The Perilous Sea (37 page)

“You were right about me—that my life was never going to be anything but thoroughly enmeshed with the Bane's.” He exhaled. “But what if we fail?”

“We most likely will. You know this. As do I—and all the other mages who have ever taken up wands against Atlantis.” She kissed him on his cheek. “So forget that and let's concentrate on what we need to do.”

He nodded slowly. “You are right—again.”

She put a kettle in the grate. They were not going to sleep much this night, so they might as well have some tea. “Last time Atlantis put a no-vaulting zone on the school. They could very well do the same thing again—and this time we wouldn't have Wintervale's wardrobe for a portal.”

“But we do have a number of carpets—Kashkari has two and I have one, which together should be sufficient to ferry all of us. I have the Crucible, which can act as a portal in emergencies. Not to mention you have a quasi-vaulter.”

“Give the vertices of the quasi-vaulter to Wintervale.” They would need three days on his person before they could work on him. “He will be the most difficult to move for all of us—much better if he can use the quasi-vaulter.”

He opened her cabinet and took out her tin of tea leaves. “I will do that. I am sure I can think of something to tell him without giving away everything.”

Again this lack of confidence in Wintervale. “Is it possible your judgment is clouded by having known Wintervale for so long? I feel he has been far more sober and far less indiscreet after the maelstrom.”

“It is quite possible that I am prejudiced against the old Wintervale and not the new one. But remember, no one is looking for Wintervale, but every agent of Atlantis is still seeking you.”

He had said that to her several times, and she had always accepted it without questions. But now she wasn't so certain. “Are you sure that no one is looking for Wintervale? He sank an Atlantean vessel. Even if no one on board managed to send a distress signal, or survived to tell the tale, would Atlantis not investigate a whoesale disappearance of a ship?”

“Dalbert has an eye on the situation. He has heard nothing about the
Sea Wolf
.”

Her conversation with Cooper earlier in the evening came to mind. Cooper had miscopied a word; what if Iolanthe had misread the name of the ship? After all, Greek had always given her fits.

“Maybe I was wrong about the name of the ship. Can you ask Dalbert if there is any news for a ship named
Ferocious
?”

Written in capital letters,
ΛΑΒΡΑΞ
—sea wolf—and
ΛΑΒΡΟΣ
—ferocious—would have been similar enough to cause confusion.

“I will do that tonight itself,” he said.

“Have some tea before you go.”

She added more fire to the grate, so the water would boil faster. Titus wrapped his arms around her from behind. She leaned back against him.

“Why do I have the sensation that the situation is about to spin out of control?”

“Probably because it is.” He kissed her at the temple. “Part of me would like for you to be far away, beyond the danger and the madness. But the rest of me could not be more grateful that you will still be here, with me, when all hell breaks loose.”

CHAPTER
31

The Sahara Desert

AN ESCARPMENT ROSE SHARPLY FROM
the desert floor. It looked as if Titus and Iolanthe were headed directly at the cliff, when the carpet before them disappeared. Iolanthe clutched tight at the front of the carpet as it hurtled into a narrow fissure. The fissure twisted and turned—or at least she guessed that to be the case, for it was pitch dark, yet the carpet zigzagged at a breakneck pace.

“How are you steering? Can you see anything?”

“I am not steering,” answered Titus. “The carpet knows the lay of the land.”

All at once the fissure widened into a cavernous space, lit with a warm, bright light. Along the interior walls of this chamber, hundreds of smaller caves and niches had been carved into the rock, but Iolanthe could see no ladders or stairs to access them—until she remembered that, of course, everyone who lived in the rebel base probably had a carpet.

Half of the floor of the cavern was taken up with horticulture: leafy, green towers, placed so that they received maximum light and did not cast shadows on one another, rose to nearly the height of the ceiling. The other half was given over to the making and maintenance of flying carpets. And despite the lateness of the hour, at least a hundred mages were at work, harvesting fruits and vegetables, operating the looms that made new carpets, or repairing frayed-looking older carpets.

They landed on a large ledge twenty feet above the floor of the cavern. A breathtakingly beautiful young woman awaited them on the platform, clad in a simple, fawn-colored tunic with a pair of matching trousers.

She hugged the boy who had brought Titus and Iolanthe. “Good to see you safe. I'm afraid your brother isn't here. But don't worry, he is well—he was a member of the party that raided the Atlantean base and they cannot return for at least another five days, in case Atlantis is on their tails.”

The boy turned to Titus and Iolanthe. “May I present Amara, commander of the base and my future sister-in-law.”

Iolanthe caught something strangely bleak in the tone of his voice. She looked from him to Amara.

“Around here she is also known as Durga Devi—it's our tradition to take on a nom de guerre for times of war,” continued the boy. “You might hear people refer to me as Vrischika, but feel free to go on calling me Kashkari.”

So that was his name.

Titus nodded gravely at the young woman. “Pleased to meet you.”

“We are honored by your presence, Your Highness. And yours, Miss Seabourne.” Amara smiled, and Iolanthe was nearly blinded by her beauty. “Have you, Your Highness, at last brought Miss Seabourne into our safekeeping?”

“No,” said Titus decisively. “We will intrude on your hospitality only briefly—Atlantis is too close for comfort. If you have a translocator on the premise, we would like to have use of it, especially if it would take us near or into a major nonmage city.”

Iolanthe agreed completely. A crowded city made a much better hiding place for them. Cairo was her first choice. But even Khartoum, with its political instability, would do in a pinch.

“We have two translocators, but unfortunately neither has been functioning for the past three days.”

Kashkari grew alarmed. “Are you sure Atlantis hasn't found you?”

