"The hour of prophecy is upon us!" the robed man shouted. The warriors, camp helpers, animal handlers, and scouts who had made the journey to the edge of the world watched, surrounding him. His hand was flat against the sky. "The sudden horizon waits for us to venture forth! Another world beckons!" The hand became a fist. "What glory, what wonders are there? What sights unseen wait for us to witness them? What glorious golden plains, what sparkling oceans? Will the rivers run with jewels? Will the clouds fill with fairies?" He spread his arms wide. "Let the unknown become known this day!"
Sulia Opalshimmer cheered, along with the rest of her squadron. The dragon she sat upon flexed its numerous muscles, ready to leap into the air should Sulia say the word.
Their hundreds-strong group stood at the edge of the cliff, overlooking an endless expanse of water. They could see a strange sight miles from the cliff, and Sulia focused on it, peering into the sunset. It was like there was a crack in the air, like a broken window stretching eternally north and eternally south. Sunlight hit it wrong, and came back in helter-skelter waves of color. It was nearly time to find out what it hid.
"Fangs!" Sulia called, after the prophet had finished. "Mount! We ride as vanguard!" Not even the whipping wind could tear the energy out of Sulia's words. Not even the eye-catching sight of the sudden horizon could stop her from leading. "Make last preparations now!"
"Spatial distortion ten miles and closing," Lieutenant Kennedy said to Captain Spaulders. "Energies holding steady."
"Keep me posted," Spaulders said, and he walked around the desk to Ensign Ned. "How are the grav-motors?"
"Zero fluctuation, captain," Ned said. Spaulders checked out the front window of captain's tower on the floating city Serenade. The distortion shimmered, catching the sunset behind them. The scientists had lost their minds when they had found it: an overlapping segment of universes, where you could pass from one to the other just like walking down the street.
"I'm going to make an announcement," Spaulders said. He retreated to his chair and settled in. He rolled his sleeves up. He pressed a button on his chair's armrest. "City-wide announcement," he said into the mic, and waiting a second. "Citizens of Serenade. In ten minutes we will pass through the distortion. Everybody to your ready stations--civilians, take safety precautions. We are unsure what will occur once we are through. You have all seen the safety measures in the case of deep space, underwater, or other immediate hostile environments. Be ready for anything. Spaulders out."
He ended the transmission. "Steady on, everyone," he said to the bridge in command of the million-ton structure, floating on anti-grav motors and housing a hundred thousand people. Buildings rose in the windows, tubes and lifts whirred, bringing latecomers to their destinations, and the metal, glass, and crystal constructions caught the scattered rainbow of the distortion, spreading it into further prisms. The ocean below them reflected the city's bulk. Spaulders stood and clasped his hands behind his back, smiling at the unknown.
"Nine miles and closing."
The dragon's body bobbed as its wings forced themselves up and down. Sulia bent herself over the spines on its back, blinking away tears from the wind and sunset. Her squadron of riders spread out behind her, armor gleaming. Far below, on the sun-dappled water of the ocean, the boats carrying the rest of their group surged through the water, watching the dragons and their riders forge ahead. If the coast was clear, they would venture to the other side just as the dragons had.
Sulia brought her vision back up from them. The sudden horizon was growing. It split the sunlight into a hundred twinkling colors, and at the center of the horizontal crack Sulia thought she could see a deep, black abyss, sucking the colors and air inside.
She pushed the fear down. With her dragon and her weapon, she was ready for anything. No force, no monster, no event could make her abandon the promises she had made to her people and herself. She pushed her dragon faster, and skimmed toward the setting sun and the crack in the sky.
The bridge was quiet, save for the constant hum of the city's engines. Spaulders leaned forward, gazing at the place where universes overlap. The city cast a miles-long shadow on the water in front of them, and Spaulders could see the shadow shift and shimmer where the distortion was, even on the water. The hard end of the world he was looking at was a scientific gold mine, and Spaulders knew the scientists where doing everything they could to capture and send information to the other cities, in case of catastrophe.
They had less than three minutes until they hit the distortion. Spaulders used his screen to zoom in on the strange sight. It was like a black bolt of lightning, firing across the world, and he could see points of light, like stars, twinkling at the center. He knew they were just chemical reactions, not images of deep space, but they still unnerved him.
He sucked in a breath and leaned forward again, hands on his knees and jaw set. He hadn't realized how big the distortion was; it looked like it could swallow the entire city and not create a single ripple on its anomalous surface. Well, they would find out in a minute how far they could fit inside.
The air tore the scream out of her mouth. She was so close. Her dragon had put the others far behind; she would be the first through. She would be the first to see the new world. She would lay claim to the wonders before anyone else could. Her dragon, sensing the same, stretched its neck forward, longing to touch the sudden horizon. The moment was at hand.
"10 seconds."
Spaulders felt his stomach clench. Tremors shot through his limbs. His fingers hurt, and he saw their deep grip on the armrests.
"3...2...1..."
A dragon smashed through the front window, showering the bridge in glass fragments. The huge, leathery beast, all wings and neck and tail and colored like a pearl, tumbled through and rolled onto its back, and Spaulders heard screams. One of them seemed to come from underneath the dragon, and at first he thought one of his crew had gotten trapped. The dragon flailed its limbs until it righted itself, and he saw a woman, with dark, imperious armor, short hair, and numerous scars showing on her flesh, attached to a saddle on its back. Her head whipped around, and she held a curved blade in her right hand.
At first she thought she was looking at a huge mirror, but when her dragon had driven through it, unable to move out of the way fast enough, she found a room past the glass. Her dragon twisted, and it rolled on top of her. Only her training kept her safe from its crushing bulk. She pulled her sword out and took in her surroundings. There were more than a dozen people around her, all wearing a blue uniform, and unarmed. One of them, a man with a stony face and wide eyes, was staring at her from a throne.
She heard dragon cries coming through the hole she had made, and realized the rest of her squadron was breaking through the horizon. She wheeled her dragon around--its tail and wings battered walls and tables, and the dragon's toothy mouth snapped at one of the people who had pressed themselves against the wall, out of its range. "Hai!" Sulia shouted, and the dragon surged forward, heading for the shattered window. The dragon's legs pushed off from the ledge and dove forward, and Sulia was able to see the world she had entered.
