Chapter 33: Into the Aether

  The crack in the sky faltered, and then sealed up. With Vanderborn out of the action, the spell failed before it finished. He was just…gone, but Ambrose knew from experience that the man could teleport, at least back to his own office.

  He looked around the floating garden, marveling at the destruction. The fight had destroyed most of the trees, all of the flowerbeds, and the gazebo was on fire. And they’d made who knew how much noise. Even if they got away, there was no hiding that there’d been a fight up here, and Vanderborn would have to explain it or cover it up.

  Or just blame them for it, ensuring there was nowhere in the world they could go.

  “C’mon!” Jessica cried before disappearing back through the cannon-hole.

  Ambrose snapped out of it and forced himself to his feet. It felt like he’d been run over by a runaway bull, but he was relatively unharmed. Shadow magic often weakened one by sapping at their vitality directly, but unless it killed, much of it faded with time. The same couldn’t be said of the others.

  Luthor and Raeva had some scratches, but it took both of them to pull Raeleq to his feet. They each took a shoulder and dragged him to the edge of the garden, where Jessica had managed to lower the ship. It was just a short drop, but after the fight turned sour…

  Ambrose overtook them and jumped first. He landed on the wet deck with an unfortunate slide that could’ve ended poorly, but held out his arms. Raeva and Luthor looked at each other, but helped the big guy drop down. Raeleq grunted as he landed hard, but Ambrose caught him, or at least broke his fall. The others jumped in, landing a bit easier.

  The ship was large enough that it looked like it would have needed a full crew, but Jessica pulled away with ease, and the garden grew smaller by the second.

  They turned around, and the ship lurched with a sudden propulsion of speed. It felt like it should’ve knocked Ambrose back down, but something caught and steadied him. The others looked the same; shocked but more stable than they’d expected.

  There was no time to get caught up on it, and Ambrose made his way to the raised section on the back of the ship that would ordinarily have the wheelhouse. It was a small, open structure, with an awning over the large, plush captain’s chair. Jessica looked like a child at the wheel, surrounded by complicated levers and buttons with no instruction.

  “How are you flying this?” Ambrose asked as the others limped up after him. The wind buffeted the ship, but the worst of it stopped at a familiar, slightly pink tint along the edges of the ship, where he assumed a barrier was in place.

  “G-Grandfather used to take us out in it, and show it off,” she said, blinking rapidly. Her voice and body shook, but her hands were as still as a statue’s. “Said that one day, one of us would inherit it. That was…was before he started hating me.”

  The shock of turning against Vanderborn without dying hit them all, but it looked like it was worth it. Jessica was strong now, but how long until everything caught up with her and she crashed?

  “Where are we going?” Luthor asked, cradling his arm against his chest. He hadn’t taken any bad wounds like Raeleq had, but he had an easier time using his healing cards on others rather than himself.

  “Where can we go?” Raeva muttered.

  “I don’t know,” Jessica answered, her voice raising a pitch. “Oh gods, there’s nowhere we can go where he won’t find us.”

  “What if he’s dead?” Raeleq asked, sitting on the deck next to the chair, breathing hard. “You got him pretty good, right?”

  “He’s not,” said Jessica flatly. “I would’ve felt it through the wards. He's not even close to done. When he gets us…”

  Ambrose shook his head. “Not worth thinking about. For now, we need to move.” He looked to the right, over Jessica’s shoulder, and wished he hadn’t.

  While they were up in the air and rising, the rain clouds covered the stars and made their journey mostly dark, like rushing through a black void. So when the twin, snakelike dragons opened their mouths and spat lines of flame, it stood out.

  “Well,” said Raeva, as in awe as he was, “that was fast.”

  The dragons weren’t their only pursuers. They flew fast, each the size of houses, about fifty yards back and gaining. Between them was a small glow, keeping up with them. Ambrose didn’t need to see to know that it was their headmaster, and this time he wouldn’t toy with them.

  “Can this go faster?” Raeleq asked, worry creeping into his deep, exhausted voice. “It can go faster, right?”

  “I don’t know, maybe,” said Jessica in a near panic. “I’ve only flown it like twice, and there are so many things I don’t know what they do!”

  Ambrose watched the dragons flap enormous wings, hard and fast against the growing rainstorm. They breathed fire again, and this time the flames nearly charred their asses. This wasn’t going to end well, and he knew exactly how.

  “They’re going to surround us and then cook us,” he said. “Faster really would be better now.”

  “I don’t know how,” Jessica snapped, but she tried anyway. Her left hand remained on the wheel, while her right pulled a green lever.

  The entire ship groaned, enchantments humming to life as the wood of the ship, engraved with countless runes and geometric designs, lit up with a luminous, nearly rainbow energy.

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  “What did you do?” Raeva demanded.

  “How should I know? I’m just trying to get us out of here!” Jessica was near tears now.

  Ambrose bit his lip as the dragons grew closer. He could see their individual fangs now, on long snouts trailing even longer whiskers. This type of dragon was rare, and could fly in any weather without wings. One was green, the other gold, and he had no doubt that they would be gorgeous in daylight, or a clearer night.

  Worse, Vanderborn was close enough to see the fury on his face. He clutched his staff before him as he cut through the air nearly as fast as his pets, leaving behind a wake of rain and wisps of clouds as he followed them to the ends of the world.

  They were high up now, and the hum and light only intensified. It came in pulses, slow and steady at first, then picking up speed until the pulses seemed to start as soon as they ended.

  “What’s going on?” Raeleq asked, as scared as Jessica had been stressed.

  “Hold on,” shouted Luthor.

  Ambrose grasped the back of the chair and anchored himself to it. The hum of power stretched into an odd, grinding sound, and then snapped like the string of a guitar. The night around them exploded into a cacophony of colors, swirling frantically as everything they knew bled away in pieces, becoming something and somewhere else.

