The Boy Who Went Magic Read online

  Cassius approached. “Are you all right, Bert?”

  Bert tried to steady himself. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just … I think I heard something from Norton.” He felt another jolt of pain. “I think Voss has already found the weapon.”

  “Sit down,” said Cassius. He took Bert’s shoulder and helped him rest against the side of the hull. Finch came running over. “He’s had a vision,” explained Cassius.

  “Of Voss?” asked Finch.

  Bert nodded and tried to hide his discomfort.

  “I’m going to get medicine,” said Finch. “Don’t move until I get back.”

  Bert began to protest but she was already running to the deck hatch. The pain had lessened but he still had the terrible sense of emptiness. It seemed to surround his heart. Worst of all, he knew that whatever was happening to him was happening to Norton.

  “We’ll get to him,” said Cassius. “Just hold on.”

  Bert looked at the quæstor. He’d avoided speaking with the man while they’d been making their preparations. It was hard to shake off his wariness.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more open with you before,” said Cassius. “I had a lot of trouble keeping my position secret from Voss. If I’d seemed too sympathetic …”

  “It’s all right,” said Bert.

  Finch returned carrying a box with some bottles in it. She began to sort through the various concoctions, reading the labels in a way that wasn’t very reassuring. Bert noticed that whoever had built the box had misspelled “Surgeon” as “Sergon.”

  Finch popped open a bottle and frowned at the label. “I suppose this will have to do,” she said. “I can’t say I’m much of a doctor though. Are you always this much trouble?”

  “Not until I met you,” said Bert.

  “You’re forgetting I’ve seen your school records,” said Cassius.

  Bert gave a weak smile. He recalled something that was bothering him. “That night you burned my records,” he said. “Why did you have to throw Freston out of the window?”

  Cassius frowned. “What?”

  Finch cleared her throat. “Actually, that was me,” she said. “The boy kept snooping around when I was trying to talk to you, so I thought I might give him a scare.” She looked down. “Anyway, I think you should take some of this,” she said, holding out a bottle.

  Bert took the bottle. “You threw him out of a window?”

  Finch shrugged. “I made sure he didn’t fall.”

  Cassius appeared quietly amused.

  It was odd to talk about school. So little time had passed, but already it seemed like a distant memory. Everything he used to worry about seemed so trivial.

  He drank the medicine to please Finch, but he already felt as if the pain had passed. He stood up and tested his legs, feeling somewhat stronger. He could sense that they were getting closer to Norton. His palm was tingling slightly, as if the magic was returning.

  Cassius looked as if he was about to say something more when they were interrupted by a call from the lookout. Strange rock formations appeared over the horizon. They were like three short spires and they reached up from a bare hillside. Bert had never seen anything like it.

  “The Towers of Wheldrake,” said Finch. “Once we pass those we’ll be over the plains of Tralvere. Then we’ll see what this cloud business is all about, Bert.”

  Bert nodded. He felt excited, but apprehensive too. There was a chance he could be wrong. If there was no sign of Voss, or this strange castle, he wouldn’t know where to turn.

  Cassius moved away as the crew began to adjust the finlike sails, and the Professor took hold of the wheel. It was clear that they were preparing for action.

  “I want to help too,” said Bert.

  Finch shook her head. She brought over the bag of tricks that Hermatrude had given them and began to sort through it. She took out some armor and a few brass canisters. Then she came to a trio of lumpy backpacks. She didn’t appear to be familiar with them.

  “Are these things safe?” said Bert.

  “I think so,” said Finch. She peeked inside one of the bags. “I think this is the new aerial escape device that Hermatrude mentioned. But I can’t figure out how it works exactly. There’s a strap here, and a toggle that seems to pull out. It says ‘pull when falling.’ ” She opened a pamphlet that was packed among the inventions and began to read in silence.

  Bert was pleased to see how eager she was and how prepared the crew seemed. But his thoughts kept drifting to Norton and the hollowness in his chest. He felt helpless. He remembered Norton reaching out to him as the dark crystal slid across the hold of the Erebus.