Gigantic structures rose around her. They shined like torches, but she could tell they were just reflecting the sun. They couldn't be natural; they rose straight up around her with varying heights and sizes. They were the color of the sky, the color of a sword's blade, like castles built out of a man-made stone.
She spotted a dragon wheeling, confused, in front of her, and she pushed her mount forward toward it. Light came from all directions, dizzying her, and thought she caught sight of other dragons around her, but they were just mirror images of herself as she flew past the windows.
"Scramble fighters!" Lieutenant Kennedy shouted. "Bring those things down!"
"Wait!" Spaulders shouted. "They haven't made any aggressive movements yet!"
Kennedy pointed at the broken window. "And what do you call that, captain?"
"A mistake. Launch fighters, but no weapons authorization."
"Sir, reporting twenty total enemy units," Ensign Pollis said. "They appear to be humans riding winged creatures. And...we've detected numerous sailing vessels on the water."
The ships were silent, gazing in wonder, terror, awe, at the sun-blocking construct the sudden horizon had disgorged. The dragon squadron were tiny dots circling the gleaming spires. The entire thing floated as if a titan's invisible hand kept it aloft. Nothing so immense could ever stay up with just wings.
"Military vessels?"
"No sir. Sensors indicate they are full of supplies and people."
"How does the universe look?"
"Nominal. Temperature, atmosphere, gravity all have little to zero variance. Really, it's just the dragons."
"Fighters launched, sir," Kennedy said. "Orders not to shoot unless they experience hostility."
"Good. Let's try not to make first contact turn into a full-blown war. Try to initiate a dialogue."
Sulia saw them approach. They could have been dragons, but their wings held steady, the faces impassive and cold. She couldn't see any riders. They grew three times as large as her dragon, cutting through the sky in groups of two, circling them slowly. The fangs she was with watched them with wild eyes, but she signaled for them to sheath their weapons. She held her hand high at the gleaming fliers, and one of them came closer.
To her surprise, a window showed her a human, wearing a round helmet and pointed mask, inside the flier's belly. The human returned the wave, and the flier waggled its wings at Sulia and her dragon. Sulia laughed, and brought her dragon spiraling over the flier, landing on its other side and grinning.
The human inside the flier pointed at a wide, gray area with colorful markings. A few humans stood at one side of it, in front of a wide cave made from the same material. The flier gained speed rapidly, easily outstripping Sulia and her dragon, and grew feet to land on the open area. A segment of it opened, and the human climbed out. Sulia followed, and her dragon flapped its wings to slow its descent. She looked at those waiting as she unbuckled the straps around her legs.
The man she had seen after smashing through the window waited with his hands behind his back. She looked up, trying to figure out which of the structures she had intruded on, but it could have been any of them. How had the man gotten to her so quickly?
She jumped off her dragon and stretched her legs. She patted the dragon's head and said a few soothing words to it as three more dragons landed around her. She looked over her shoulder and saw the man, and a few others, waiting. She straightened up and told her dragon to follow at a distance.
Spaulders watched her approach, her dragon stomping behind her. He had begun to breathe a little easier when one of the pilots relayed his communication with the dragon riders, but now the size and strength of the dragons took his breath away once more. The woman with short hair and scars approached with one hand resting on the hilt of her sheathed sword. The other dragon riders who had landed followed her, and Spaulders could see they would defer to her. She was the leader.
When she was about ten feet away she stopped. The squeal of a passing fighter ruined the moment of silence.
"Hello. Greetings," Spaulders said. "I am Captain Hexta Spaulders." He placed his hand over his heart and dipped forward at the waist, trying to hit all the points of magnanimous greeting. "Can you understand me?"
"Yes," the woman said, in what was more or less the same language. She braced her arm across her abdomen and bent until her upper body was parallel with the landing pad. The riders behind her copied her, and then she snapped upright. "Greetings, Captain Hexta Spaulders. I am First Fang Sulia Opalshimmer, leader of the dragon riders. Do you command this fortress?"
"Yes and no," Spaulders said. "You are a guest of the Federation Floating City Serenade. It isn't a military installation. I am, however, its current de facto leader."
Sulia was staring with her mouth hanging open. Some of the words he'd used had failed to penetrate her armor. He cleared his throat. "Yes. For the time being. The ships on the water below..."
"My people," the dragon rider said. "Here to explore and settle the land beyond the sudden horizon."
An eyebrow popped up on Spaulders' forehead. "And what is that?"
"A portal to another world," she said. She turned and pointed at the sky behind her with an armored finger. "The crack in the sky that took us to your world."
"Interesting. We had just entered a similar anomaly. Our worlds seem to be connected, thanks to your sudden horizon."
Sulia opened her mouth to say something, but the floating city rocked her off her feet before she could. She went down to her stomach and her dragon screeched. Spaulders, trying to keep his balance, turned to Lieutenant Kennedy. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, sir!" Lieutenant Kennedy tapped on her computer pad, fingers flying. "We didn't detect any other disturbances or airborne units, certainly not anything big enough to affect us like that!"
"Is the magic keeping the fortress afloat failing?" Sulia asked, still on her stomach, looking around.
"It isn't magic," Spaulders said. "It's anti-grav motors." Sulia frowned. "We don't know what happened." He turned back to Kennedy. "Which universe are we in right now?"
"Their's," Kennedy said. She pointed behind him, at the setting sun, and he saw the sudden horizon rippling over it. "Their sudden horizon is in the west, ours is in the east."
"Are their sailing vessels still under us?"
"Yes sir. And getting closer to the sudden horizon."
Sulia jumped up. "A storm?"
Kennedy tapped on her pad a dozen times. "Uh...no ma'am, not that we can detect, but we don't know what can happen in this universe."
"I must see to my people," Sulia said. She ran to her dragon and swung herself up, securing buckles around her upper and lower legs. She looked in Spaulder's direction for a moment, then her dragon pushed into the sky.
