Slew the Dread, came her voice in my head.My timbers willhold.
“Cast anchor, Mr. Buck!” called Thanavar. “Beam reach!”
My timbers will hold.
The rushing waters of the Dreadwall caught our keel and swept us up.
Up, up, up we went, pitched horizontal but angled aright, and the anchor cable boomed as the crew ran the capstan. And the anchor thundered from the cat.
TheTouchstonesquealed with straining planks and stressing timbers.
We were still moving forward under full sail but crossing the Dreadwall diagonally. It would only be minutes before we reached the ceiling and would shatter into a thousand pieces, to be carried back along the sky before raining back down in the Sheets.
Horrible, horrible, I thought to myself, and I’m sure I wept as I clutched the mast with all my strength.
Beloved…
Kier Gavriel Thanavar, her beloved.
Honor.
Me?
Honor, strength, freedom, fly.
She meant me.
Anchor and sea. Trust and believe, child of the north. Mine.
I blinked the tears from my eyes, summoned my breath. She was so strong and so brave. And, in that moment, I realized I would rather die trying to be half of what she was than live as none at all.
I squared my shoulders, squeezed her timber harder, and gave her all the chimeric in my poor, battered body. Suddenly, theTouchstonebucked, her hull straining as the anchor reached the end of its chain. With nothing to catch on and no ocean floor tohaul, the anchor became a sea anchor now, a kedge, dragging the nose down and keeping us from riding the wave.
Except wewereriding the wave. The sails at beam reach kept us moving forward, the anchor kedged us parallel to the sea, while both current and wind pushed us perpendicular. We were riding the wave. Sideways.
We were flying.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. I laughed, and I cried and hugged the mast and thanked the ship, the woman, Kirianae, goddess of the Cloudgate and the RuneTree, for this. We were riding in a bubble of rune and chimeric, our keel in the wave and our sail in the spray, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. It was an illusion in part, my mother and her mates keeping our feet on the decks and believing it. The anchor, the sails, the rudder, the wind. Magik and seamanship, Thanavar had said. We had it in fathoms.
But it was him. I knew it. All him. His plan, his goal, his ship, and ultimately, his fate. We were tied to him like stays or shrouds, lines or rigging, but he was the wind in this voyage. He was the waves.
And fog it, I loved him for it.
He swept his eyes across the main, found home when they found me. A twitch of his lips just for me.
“All hands,” he said. “Steady as she goes.”
And into the Dread we went.
36. Transecting the Dreadwall
The initial marvel of sailing sideways turned to exhaustion after days of transecting the Dreadwall.
To maintain our course of due east, all posts had to be manned constantly. Thanavar, Fahr, and Smoke took turns at the moonswheel, while a full crew steadied the capstan to keep the sea anchor taut. Sails shredded as we flew through the powerful spray, and repairs were made the moment they tore. Canvases stitched, frayed lines mended, and I was glad the riggers were tied off.
While our course held true, we were travelling at more than a hundred knots, Buck had said, and perpendicular to the sea, and it was a very rough ride. One bump could easily see someone fly over the rail. They would be lost in a heartbeat without a line.
The ironmages hadn’t moved from their place on the pup, and I began to wonder if they had cast themselves in stone. Maybe they had cast themselves in iron. I found myself surprised at their resolve and impressed by their skill.