  He gritted his teeth and looked over the horizon. The forests had faded away into a flat plain with a brown river running through it. It looked like a wasteland. There was thick cloud cover in every direction and it made the day seem dark and foreboding.

  “Airship, two points north!” yelled the lookout.

  A ripple of excitement swept over the deck. Bert felt strangely relieved at the sight of the approaching adversary. If the airship was coming to intercept them, that confirmed his vision. But it meant danger too. Everyone waited for the Professor’s orders.

  The Professor kept his expression level. “Very good,” he yelled in reply. He gazed at the approaching speck over the horizon. For a moment, he appeared to consider their options. Then he nodded calmly. “Make course to intercept them,” he said. “Full speed ahead.”

  “I hope you’re not actually thinking of fighting that thing head-on,” said Cassius, as the Professor passed the wheel to Mr. Peel. Bert followed them over the deck.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t question me in front of my crew,” said the Professor. He led them past the row of cannons, checking the charges as he went. “Load the mortar with Hermatrude’s crystal emitters,” he said to a nearby crewman. “We need to be prepared.” He turned to Finch. “You and Bert can do a special job for me. I want all the timber we can spare brought on deck and wrapped in the old gasbag cloth. And a couple of amphor barrels too, for good measure.”

  Finch looked confused for a moment. Then she gave a smile. “I’ll get them right away,” she said. She beckoned for Bert to follow her and headed below.

  “What’s this about?” said Bert. “Are they just getting us out of the way?” He followed her down the ladder to the main gangway of the lower deck.

  They passed through a tight corridor. The planks creaked and the amphor lamps flickered as the engine rose in power. It was like being in a rickety house in a storm.

  “No, he’s definitely got a plan,” said Finch. They came to a heavy door. She knocked open the latch and beckoned for Bert to follow her inside.

  The hold was dark and crammed with all kinds of supplies—everything from spare hammocks to barrels of preserved food. It had an odd woodland smell. Bert helped Finch rummage through the shelves until they’d gathered a good pile of spare timber.

  “I still don’t understand,” said Bert.

  Finch climbed a ladder and knocked on the ceiling of the hold. A hatch slid open above and a crewman lowered down a winch for them to attach their bundle.

  “Is this for some kind of trick?” Bert asked.

  Finch nodded encouragingly. “What does this look like?”

  Bert frowned. “A load of junk.”

  “And what would you think if you saw a load of burning junk falling from the sky? If you’d just seen an airship heading down into the clouds, for example?”

  Bert began to see what she was getting at. “I suppose I’d think the ship had exploded,” he said. He smiled despite himself. “That’s amazing,” he said. “Have you done it before?”

  “Well, not yet,” said Finch, grinning. “There’s only one drawback, I suppose.”

  “What’s that?” said Bert.

  “Not actually getting blown up in the process,” she said. She finished tying the ropes and gave the signal for the crewmen to haul the junk up on deck.
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br />   They followed it up and closed the hatch.

  Bert was shocked to see how quickly the enemy ship had closed with them. It had a dark gray gasbag with lower hull painted red. Even at this distance he could tell it was bigger than their ship and it was clearly built to fight. Rows of cannons poked from its sides.

  Bert walked to where Cassius and the Professor were standing.

  “That’s the Vulture all right,” said Cassius. He passed a viewing telescope back to the Professor. “They were obviously prepared for us. I wonder if Voss is aboard.”

  “Ever been in a real air battle?” said the Professor.

  “Only the odd skirmish with pirates,” said Cassius with a wry smile.

  The Professor laughed. “Well, enjoy the change of view.” He turned to Bert and Finch, and nodded appreciatively. “Well done with the wreckage. I’ll need you two to perform some of the theater during the fighting too. We’re going to put some of Hermatrude’s new smoke bombs in barrels at the back of the ship. You can open them when it seems appropriate.”