With the shuddering castle falling away, Sulia felt immediate relaxation. The entire time she was talking with Captain Hexta Spaulders, she thought she was going to fall. Fall off the open area they were on, into the ocean. Her dragon took the fears away, and in a minute she was out of the flying city and over the water. The sunset turned it gold.
She spied the dozens of ships cutting through the water toward the new universe and dove down to their level, the rushing wind blowing her dry of sweat. She tasted blood as her dragon dove, and it ended skimming the tips of its wings in the sparkling water, passing into the enormous shadow of the flying city.
Her dragon lighted on the deck of a bigger ship. She jumped down and relished the rocking motion of the boat.
"Sulia!" the prophet shouted, coming up to her. "What have you learned? What is it?"
"It's a city, floating as if by magic," she said. "They are well met. They, too, were about to explore what was beyond the sudden horizon--our world. It shuddered under my feet like a beast, and they did not know why. Are you safe?"
"Quite," the prophet said, spreading his hands and looking around. "Scared for you and the fangs, but that is all. Do we continue forward? Is it safe?"
"It seems to be." Sulia looked up at the monstrosity floating in front of the setting sun. It looked like it could have been a gemstone for all its shimmering.
"We are not yet even past the sudden horizon," the prophet said, also looking up at Serenade. "And we have already seen such wonders." He spoke with a low, breathy voice. Sulia turned to look at him.
"I must return. The fangs are still there. Spread word of the city to the other ships."
"We will," the prophet said. "Go on swift wings, First Fang."
Her dragon climbed toward the city. Shafts of sunlight cut through the air as they neared it.
Before she got too close, she saw it wobble, like a child's top about to fall over. In another moment it was upright and solid again, the structures shivering from top to bottom.
One of her fangs, Yaes, appeared next to her, and he signaled to speak.
"The shocks continue," he said, as their dragons labored to keep them at the same height. "The captain believes it is something related to the sudden horizon. He asks if the city may continue over the mainland."
"I'll speak with him. You go to the fleet, and-" Her eyes detected a difference in the water, far past the sudden horizon. She focused on it. It could have been land, just past the world's curve, but there hadn't been anything there before. She turned back to Yaes. "Go to the fleet and tell them. They want to continue past the sudden horizon. I will speak to Captain Hexta Spaulders."
"Yes, First Fang." He began to drift away, then floated back. "I have learned 'Captain' is a title. He is their commander upon the city, but there is also a civilian leader. They are equals in power, like yourself and the prophet."
"I see. Thank you, fang."
Yaes spiraled away, and Sulia directed her dragon toward the wide, flat area where she had spoken to Spaulders.
"It looks like she's returning, captain," Kennedy said. She tapped on her computer pad without looking away. "Still nothing on the shocks. The anti-grav motors seem to be holding steady. Power levels normal."
"Maybe it's just this world," Spaulders said. "Opalshimmer mentioned magic. Maybe magic works here, while technology such as ours doesn't." Spaulders rubbed his chin. "I should ask her."
Sulia's dragon beat its wings, slowing as it landed. Spaulders offered his hand to help her down. She lifted an eyebrow but took it anyway. "The fleet means to advance past the sudden horizon," she told him. "Will they be safe?"
"They'll be safe, but they won't find much. There isn't much land on our world. That's why we've built these floating cities. We outgrew the space we had. At their current speed, it could be a week before they see land, and it'll be little more than shoals."
Spaulders turned and found a steward at his elbow. "Something to drink, Miss Opalshimmer? You must be thirsty. Something for your...mount, as well? Our water is recycled, but fresh."
"You have my thanks," Sulia said. "My fang said you mean to continue toward the mainland."
"If that's all right, of course," Spaulders said. "I don't want to cause a panic."
Sulia looked around her, at the huge, gleaming towers, floating hundreds of feet off the ground. "I may send some of my fangs ahead to herald you." Spaulders handed her a cup of water and she chugged it.
She was about to hand it back when another tremor, the strongest one, knocked her down. The cup shattered near her. "Kennedy!" Spaulders shouted.
"I'm seeing reports of the forward anti-grav motor reducing in power," the woman said. "Down to sixty percent. No other information so far."
"You mentioned magic," Spaulders said, pulling Sulia up. "Do you have any technology? Even rudimentary forms?"
"I-I don't know." Sulia spread her legs, trying to keep her balance. "Nothing so grand as this."
"Captain!" Kennedy said. "A wave!"
"What?" Spaulders turned around. "What about it?"
"A big one." The woman looked up from her pad. "Reports are putting it at over a hundred feet high. Coming this way, from the west."
"Will it hit us?"
"No sir, we aren't in danger. But Miss Opalshimmer's fleet is."
Sulia gasped. "I spied it from the air!"
Spaulders turned back to her. "Can the ships survive a wave that tall?"
Sulia put her hand against her dragon's neck. The glittering beast was slurping from a bucket of water. "Some of them may. I fear many will meet their end. The ships are full of souls, Captain Spaulders."
"Kennedy, when will the wave reach the fleet?"
"Less than ten minutes."
"So soon?" Sulia asked. "It was at the world's edge when I landed."
"Yes ma'am. It's fast, and it seems to be gaining speed."
"Miss Opalshimmer, can the boats return to safety?"
"The shore is too distant."
"Then there's no time to lose. Kennedy, launch carriers to collect everybody aboard the ships. "We'll need to make room for them somewhere in the city." Kennedy started tapping. "Sulia, how many are there?"
"Three-hundred and forty six. Men, women, and children." An alarm blared; she looked around. "I must warn them."
Spaulders nodded. "The carriers will be there in a few minutes. We have plenty of supplies here, so people are the first priority." Another tremor hit, and even Spaulders nearly fell over. Sulia's dragon roared. "Kennedy?"
"Forward anti-grav motor dipped to thirty percent. Engineering doesn't know what's happening."
Sulia leapt up into her dragon's saddle. "What do the-" A carrier, a boxy ship with an empty middle section, roared past. A dozen more followed it. "Answered. Hai!"