  It was luck, maybe, that he was able to see the final look on their headmaster’s face. Surprise, then pure, murderous rage.

  Then the rain stopped, as did all sound, and the five of them found themselves in a dark void that was anything but empty. They continued to sail through nothingness, but far off in the distance were orbs of different sizes, shifting and swirling in place against a backdrop of cosmic chaos. Streaks of different colors of light were cast out like glowing dust, hanging there at an inscrutable, impossible distance.

  They were alone, and yet, far from it.

  “What the hell is this?” Raeva said, releasing her grip from the side of the awning. “Where are we?”

  It was a good question. This place was so strange, but oddly familiar. It reminded him of…

  “It’s the night sky,” he said. “Those are stars. We’re out among the stars, somehow.”

  “That’s impossible,” Luthor said, but he looked around with growing curiosity.

  “Aren’t stars really far away?” Raeleq asked. He looked like he wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or scared by things. Whatever he was, it wasn’t calm.

  “They are. But this ship is how Grandfather moves around, so this must be…this must be the place between worlds. It’s the only thing it could be, right?” Jessica looked over her shoulder and gasped.

  Almost as one, they looked behind the captain’s chair to see a colossal orb hanging in the dark. It gave off its own light, but the picture dancing across the surface shifted constantly, showing images of people across Amaria, locations, and even, he swore, the headmaster’s face for a second.

  “Does that mean we’re safe?” Raeleq asked.

  “We’re never going to be safe again,” Jessica muttered. She shifted a lever to the left and released the wheel. They remained sailing through the void, putting distance between them and their home. “He’s never going to stop hunting us.”

  “But we’re safe for now,” Luthor said, as calm as ever. “That’s what’s important. We’re alive, we’re only a little banged up, and we have a chance to collect ourselves and pick our next move.”

  “Our next move…” Ambrose couldn’t stop the bitter laugh. Now that the danger was over, exhaustion and terror set in and he wanted to collapse. “What next move? We’re so screwed.”

  Raeva looked at him like he had just insulted her mother, which may have been one of the few family members of hers he hadn’t. “We’re alive. Which means we have hope. We can figure something out. I know it.”

  “I…We can’t go home,” Jessica said, as if the idea first hit her. “Can we? Never again. But what can we do? Just keep moving?”

  “We don’t have to decide for now,” said Luthor. “All that matters is we’re fine, we can take a little time to catch our breath. For now, we can just…fly along a bit, and put some distance between us and him.”

  Ambrose ran a hand through his hair. It was a mess after the rain and that fight, his clothes were torn, and he had the odd thought that he wished they could’ve popped back to his apartment for a quick change of clothes. You know, before going on the lam. He laughed again, sounding less stable, even to himself.

  “Well, I’m glad everyone else is optimistic. Great! I’m going to…To see if he’s got any stiff drinks below.” He left, and no one moved to stop him. Ambrose went down the wooden steps to the rest of the deck, and then headed below.

  The Wanderer had three levels below deck, with the first being cabins and the galley. There were, in fact, plenty of bottles of wine, brandy, whiskey, and all kinds of other good spirits. Ambrose didn’t bother looking for a cup, and just brought the bottle with him as he examined his new surroundings.

  One thing he had to give Vanderborn, the man knew how to travel in style. While his office may have been a shallow deception, the ship was where the man truly lived. It was the picture of comfortable luxury: well painted, maintained, clean, and just a little bit ostentatious. If they did go on the run, scrapping the ship for gold and silver from the alchemical lights and decorations around each door would probably get them some funds.

  There were six cabins on the first level, with one of them obviously being Vanderborn’s himself. It had another plush bed, bigger than one would expect the man to need, as well as a desk and bookshelf built right into the wood. There was enough room to pace or entertain people, and a window looking out into the aether.

  It took him a few minutes and several pulls of wine for him to realize that it was slightly bigger on the inside. Exciting, but Ambrose had no one to share it with, and the thrill was short-lived.

  He checked the other cabins after that, and they too were bigger on the inside. Not as grand as the master cabin, but he liked to imagine it being used to ferry diplomats or strike teams alike for Vanderborn. It was good enough for their purposes, though he didn’t expect them to stay.

  Level two was almost entirely storage and the galley. It was there he discovered that if they were to stay on the ship and keep sailing, they could probably go indefinitely. Or at least until they went mad from stress and isolation.

  Ambrose nearly turned back before hitting the bottom of the ship, but ended up glad he didn’t. It was dark, not lit up by the hanging magelights above. He had to grab a lamp and take it down with him, but the third level was something both familiar and exciting to him: a reinforced open room with bindings carved into the wooden floor, walls, everywhere. This was a place to bind or unbind cards, practice one’s spells, and do experiments.

  “The old bastard really did set this ship up, didn’t he?” he muttered to himself as he walked through, shining the lamp on different lifeless shapes in the dark. “I bet he spends most of his time here. His quarters are almost entirely just for show, aren’t they?”

  He took another step, and nearly tripped over something. Ambrose caught himself, but shined the lamp over a metallic, humanoid figure, sitting cross legged on the floor like it was waiting.

  “And what do we have here? One of the old man’s experiments or failures?” He pushed the lamp into the side of the figure’s coppery head, sending it rolling along the neck.

  “Pardon,” said a soft, dreamlike voice, “but I am not a failure.”

  Ambrose nearly jumped out of his skin. He stepped back in time to see the construct stand, metallic eyelids opening to show off crystalline blue lights glowing brighter than the lamp. It took a step towards him, shaky at first but then smoother as it came to life. It reached for him with hands of steel.

  “Where is Master Vanderborn?”