  Finch nodded eagerly. Bert tried to mimic her enthusiasm. Like most Penvellyn schoolchildren, he had read stories about air battles when he was younger. He knew that airships could blast each other to pieces in a matter of moments and that they could easily get disabled in midair and boarded too. He never imagined he’d be in a battle himself.

  “Who’s the enemy captain?” the Professor asked Cassius.

  “Captain Stokes,” said Cassius.

  “What’s he like?” said Finch.

  “Ruthless,” said Cassius. “He almost killed five of his own men on the way out here with his strict rules and cruel punishments. He’ll stop at nothing to win.”

  “I see,” said the Professor. “Then it will be a fair fight.” He turned back to the ship’s wheel and yelled: “Mr. Peel, if you could bring us just above the clouds, that would do nicely.”

  “Right you are, sir,” called the haggard man at the wheel.

  The ship began to rise. Bert saw the Vulture immediately adjusting its course to meet them. They would break through the clouds at the same time. At the speed they were currently traveling, it seemed likely the ships would meet just as they surfaced.

  “All right, men,” said the Professor as he walked along the row of cannons. “When we crest this cloud canopy, they’re going to be right in front of us. We only need to last a few volleys to make our plan work, and that means we’re going to get to fire some shots of our own too. Make every cannonball count, and show them that we’re not some band of poseurs.”

  Some of the more elaborately dressed crewmen looked uncertainly at one another during the Professor’s speech. One man self-consciously touched the feathers in his hat.

  The Professor corrected himself. “I mean, it’s all right if we are poseurs,” he said. “But we can also fight, you know, when we need to. And look wonderful doing it.”

  A more confident cheer went up from the men. In the same moment, the first mists of the cloudbank fell upon them. Bert caught a final glimpse of the Vulture heading right at them, with its hull looming. Then the deck was bathed in white. The cloud vapors swirled like rain over the gasbag and pattered on the deck. The men squinted over their gun barrels.

  “Steady,” yelled the Professor. “We’ll be out any moment.”

  Cassius nudged Bert. “Make sure to stay low,” he said.

  Bert nodded. Finch was already leading him through the mist toward the back of the ship, where the smoke barrels had been stored. His heart beat loudly in his chest.

  He heard a deeper rumbling growing over the sound of their own engine. The clouds were clearing. Finch grabbed his hand and led him faster. “Hurry!” she yelled.

  Bert could feel the vibrations of the other ship’s engine shaking in his bones. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a dark shape materializing through the white vapors.

  The deck burst into clear sky and the hull of the Vulture emerged through the clouds beside them. A line of guns bore down through the haze.

  Bert saw the crew of the Lugalbanda staring over their own cannons; the Professor standing by the ship’s wheel, Cassius gazing defiantly at the opposing deck.

  “Get down!” shouted Finch.

  Bert threw himself into the side of the ship’s hull just in time. There was a huge ripple of explosions and the deck disappeared in a cloud of gray smoke. A yell of pain went up from one of the gun crews and splinters burst from the hull. A rigging rope fell where Bert and Finch were crouching. Bert coughed through the smell of gunpowder and looked around. In a matter of moments, the deck had been transformed into a scene of chaos. There were gaping holes in the side of the hull and fires smoldering in the rigging. The men were shouting to one another.

  Through the haze, he saw the enemy airship had almost passed.

  “Fire!” yelled the Professor.

  The Lugalbanda’s guns blared out in response. Another burst of smoke shot out into the slipstream and Bert saw flashes and puffs of impacts on the Vulture’s deck. It seemed impossible that the airships could fling so much metal at each other and yet keep flying. The Vulture shuddered under the force of the blows as it glided swiftly behind them.

  “The smoke,” said Finch. “Now.”

  Bert saw the barrels she was pointing to. She kicked one of them over and indicated that he should do the same. He heaved the barrel down as fast as he could.

  The containers popped open, and a dense cloud of smoke billowed out, making it look as if the whole rear of the ship was on fire. Bert coughed and staggered back.