Her dragon pushed away, and Spaulders watched it whirl past one of the buildings, following the carriers. "To Captain's Tower, on the double!" he shouted. "Kennedy, I want reports about that forward motor. We'll also need a place to put the fleet until we can get back to land."
"Building four-eight has enough space, sir," Kennedy said. "The motor is holding steady at seventy-"
The entire city bucked. Kennedy threw her arms out, trying to keep from falling backward onto her head, and her pad sailed over the edge of the landing zone. Spaulders shifted his weight forward, and realized the city had tipped so far he could see a small portion of the ocean through the buildings.
"Goodness!" Kennedy said when they had righted. She looked toward the spot where her pad had disappeared, and then straightened up. "I was able to ask for transport before losing my pad."
"Can we re-direct power from the other engines? Is it a mechanical function? There are safeguards in place for this sort of thing!" Spaulders said. He looked at Kennedy, who appeared lost, as a small flier landed near them. They jumped aboard. "To Captain's Tower without delay!" Spaulders shouted, and the pilot blasted off.
A minute later they entered the bridge. "Report!" he shouted. Kennedy acquired a new pad.
Ensign Cloister spoke up first. "The carriers have arrived at the fleet and evacuation has begun. The wave has grown to over a hundred and fifty feet, and is still expected reach them in eight minutes."
"The motors?" Spaulders asked.
"Engineering is going mental," Ensign Ned said. "Power just isn't reaching the forward motor. On all accounts it should still be working." A tremor hit the bridge. "Power reduced to forty-four percent."
"Get us over the mainland," Spaulders said. "Does building four-eight have enough space for everyone from the boats?"
"Yes sir it does," Ensign Ned said. "The first carrier is returning now."
"Another wave has been spotted behind the first, a three-minute difference," Kennedy said.
"None of those boats are going to survive," Spaulders said. "Looks like we're on a humanitarian mission now. Get supplies to building four-eight and make sure there's enough room." He sat in his chair and punched a few buttons, then looked at the hole where the front window used to be. "And get someone up here to fix this window." He hit more buttons. "Riley! Please tell me you have some sort of explanation!"
"Sorry sir, we got nothing down here!" Riley said, speaking from the bottom level of the city in engineering. "We're running around like kids chasing a ball. I hate to say it, but we've-" A tremor turned his words to static for a moment, and Spaulders gripped the armrests of his chair. "-engines. Ino! Run a diagnostics on the emergency power supplies! Can't talk captain, too much to do!"
"What was that about the other engines? Riley!" Spaulders shut the communicator off with a curse. "Get us over the land as fast as we can and get us on the ground!"
"Five minutes until the wave hits," Kennedy said, eyes glued to her pad. "Evacuation approximately fifty percent complete."
Sulia grabbed a child under his arms and nearly threw him into the carrier hovering next to the boat she stood on. "Make haste!" she shouted for the hundredth time. She glanced toward the sunset and found it partially obscured by the growing wave. "The city has space and supplies enough for all; leave it behind if you can!"
"Can they be trusted?" the prophet asked from the carrier as he pulled an old woman on-board. He looked toward the city. "Man was not meant to float so!"
"I have met one of their leaders," Sulia said. "He is a man of honor and dignity. I sensed no betrayal or malevolence. We still have our dragons, and we are still fighters. If they do turn against us, they will not find us easy victims. But we must trust them for now." She glanced at the wave. "Quickly!" She threw people up for those inside the carrier to catch. "Be strong! Let the air take you to safety!"
The children boarded, the women boarded, the men boarded. The huge ship became empty and quiet. The carrier lifted up, leaving Sulia on the deck with her dragon. She ran to it and leapt on, beginning to buckle the straps around her legs. She heard a cry behind her.
She turned so fast her back pained. A girl no more than ten stood at the exit from the hold, a doll in her hands. She was white like the billowing sails.
Sulia looked toward the wave and found it big enough to mystify her. She dashed her head from side to side, buckled the last straps, and urged her dragon toward the girl. She shied away as the beast stomped closer.
"Have no fear!" Sulia shouted. She bent down and held out her hand. "We must away from this place, young one! Take my hand!"
The girl, trembling, shaking, put her hand in Sulia's. Sulia yanked her up onto the saddle. "Hold tight to me. Today you are a dragon rider." The girl squeezed around her middle. "Hai!"
The dragon surged at the port side of the ship, wings beginning to pound up and down. The light was dark and gray; the wave oppressed the ocean. "Faster! Faster!" Sulia shouted, and her dragon obliged, forcing itself forward and thrusting off the edge of the ship. Sulia twisted her head and found the wave stretching over her, about to dig down and bury her in its risen depths.
"Hai!" She shouted, snapping the reins, and her dragon needed no further urging. Its wings blasted up and down fast enough to deafen her. The wave closed over them, but a tunnel through the water ahead of them remained. "Bend close to the beast, child," Sulia said. The girl pressed against the dragon, and Sulia bent forward over her. Water fell.
The tunnel was closing. The path to safety became smaller. Her dragon sucked its wings against its body.
A sheet of water struck Sulia and would have knocked her off had the straps not held tight. Another moment later she was breathing air again, and she felt the gravity turn under her as her dragon pointed itself up, away from the violent ocean. She looked back to see the ships dashed to pieces as the wave tossed them. The girl in her lap was drenched from head to toe and had her eyes shut, nearly squeezing the breath out of Sulia. They rose over past the height of the next wave with ease, back into the sunset's light. The city, glittering and safe, welcomed them.
One of her fangs led her to another flat area, where a few of the carriers were unloading their precious cargo. As soon as Sulia let her go, the girl jumped down and ran to her parents, and the family cheered and cried together. Sulia wiped water out of her eyes. She unbuckled and walked up to the prophet. "Did everyone escape?"
"We lost not a soul. The speed of these creations!" the prophet said, slapping the carrier. "I may never regain my breath!" The city trembled under their feet. "It shakes as if angry! Will the city allow us?"
"I must speak with Spaulders," Sulia said. "There are many details to make sure of." She looked over her people. Those from Serenade were leading them toward the building they had promised. "I must know what he plans." She jumped onto her dragon. "I fear our trials have only begun, prophet."
