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

make it?”
    Tremaine stared at her blankly. Florian, with her red hair tied tightly back and her face pale, seemed oddly normal against the chaotic background. Tremaine shook herself and nodded a shade too rapidly. “Yes, we were the last. Everyone made it.”
    “Good.” Florian relaxed in relief. “I’ve got to go, I need to help them get some people down to the hospital.”
    “Good luck,” Tremaine managed as the other girl slipped away through the crowd. She looked at the Syprians gathered around her. Dyani had fetched up next to Tremaine and she anxiously eyed the light in the wall above their heads. It was encased in a smooth crystal sheath mounted in a brass base. It took Tremaine a moment to realize what was wrong, then she said hurriedly, “The lights aren’t magic, they just look that way.” We need to get out of here , she thought wearily. She stood on tiptoes to see over the heads of the crowd; her legs felt like rubber.
    “This way,” she said in Syrnaic and turned to follow the wall around. By this method she found the grand stairway at the back of the large chamber. She led the way down the carpeted steps, feeling the tension in her nerves ease as they left the noisy crowd behind. She glanced back to make sure the Syprians were following and saw Giliead and Halian both looking around, probably doing head counts. Gyan was walking by himself but holding on to the wooden banister with another man at his elbow watching him worriedly. Dannor, who had started the mutiny, looked wary, and she was glad to see Ilias was right behind him.
    The next deck was the First Class Entrance Hall she, Florian and Ilias had passed through when they had boarded the Ravenna in Port Rel. It was brightly lit now, the fine wood walls and the marble-tiled floor gleaming, and nearly as crowded as the main hall. Tremaine continued down to the next deck, finding a smaller carpeted lounge, mercifully unoccupied, with one wall taken up by the steward’s office. It was covered in sleek wood and had etched glass windows; there was a light on inside and the door stood open. Tremaine hesitated then decided not to bother them. If she did, it would just give someone the opportunity to give her a lot of unnecessary instructions and orders.
    Four large corridors led off from here, two toward the bow and two toward the stern. She picked the nearest and led the way down toward what should be the First Class staterooms. The corridor seemed to run most of the length of the ship, the patterned carpet making her a little dizzy as her eye followed it. The doors were in little vestibules opening off the corridor; she picked one at random. There was only one doorway in this vestibule, so she hoped that meant it was a big room. “This is the place,” she said over her shoulder, trying the handle. It was locked. She stepped back and gestured. “Can somebody open this?”
    Halian stepped forward, took the handle and applied his shoulder to the fine-grained but light wooden door. Something cracked in the jamb and it swung obligingly open. It was dark inside and smelled dusty, unused. Tremaine stepped in, fumbling for the wall switches.
    Behind her, Dyani whispered like a litany, “The lights aren’t curses, they just look like it.”
    “It’s all right,” Ilias told her, managing to sound as if he believed it. “Really.”
    “Are there curses here?” somebody asked Giliead.
    He hesitated an instant too long. “No.”
    Tremaine found two call buttons for the stewards before finally pushing the button for the lights. As the lamps flickered to life she saw she had struck gold. The lights were milky crystal lozenges set into cherrywood-veneered walls and the floor had a deep tawny carpet. If Giliead could sense spells it might be the concealment wards protecting the ship from the Gardier; or the staterooms in this section might have been warded against thieves at the commercial liner’s commission. If they had, nothing had happened when the