Songs of the Dying Earth

“Why haven’t we struck the cliffs around us and died?” asked Derwe Coreme. Once again, Shrue noticed, the only overlay was of mild curiosity.

“We are going dead slow, floating with the breezes,” whispered Shrue. “Also, I devised a little instrument — there, you may notice our good captain playing close attention to those four dials I jury-rigged from Meriwolt’s calliope.”

The warrior chief looked at the wires running from the device toward something in a box set near the binnacle, chuckled and shook her head. “Boys and their toys. But what’s to keep Faucelme and his pelgranes from striking the surrounding rocks in the dark?”

“Ahh,” breathed Shrue. “They know where they and where we are to a much finer degree than we do, I’m afraid. Pelgranes are nightflyers. They navigate by sound waves bouncing back from objects. That’s what my ‘little instrument’ is connected to — our unfortunate pelgrane visitor’s vibrating thorax. The creatures also ‘hear’ through their thoraxes…it’s why I let our friend come so close and behave true to pelgrane form earlier.”

“You needed his thorax.”

“Yes.” He squeezed her hand. Her skin was very cold and damp but her hand was not shaking in the least. “You can sleep if you want, my dear,” he whispered. “I have nothing to base it on but a hunch, but I don’t think the Red and Faucelme and the three Yellows and three Greens and their pelgranes will make their move tonight, in the dark.”

“Sleep?” whispered Derwe Coreme, former princess of the House of Domber. “And miss all this? You must be joking.” Spreading a blanket, she slid under Shrue’s outer robe and pulled him down next to her.

Captain Shiolko glanced over in their direction once, grunted softly, and then returned his attention to the emulsifier and thorax dials.

The nose began spinning at first light, when the clouds first showed a milky pre-dawn glow and then parted as the red sun struggled to rise. Captain Shiolko brought the galleon to full stop and then allowed it to rise more than three thousand feet.

The Second Ultimate Library was on a rocky promontory overhanging a vertical drop four thousand feet or more to the wooded valley below it. There was no moat at this version of the library, but wooded wilderness stretched away between high peaks for uncounted miles to its west.

“You can set down in that glade near the front door,” Shrue said to the captain. “Then let us out and go on to deliver the rest of your passengers.”

Shiolko grinned. “I know better than that, Master Magician. That Faucelme devil and the red thing what pulls his strings won’t let us go, no matter what. We’ll drop you off if you want, then we’ll moor nearby to that huge old tree near the waterfall where we can refill our casks, but we’ll watch and help if we can. Our fate is your fate. We know that.”

“I am sorry it has come to that,” Shrue said sincerely.

Captain Shiolko shrugged. “Somehow I think I’m speaking for everyone on the ship and perhaps for everyone on the Dying Earth. How it come to this, I don’t know…and don’t especially care. But we could have done worse than have you as our standard-bearer, I think, Master Magician Shrue. I don’t see no stinking kid’s birthday party anywhere near.”

The ten pelgranes landed in the glade even as Steresa’s Dream hovered and let down its gangplank. Derwe Coreme went down first, followed by her six Myrmazons leading sluggish and sleepy megillas just wakened from their sorcery-induced, three-week-long naps, straw from the livestock pens on the middle deck still clinging to their scales.

Faucelme laughed as Shrue descended the gangplank, leading the tall robed and veiled figure by his hand. “Your daihak looks a little wobbly there, diabolist!” called Faucelme as the robed form felt gingerly with his foot before stepping to the soil.

“Well,” said Shrue. “He’s been through a tough fight. At least he’s more solid than your pathetic Purples.”

Faucelme’s laughter stopped but his broad grin remained. “You’ll soon see how solid my Purples are, dead man.”

All of the Elementals had dismounted by now — the three Yellows, three Greens, two Purples, and the towering Red. The ten pelgranes began bellowing and surging — they’d obviously not been fed fresh meat or blood all through the long chase.

“Silence!” bellowed the Faucelme puppet and froze the pelgranes into an icy block of steaming Temporary Stasis with a single wave of his upraised palm.

Shrue blinked at the ease with which Faucelme — or, in truth, the Red — had effectuated such a difficult spell.

Faucelme stepped closer. Indeed, his clumsy, bowlegged steps did resemble those of a poorly handled puppet — although, thought Shrue, three weeks in a pelgrane saddle would create the same effect.

“Faucelme,” said Shrue. “Where is your apprentice?”

“Apprentices,” growled the little magus. “Bah! You know apprentices, Shrue. They always overreach…always. It’s why you’ve never had one of your own.”

“True,” said Shrue.