"I feel the same," the prophet said. "A terrible disturbance caused the waves. Perhaps we should stay to our own worlds."
"Perhaps," Sulia said. She looked up, toward Captain's Tower, gold in the sunlight.
She bid goodbye to him and re-mounted her dragon. Soon she was in the air again, drying off, and whistling toward the building she had crashed through when the two worlds had met. She spotted the empty wall where the window had once been, and drifted past it.
"Captain," Kennedy said. "I believe Miss Opalshimmer would like a word."
Spaulders looked up from his screen and saw a dragon holding steady on the other side of the shattered window. He stood as the city jostled. "We were able to view your escape from the wave. I'm glad to see you're still with us."
Her dragon gripped the lip of the window with its back legs and poked its head inside the bridge. "The people I have sworn to protect are in your hands now. You have my trust, captain, but if you turn against us I will cut you down."
"You have nothing to fear," Spaulders said. The city shook. "Not from us, anyway. I'm afraid the forward engine is still having problems. We're moving toward the mainland as quickly as we can, and then your people will be back where they belong."
The world turned to fury around them. The entire city vibrated, blowing everyone in the bridge off their feet or rattling them at their desks. Sulia's dragon screeched and disengaged from the lip of the window, wings and long neck striking walls and ceiling. Unlike previous occurrences, the shaking continued, and dust began to drift down.
"Kennedy!" Spaulders said over the grinding sounds coming from all directions. "Please tell me the engine hasn't failed entirely!"
Kennedy was doing her best to hold on to her pad. "Then what do you want me to say, captain? Do you want me to say 'the other engines are also losing power'? How about 'Serenade is beginning to tip forward, and we don't have the power to correct it'? I can say those things, can't I?"
Spaulders felt gravity shift under him, and down began to point toward the window. "If I'm being honest, I'd rather you didn't!"
"You haven't left me much I can say then, captain!"
The grinding died, and the tilting stopped. The entire city listed ten degrees forward, and small tremors rose through it. Spaulders climbed into his chair and contacted engineering.
It was about thirty seconds before he heard anything. "Captain, I know what you're going to say-"
"I'm very creative, Riley."
"Yes sir. Certainly sir. Uh...we don't know." Spaulders pinched his nose. "We know what's happening, we just don't know why."
"Tell me what is happening, then."
"Something's sapping the power." Spaulders heard something shift, and Riley's voice came through a little clearer. "Sorry sir, everything's mucked about. As I said, there's a power drain, but we don't know where, or why, or what. Something is taking power from the engines. Mainly the forward engine, but all of them to a degree."
"Any theories?"
There was a silence, and Spaulders had worked with Riley long enough to know the man was rubbing his chin. "None. I'm sorry sir, but I've never seen anything like this. However, we are in a different universe now. There could be...I don't know...mold spores, or little birds or something that are messing up our systems. But we have no way to check, especially with the engines in trouble and the city tilted. We're at red alert just keeping Serenade afloat."
Spaulders worked his jaw from one side to the other. "Riley, I may have a solution. Give me a moment." He looked out the window. "Sulia, we've helped you, now you help us."
"What is it you would ask of me?" the rider said.
"If you and any other riders who will agree can fly around the bottom of the city and look for anything that might be damaging our systems, we might be able to get to the mainland safely. If the engines lose any more power, this whole thing could smash into the ocean."
"I know of nothing that does as you suspect, but we will look nonetheless, you have my word."
She took off, her dragon's hide sparkling in the dwindling light. Spaulders returned to his communicator. "Riley, our new friends our going to check the city's undercarriage for anything that looks amiss. You and everyone else down there get to work putting us upright."
"We'll try, captain, but we aren't having much luck right now. The-"
Spaulders' communicator beeped. "I'll leave you to it, Riley. I know you can figure something out. Spaulders out." He switched calls. "Spaulders here."
"I'm beginning to regret giving you command, captain. Dragons, tremors, and now refugees? You know that sort of decision is my prerogative."
"We aren't taking them on for the entire voyage, ma'am," Spaulders said, sighing. "We're dropping them off as soon as we reach the mainland. I certainly wasn't about to let them get annihilated by those waves. I assume you caught sight of them?"
"Yes, they were quite big. Captain, as prime minister you are required to notify me of decisions that could affect the populace in such a manner. Now we're dolling out supplies we've stockpiled to people we don't even know!"
"As long as all goes well, they won't even be staying the night. Even at low power, it will only take us a few hours to hit the mainland."
"Why can't you just use the carriers to unload them now?"
"Launching carriers--or any fliers--at a tilt like this is tantamount to suicide. Also, if, God forbid, the city starts to go down, then we need every carrier available to evacuate everyone, not just the refugees."
The other end of the communicator was silent for a moment. "Does engineering have anything for us?" the Prime Minister asked.
"They're looking into it. The dragon riders are making sure there's no damage to the engines."
"You're trusting people we don't even know to make sure we don't all burn up in a city-wide explosion?!"
"Their leader is a woman you could learn from, ma'am. She knows her people are in our hands. I should say we trust each other. She is smart, honorable, and competent. The dragons she commands are perfect for this task."
There was another short pause. "Keep me updated and don't bring any other refugees on-board!"
"Yes ma'am." Spaulders shut the call off, and everyone on the bridge rolled their eyes. Spaulders pushed his communicator away and rubbed his face. He looked out the broken opening. "Can we get someone up here to fix this window?"
"Prophet, you were right," Sulia said. Only her dragon could hear her. "There are wonders here."
She flew around the bottom of the city, eyes trying to pick out anything out-of-place. The city's engines, four immense domes, suspended from the bottom and glowed an electric blue. They were big enough to make her dragon look like a moth flitting around a campfire, and they seemed just as dangerous. Sulia's eyes felt too small to view all of it at once, and her neck craned in all directions to take it in. Thick ropes spanned from one edge of the city's underside to the other, tubes like snakes curled in bunches, and lights illuminated any shadow the sun made.
Yet Sulia saw nothing to create the problems the city had. She understood none of it, but everything seemed to be connected to its proper place. None of the tubes were split and leaking fluid, none of the ropes dangled unconnected, and none of the immense inverted domes sported cracks.
