Songs of the Dying Earth

There were tents and people there — scores of both — which was both reassuring and dismaying. Whoever these potential passengers were, it looked as if they had been waiting a long time. Laundry hung from ropes tied between old tents. The sky galleon, however, looked more promising. Nestled in its tall cradle-stays, this ship — smaller than the other two — looked not only intact but ready to fly. The square-rigged sails were tidily shrouded along spars on the foremast and mainmast while lateen-rigged canvas was tied up along the two after-masts. A bold red pennant flew from the foremast some sixty or seventy feet above the galleon’s deck and Shrue could make out brightly painted gunports, although they were closed so he could not tell if there were any actual guns or hurlers behind them. At the bottom of the cradle, sunlight glinted on the great ovals and squares of crystallex set in as windows along the bottom of the hull. Young men — Shiolko’s sons was Shrue’s wild guess — were busy running up ramps and clambering expertly through the masts, lines, and stays.

“Come,” said Shrue, spurring his panting and sulky megilla. “We have our galleon of choice.”

“I’m not climbing sixty flights of rusting, rotting stairs,” said Derwe Coreme.

“Of course not,” said Shrue. “There is a lift.”

“The lift platform itself must weigh a ton,” said Derwe Coreme. “It has only a cable and a crank.”

“And you have seventeen marvelously muscled Myrmazons,” said Shrue.

The owner and captain of the sky galleon, Shambe Shiolko, was a short, heavily muscled, white-bearded beetle-nut of a man and he drove a hard bargain.

“As I’ve explained, Master Shrue,” said Shiolko, “there are some forty-six passengers ahead of you—” Shiolko gestured toward the muddle of sagging tents and shacks on the windswept platform where they all stood six hundred feet above the river. “And most of them have been waiting the two years and more that I’ve lacked the extract of ossip and atmospheric emulsifier which allow our beautiful galleon to fly…”

Shrue sighed. “Captain Shiolko, as I have tried to explain to you, I have the ossip phlogista for you…” Shrue nodded to Derwe Coreme, who lifted the heavy sealed vat out of his trunk and carried it over, setting it on the boards of the platform with a heavy thunk. And from his robes, Shrue produced a smaller lead box which still glowed a mild green. “And I also have the crygon crystals for the atmospheric emulsifier you require. Both are yours without cost as long as you book us passage on this voyage.”

Captain Shiolko scratched at his short beard. “There are the expenses of the trip to consider,” he mumbled. “The salaries for my eight sons — they serve as crew, y’know. Food and water and grog and wine and other provisions for the sixty passengers.”

“Sixty passengers?” said Shrue. “There need only be provisions for myself and this servant…” He gestured toward Mauz Meriwolt who was largely disguised within a diminutive Firschnian monk’s robe. “With the possible addition of another member of my party who might join us later.”

“And me,” said War Maven Derwe Coreme. “And six of my Myrmazons. The rest can return to our camp.”

Shrue raised an eyebrow. “Certainly, my dear, you have other more…profitable…undertakings to pursue? This voyage will be of an undetermined length, and, indeed, might take us all the way to the opposite sides of the Dying Earth, and that by a circuitious route…”

“Nine of you then,” grumbled Captain Shiolko. “Plus the forty-six who have waited so long. That will be provisions for fifty-five passengers, and nine crew of course, counting myself, so sixty-four mouths to feed. The Steresa’s Dream has always set a fine table, sir. Mere provisions, not including our salaries, will come to…mmmm…five thousand, three hundred terces for the vittles and a mere two thousand four hundred terces above that for our labors and skills….”

“Outrageous!” laughed Shrue. “Your sky galleon will sit here forever unless I provide the ossip extract and emulsifier. I should be charging you seven thousand five hundred terces, Captain Shiolko.”

“That is always your privilege to do so, Master Shrue,” grunted the old sky sailor. “But then the cost of your passage would rise to more than fourteen thousand terces. I thought it easier the first way.”

“But certainly,” said Shrue, gesturing to the crowd, “these good people do not want to take such a long and…I confess…dangerous voyage, since I would insist that our destination, which is not yet even fixed, will be the first one to which we sail. You can return for them. This amount of ossip phlogista alone should levitate your beautiful galleon…”

“The Steresa’s Dream,” said Captain Shiolko.

“Yes, lovely name,” said Shrue.

“Named after my late wife and the mother of the eight crewmen,” murmured the old captain.