  “Well done,” said the Professor, appearing beside them. He squinted through the smoke. Bert followed his gaze to the opposing airship. It had flown by at speed, but it was already turning to chase them. It looked like a prowling shark as it skimmed over the clouds.

  “This is our only chance to make the trick work,” said the Professor. He took hold of the ship’s wheel and angled them downward, falling rapidly toward the cloud cover.

  Bert’s stomach lurched at the speed of the drop.

  “Come on,” said Finch. She led him over the shattered planks and fallen ropes to the wreckage that was wrapped in the spare gasbag. The crewmen gathered. A man with a long match lit the fuses on a pair of explosive barrels and rolled them up with the rest of the junk.

  “When do we throw it?” asked Bert.

  “Now!” yelled the Professor. As he spoke the airship sank into the clouds and the deck was bathed in white once again. The wind whistled over the rigging.

  Bert’s hands moved blindly over the parcel of wreckage, helping the crew to force it over the side of the hull. Finch ran up and give it a final kick.

  The bundle plunged into the white abyss. The Professor leveled off the ship and cut the engine and for a few moments they sailed in silence. A huge explosion split the air below.

  Some of the crew muttered nervously.

  “Everyone stay quiet,” whispered Finch.

  A low rumbling approached. The noise built until it seemed like it was coming from all around them. There was no way of telling if the trick had worked.

  “Remain calm,” whispered the Professor.

  Bert felt as if he were in a strange dream. He could barely see his own hand through the white haze. The wet vapors clung to his skin. Everyone around him waited in tense silence as the rumbling surrounded them and made their teeth rattle in their heads.

  Bert held his breath and tried to get his bearings. Suddenly a shadow moved over the cover just below them. He could hear soldiers calling to one another.

  “It went down,” yelled a stern voice. “Give me a sighting.”

  “I saw a smoke trail leading this way, sir,” called a voice in a reply. “There was an explosion. No sign of anything up here. It’s likely they fell apart beneath us.”

  “Let’s look at the wreckage,” yelled another voice.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” called the men in reply.

  The engine grew louder and the Vulture
began to descend. Bert let out a long breath. He could still barely see the faces around him but he could sense their relief.

  “Take us to maneuvering power, Mr. Peel,” said the Professor quietly. “Minimum speed until we’re out of earshot. We don’t want to give them cause for alarm.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Peel. The crew pattered over the deck and the ship began to move again. A few crewmen were being treated for splinter injuries and a fire smoldered in the rigging, but otherwise they’d come through remarkably unscathed. As the sound of the other airship quickly faded to nothing, Bert could still sense apprehension in the voices of the men.

  Finch seemed to read his mind. “It might have worked for now,” she said. “But we can’t be sure that they’ll be fooled for long. If they chase us again, we’ll be in for a real fight.”

  Now that the immediate fear of the opposing airship had passed, Bert began to consider the task ahead of them. His instincts told him that they were still heading in the right direction, and he was feeling stronger by the minute. But he wasn’t sure how they could find their objective while they sailed through the cloud. He wasn’t even sure what to look for.

  The Professor appeared through the mist. “It looks like we’re going to get a clear pass at the skies of Tralvere. Can you give us any hints?”

  Bert was daunted by so much responsibility. But he could feel he was getting closer to Norton. They were on the right course. “There were towers in the clouds,” he said. “They looked like regular mist from a distance. But that’s just a screen. They’re solid enough.”

  “Anything else?” said the Professor.

  “Just the light,” said Bert. “When the light from Voss’s ship fell on them, it showed what they really were.” He shook his head. “I suppose that’s the best I can do.”

  “We’re doing fine, Bert,” said the Professor. “This is what Hermatrude’s crystal emitters are for. If she’s right, they’ll reveal the structure, just like Voss’s light did.”

  “But how will we see through this haze?” said Bert.

  “We’ll have to trust our luck for now,” said the Professor. “It’s too dangerous to reveal ourselves with the Vulture around. That wreckage won’t fool them for long. In the meantime, you should take a break. You’ve done well.” He smiled and walked back to the ship’s wheel.