As her dragon dove in and out of the forest of machinery, Sulia wondered at their glowing color. Were they filled with water? An unfathomable amount of dye? Her dragon refused to get near them, and she also felt sudden, blistering heat when they got too close. How could heat possible keep something as staggering as Serenade in the air? Spaulders had said it wasn't magic--but what other explanation was there?
Her dragon led itself out of the city's belly, toward the rim. It began to follow its perimeter as Sulia scanned, peering against the sun at the tilted structure floating at one millionth the dragon's speed.
Behind it, the sudden horizon was a thin black crack, through which the sun could not penetrate. Despite the wonder of the city, Sulia looked at it. She had still not seen what was on the other side, what Spaulders' world looked like, though she knew it could not be much different from her own. The only thing Spaulders found surprising was the dragons.
The sudden horizon shifted. Sulia thought it had been a trick of the setting sun behind it at first, until it shifted again. As well, it grew larger. She eased her dragon around so she could see it better, flying closer.
It was bigger. Now, instead of just a thin, pitch-black center, there was some sort of disturbance inside. The edges rippled, stretching up and down, flowing like waves. The stretched and distorted rainbow she had surged toward not too long ago now gnashed like teeth. Before her eyes, the sudden horizon yawned, blocking the sun for a brief moment, showing her a picture of vast endlessness, full of twirling lights. They danced, frantic like fairies, aggressive like wolves' eyes in firelight.
The sudden horizon shrank back to its normal size, and Sulia tore her eyes away. She remembered to breathe.
Her dragon made its way back toward the city, flapping its wings. It is weary, Sulia thought. As am I. I see nothing attached to the city. I must ask Spaulders for rest and rations or I won't be of any help when it is necessary.
The floating city shivered in front of her, and Sulia realized it must be a tremor seen, not felt. It tilted forward a small amount, but the tops of the towers still dropped in height enough to blow the breath from her lungs. Even so far away she thought she could hear the shouts and screams coming from every building.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the sudden horizon rippling, tossing like rapids. The rainbow along its edges grew and shrunk, showing off one color, then another. The lights within the ebony middle section sparked and spun, and seemed to grow in size.
The sudden horizon pulled itself open, as if hands the size of the city yanked it apart from both top and bottom. The lights inside it strung themselves into lines, making up legs, arms, a spine. The thin starlight giant reached an arm out toward her.
It passed into the light of her universe, and the immense hand took shape before her. Big enough to swat her from the sky with its smallest finger, the entire hand could swallow a hundred of her with ease. What little of the sun's natural light bypassed the sudden horizon's cloak of darkness glanced off knuckles and fingers and wrist, made of some material shimmering and translucent, at one point invisible to the eye and the next solid and formed of utter, unbroken mass. The lights forming the giant twinkled as it tumbled further out of the opening, hand growing over her like the wave.
Her dragon screeched loud enough to bring her back to action. She dove, under the starlight giant's closing fist, and spun around to point herself back at the city. "Hai!" The dragon flapped its wings, climbing back up to the tilting city. She figured the giant was not something anybody could miss, but she would make sure its presence was known to Spaulders.
"Everyone still with us?" Spaulders asked the bridge. The city was at a further tilt. Alarm bells were going off, convinced the city was on a one-way path down. "Kennedy, can you...Kennedy?"
The woman was gazing at something on her pad, eyebrows together. She tapped it. "Kennedy?"
She looked up. "Sorry captain. The sudden horizon has just shifted its power output."
Spaulders frowned. "Surely that isn't as important as making sure the refugees are adapting, especially since the city is now at a fourteen degree tilt."
Kennedy's eyes widened but stayed on the screen. "Kennedy..."
"Captain," she said, finally looking up at him. "Go to red alert." She put her screen in front of him.
The picture had some interference. He could see the sudden horizon. It looked loose, like a stretched-out shirt. She could see a dragon and rider--it could have been Sulia--flying toward the city as fast as it could. The interference moved.
Spaulders shook his head slightly and peered closer. A form took shape. Spaulders perceived limbs, a torso, a head. He frowned and blinked. "Is..."
Kennedy nodded.
"How?"
"From the sudden horizon, sir."
Spaulders sucked in a breath. "Red alert."
Looking at the city's underside, lights began to change color. Blue dots switched to red. People, tiny enough to be specks of dust, ran.
An explosion came from under her as the starlight giant stepped forward. She glanced down and saw a swell of water ripple outward, and then another as the giant advanced. The hand was still right behind her. She put her hand on the dragon's neck. "Fly with me, friend. The sky is our domain. If the giant reaches the city, thousands perish." She sucked in a breath. "Hai!"
Her dragon spun, flipping until she faced the immense, otherworldly creature. The hand approached from her left, and she rolled away to the right, going for the space next to the giant's head. She pulled out her sword, and the little sliver of sun still over the horizon turned its blade to fire. The dragon swept in, too fast and agile for the giant to strike, and she slashed the giant's head as she whipped past. It sounded as if she struck stone, and was surprised to not see sparks.
The blade of her sword turned to dust and blew away. She looked at the handle and hilt with an open mouth, and then let it drop from her hand into the ocean. "Don't touch it," she said to her dragon. It swirled around the giant's torso, and Sulia looked for any sort of weak spot. A hand moved in her way but her dragon evaded it. "At least its eyes are on us."
"Riley, get us away from that thing!" Spaulders said into his communicator. "The farther we are from it, the safer we are. Full speed!"
"I would if I could, captain," Riley said. "But the drain has gotten worse. In fact-" The city rumbled. The tilt increased. "Is there anything higher than red alert?"
"Kennedy, is it possible to launch defense fliers at this angle?" Spaulders asked. "Ensign Cloister, make a city-wide announcement about a possible evacuation! Pyoris, how do our weapon batteries look?"
"No good, captain," Lieutenant Pyoris said. He hung on to his station at an angle. "The power drain is too severe. We use them and we're all swimming."
