of the Crossing Inn, where the palace road crossed the river. The breeze was blowing him west, further away from the road and his arranged meeting place, so Maskelyne decided to land. He released another chariot sphere, controlling his quickening descent by dropping more sand.
He landed easily in a grassy field several yards behind the road, whereupon he rubbed his hands and set off for the inn.
His contact was waiting for him in a corner of the bar. Firelight played across the roughcast walls. A few long, dusty tables lined the walls, but the communal benches were all empty at this late hour. Even the innkeeper had retired for the night, leaving his single guest to pour his own mead. He looked up when Maskelyne entered, grinned and then shoved a clay goblet across the table towards him.
‘Cold outside?’ he asked.
‘Good to see you, Howlish,’ Maskelyne said, rubbing