A shadow crossed Amara's face. “We ask ourselves the same thing, but everything else has been normal.”

“Do you have a fast, long-range carpet that we can borrow?” said Titus. “We must leave immediately—the Bane himself is in the Sahara.”

This produced a ripple of shock in both Amara and Kashkari.

“Why didn't you say anything to me earlier?” Kashkari demanded.

“I've been meaning to tell you this,” said Iolanthe. “We haven't the slightest idea who y—”

“Durga Devi!” Ishana came careening on a flying carpet, almost knocking into Iolanthe. “Durga Devi, the maintenance crew found a tracer on Oasis III.”

“What?” Amara cried. “How is this possible? I thought you said you did
not
encounter anyone the entire time you were out.”

“That's true. No one came to the oasis except His Highness and Miss Seabourne.”

Titus swore. “The sand wyvern. We did not know then it still carried tracers. It is more than possible that one fell off when the sand wyvern brushed against the date palms.”

Iolanthe gripped his arm. “Then Atlantis will believe we are here—and we are.”

“Let's get some fresh carpets and I'll take you to Luxor,” said Kashkari. “If we start now, we can be there before noon.”

Ishana ferried them down to where the new carpets were stowed. Iolanthe didn't see anything that looked like a traditional carpet, thick and woolly. Instead, the carpets, hung up on steel rods, resembled picnic blankets, towels, and curtains—even capes.

Ishana stopped before a rack of carpets that had the look of bedsheets about them. “These are the best we have. They have a range of about a thousand miles and can cruise at one hundred fifty miles an hour with a cargo of up to five hundred pounds.”

“I need carpets that cannot be recalled—in case the base is overrun,” said Kashkari.

Ishana exhaled, clearly unnerved by the thought of something going so wrong. “Right. Then you better take these—eight hundred mile range, one hundred fifteen miles an hour, cargo weight two hundred pounds.”

“Can you handle a carpet on your own?” Titus asked Iolanthe.

“I control air—I'll manage.”

The rumble of drumroll filled the air, followed by a pleasant-sounding female voice. “All battle riders report to squadron leaders. Armored chariots sighted. Wyverns sighted. Lindworms sighted.”

Lindworms were the largest flying dragons, not terribly fast, but brutal. Iolanthe had been under the impression they were impossible to domesticate, but apparently Atlantis liked to break new ground in animal husbandry.

A carpet streaked down and yanked to a stop behind them. It was Shulini, looking frantic. “Your Highness, Durga Devi asks that you come with me—and everyone else too. There is something she needs you all to see.”

They followed her up to the ceiling of the cavern and hurtled into an opening, which led into a tunnel that wound upward. The air grew colder and colder and suddenly they were under the stars.

“Look! Look!” shouted Shulini.

Iolanthe could not discern anything out of the ordinary. Briefly she wondered if she should use a far-seeing spell, and then a movement near the edge of the sky caught her eye—a distortion of the air that made the stars beyond stretch and blinker. As she followed it, she realized that the distortion was like an enormous and somewhat uneven ring, going all around—and dropping rapidly toward the ground.

“Fortune shield me,” said Titus, “a bell jar dome.”

A bell jar dome was a siege weapon, almost as antique as bewitched spears. But once in place, it would be nearly impossible for those inside to breach.

“Hurry!” cried Kashkari. “We might still get Fairfax out.”

As if it had heard him, the bell jar dome came down hard.

“Too late,” Titus said, as if through clenched teeth.

A man's voice, golden and powerful, rang out. “The Lord High Commander of the Great Realm of New Atlantis seeks the fugitive Iolanthe Seabourne. Surrender her, and all the other lives will be spared.”

Titus immediately had Iolanthe's hand in his. “No one will harm you.”

She squeezed his hand. “And I'm not so easy to harm.”

But all the same, she was frightened witless.

Ishana set down the carpet. They were on top of the massif that reared up from the desert floor. Standing on it, surveying the bell jar dome, was Amara.

“We seem to have a dilemma on our hands,” she said calmly.

“No, not at all,” countered Kashkari, when Iolanthe had expected Titus to be the first to object. “We will not give her to the Bane, not even if the cost is ten times the lives of everyone in this base.”

“Of course not,” said Amara. “To let the Bane have her would be ruinous. But the truth is we are few and the force of Atlantis is great. We may not be able to prevent the Bane from taking her, even if we do our best.”

Further surprising Iolanthe, Kashkari stepped before her. “No, you will not even think of it.”

“We are at war, my friend. I must think of every eventuality.”

“Then think it and dismiss it.”

It dawned on Iolanthe at last that they were speaking of a way to make it impossible for the Bane to have her: by killing her themselves. Judging by the way Titus's hand tightened over hers, he also understood.

“I know what happened to your uncle, Mohandas,” said Amara. “And while that was a tragedy, it prevented the Bane from becoming unimaginably strong.”

Kashkari had his wand in hand. “And how did that help us? Unimaginably strong or not, the Bane is still in power all these years later.”

“But if your uncle's family hadn't done what they did—”

“Then perhaps we would be living in a very different world. Help reached them soon after they killed my uncle—I see you did not know this, did you? Even my brother doesn't. If only everyone hadn't despaired prematurely, my uncle might have been able to grow into the fullness of his power and he might have made all the difference in the more crucial battles of ten years ago.”

Kashkari took a deep breath. “Besides, I have already dreamed of the future: my friend will be approaching the Commander's Palace on her own power and of her own volition—to finish the Bane, not to be the next victim in his sacrificial rituals. That means she outwits the Bane this day and manages to keep not only her life but her freedom.”