Spaulders slammed a fist on his armrest. "There must be something we can do to stop that thing." He placed his hand against his chin. "What about-"
A sound like the opposite of something cracking in half--a strange, warped, downtuned slamming together--rocked the city. The city fell forward, and Spaulders tumbled out of his chair, hitting one of the consoles at the front of the bridge. "Evacuate!" he shouted. "If that wasn't the forward engine failing, then nothing was! I want all carriers full of as many people as they can!"
The city was sinking. With the forward engine gone, it rotated forward until it was nearly ninety degrees. Spaulders looked out the missing front window and saw mostly ocean. "Everyone out!"
"It must not reach the city!" Sulia shouted at the other dragons as they pulled up to her. "We defend our people and theirs with our lives if we must! I will speak with their leader!" She wheeled around and saw the city dropping forward, its buildings pointed at the still-distant shore. Her tired dragon labored forward, tongue lolling out. She could feel its heart through the saddle. "Curse this forsaken day! Let it rot! Let it burn!" she shouted.
She flew around the first ring of buildings, heading for the place of command. Her dragon dived and weaved through the horizontal buildings; she listened to alarm bells, screams, and engines beginning to heat up. With the base of the city hiding the sun, the flight was dark and cool. Sulia urged her dragon on.
They had to climb toward the elevator at the back of the room, and Spaulders was the last one to go. Thanks to the tilt, only a few could get inside before they had to ride it down to one of the pickup spots. Spaulders watched Kennedy hit the button and saw she'll send it right back up, and then he was alone, braced against the hard leather of the back of his captain's chair. He heard sirens firing, the coughing sputter of engines trying to keep millions of tons of metal up, and his own heavy breathing. He swallowed and readied himself to climb up to the elevator.
The city bucked down, and he lost his grip. He slipped off the chair and caught his arm around the console next to it, legs dangling. He tried to squeeze himself underneath it, but the space was too small.
The elevator dinged and its doors opened. The city bucked again, and then returned to a horizontal position. "At least the other engines work," he said. He licked his lips and looked for a way to reach the elevator.
"Captain!" he heard under him. He looked between his feet and saw Sulia through the broken window, riding her clearly-exhausted dragon. "We must speak!"
"I'll pencil you in for Wednesday!" he shouted back. "I'm afraid my schedule's rather full!"
"No! I will catch you now!" Spaulders, and Sulia's dragon, looked at her and frowned. "Surely it is the only way for you to escape injury!"
Spaulders almost believed her. "What happens if you don't catch me?" he shouted down.
"I will!" She slapped her closed fist over her heart. "On my honor as a dragon rider and the first fang!"
"Your dragon looks like he's almost to fall out of the sky!"
"He has strength enough!"
Spaulders looked up at the elevator. It suddenly seemed a much longer climb. "All right, but if you miss me, I'm coming back to haunt you as a ghost!" Sulia went white, and Spaulders wondered if ghosts existed in this world. He decided to double down. "I will rattle chains from my limbs! I will follow you everywhere! You won't escape me until I drag you down with me!"
"Such curses unbecome a man of your position!" Sulia said. "I promise I will catch you!"
The city shook, and Spaulders' grip slipped. "Okay! You win! Here I come!" He looked down. "Ready!"
"You have nothing to fear!"
"Please stop saying that," he muttered, and let go.
He fell through the broken window, past Sulia and her dragon. She was already moving, beginning a dive, and quickly caught up to him. "Limp!" She shouted over the whistling air. "Make yourself limp!"
He plummeted past the side of a building, and caught his reflection. He looked like a rigid scarecrow. "Limp?"
"Go! Limp!" she shouted, and he got the message. He tried to relax himself. He wasn't falling. He was just floating down.
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward her, grabbing around his torso with both arms. Her dragon, zooming downward, around the buildings, started to level out in a wide arc until they were horizontal with the ground again. Sulia cradled Spaulders like a large child. "What was it you wanted to talk about?" he asked.
She looked at him and frowned. "The giant from the sudden horizon. My weapon did nothing against it. I hit it with my sword and it blew to ash!"
"Of course." Spaulders looked around. "There. Set me down over there, on that building. And..." He looked around. "I'm going to go inside. Get as many of your dragon riders as you can to meet me there in a few minutes. We have weapons that should be able to hurt it."
Sulia nodded. "Your city. Will it fall?"
"It might. It seems whatever came out of the sudden horizon was draining the power. We get rid of that thing, and we might get power back."
"Then we make haste." The dragon landed on the side of the building and flopped forward, making use of the opportunity to rest. Its tongue lolled out and it gasped. Sulia glanced toward the giant. She saw some of her dragons keeping it busy. "Can your metal dragons attack it?"
Spaulders shook his head. "They aren't agile enough. They're built for long-range battles. Your dragons are perfect for this." Spaulders hauled himself out of the saddle. "Come back quickly, there isn't much time."
Sulia nodded, and patted her dragon's neck. "We are nearly there, friend. One way or another, this day ends soon."
"Does he have a name?" Spaulders asked. Sulia chuckled and nodded.
"He finds it distasteful. To me, he is friend. I am the same to him."
Spaulders nodded. "Works for me." He looked at the dragon. "Be strong, friend. Sulia, I'll need that rope."
Sulia scowled and unhooked the rope behind her saddle, throwing it to him. "Be careful, captain." She led the dragon toward the giant, and it forced itself into the air.
Spaulders went to a door on the side of the building, which pointed straight up. He tied the rope around the doorknob and let it fall, then climbed down. Halfway down the rope he had to swing himself into a hallway, and he ran down the wall toward the end. He pushed open the door and found it a mess. To his delight, there were five people within the mess.
"Captain!" Sergeant Tunwrey said. "You shouldn't be here! You need to evacuate!"
"All of you grab as many guns you can and follow me, that's an order," he said to all of them. "We're conducting a joint mission with the fangs. Get cables you'll be able to tie, pistols, rifles, heavy weaponry, everything. Secure the weapons to yourselves and follow me up the rope."
"Sir, Serenade is going down!"
"No it isn't, sergeant." He waded into the disarrayed armory and scooped up a pistol and a rifle with a strap. He put the strap over his head and arm. "Not if I can help it."
Those in the armory looked at each other and began digging for guns.
Spaulders jammed the pistol into his pants and ran back to the rope. He spotted three more people climbing the rope and shanghaied them to fetch more weapons. One of them, a woman who couldn't have been younger than ninety, saluted so hard Spaulders expected to see a bruise. "Tell anyone you can find to do the same," he said. He leapt for the rope and pulled himself up.
A few minutes later he put his arm through the doorway and hoisted himself onto the side of the building. The sun was nearly down, only the smallest sliver existed over the horizon--the real one. The sudden horizon belched rainbow dust and twinkling dots, and the starlight giant continued to swat slow, heavy hands at the few dragons dodging around it.
Sulia and more than a dozen others flew toward him. As soon as Sulia landed he ran forward, pulling the pistol out of his pants. "Here. This end toward the giant, pull this with your finger." She fired a shot into the air, and a bolt of yellow light coughed out, disappearing a mile up. "The starlight giant looks like it's made or kept together with energy. These weapons overload electrical systems." He caught her wrist. "Humans are electrical. You hit a friend with one of those, he's as good as dead."
"Have you armed yourself?"
He slung the rifle down. "I have more soldiers coming up. Each of them to a dragon. They'll bring their own harnesses; I need to borrow more rope."
"Yaes," Sulia said to one of the riders. He brought out rope and threw it to him.
"I'm going to attach myself to you, Miss Opalshimmer," Spaulders said. "I appreciate taking things slow." One of the soldiers Spaulders had met in the building poked his head out the building. He saw Spaulders sitting behind Sulia, tied to her with rope. "Sergeant, we attack the giant." He nodded to Sulia, who was looking over her shoulder at him. "For our people and theirs."
"Hai!"
Sulia's friend rose, bearing the additional weight without complaint, and jogged toward the edge of the building, building speed and flapping its wings. It dove forward off the building, letting gravity aid it, and then angle up, dodging through the buildings, toward the back of the city and the giant.
Spaulders switched off the rifle's safety, and tried to sight on the giant. He was too far away to fire, but even so, the dragon's erratic motion made it difficult to aim.
As they got closer, he realized hitting the giant wouldn't be the difficult part. It was nearly half of Serenade's height. Its broad chest could have housed ten families. Its head would have made an opulent bridge for any city or starship.
As Sulia and Spaulders closed, the three dragon riders still distracting the giant met with her, and she explained the plan. They flew back to the building with the army, leaving only one dragon and two humans to battle the starlight giant. Spaulders told Sulia to fly past it.
She directed her dragon, and Spaulders took aim. Before he could fire, the dragon swirled and juked, spinning upside-down and threatening to dump Spaulders out of the saddle. An immense hand, burning with dots of light in the evening, swept past, slicing through the space the dragon would have been had it not taken evasive action.
"It moves with more ferocity than before!" Sulia shouted as the dragon righted itself and began to curl around the giant's back.
"From draining Serenade!" Spaulders replied. He looked over his shoulder at the city. It was still holding steady at a horizontal angle, but it was slow and lethargic. He sighted down the rifle again. He fired, and a yellow beam lanced out of the gun's muzzle with a sound like a compressed accordion. It struck the giant's arm as they traveled behind it, and little bolts of lightning danced around inside it.
A long, low rumble emitted from the giant's head as it turned to focus on them. "Sulia..."
"It cannot catch us," she said, and snapped the reins. The dragon flapped its wings to gain a bit of height and then dove under the attacking hand. Spaulders fired as his stomach rose into his throat, and the bolt hit the giant in the side. This time, the trail of lightning left strange marks inside its half-transparent body. They looked like burned trees. "Keep firing, captain!"
"Look out!" Spaulders yelled. A hand appeared out of the darkness in front of them, cutting off their passage. Spaulders shot it, but the attack did nothing to push it away. He looked over his shoulder and saw the giant's other hand closing in behind them. He wrapped his arm around Sulia's waist.
Before she evaded, a mini thunderstorm struck the giant's back. The lights illuminated a dozen dragons, each with two riders. The giant halted and stood still, stunned into inaction. Sulia took the chance to escape the shrinking space between the hands. The rest of Sulia's dragons scattered around the giant, and Spaulder's soldiers fired whenever they had a chance.
Sulia retrieved the pistol from where she had stowed it, and took the chance to fire at the giant's leg. Spaulders squeezed off one blast after another, aiming for the giant's big torso. It was too big to evade, too slow to hit any of them. It would fall in minutes if not moments.
A second later it jabbed forward with a flat hand, knocking one of the dragons out of the air, which spiraled to earth, hitting the turbulent ocean with an unheard splash. Spaulders and Sulia watched it with wide eyes.
The giant stepped forward, moving a leg faster than it had before, pointing itself right at Serenade. "Captain!"
"It might be taking enough power from the city," Spaulders said. He shot at the giant and watched lightning bounce between stars. "Or..."
"Speak, captain!"
"Our weapons might be powering it." Sulia looked over her shoulder at him, frowning. "But it doesn't change anything."
"We must focus attacks," Sulia said. She took her dragon around the giant's legs, toward the main group of dragons. "Striking at the same point will wound it faster."
"Couldn't agree more," Spaulders said. "Any way to signal your dragons?"
"Tell me where we should strike."
"There." Spaulders pointed in the dim light, at a group of stars clustered in the center of the giant's chest.
Sulia patted her dragon's neck. "Friend, tell them the plan." The dragon roared. She looked at Spaulders. Roars came back at them. "The vanguard is ours. You and I will both fire at the center spot. That will tell the others where to attack."
Spaulders nodded. "Keep steady, it will be hard to hit the spot otherwise." Sulia nodded, and brought her dragon in front of the giant.
"Glide, friend. Let the wind guide us true," she whispered in her dragon's ear. Its wings held flat and steady. Spaulders lifted the rifle up to his eye, and Sulia held the pistol out.
They fired, sending a dozen yellow bolts out in a few seconds. They struck the cluster of stars on the giant's chest in rapid succession. The giant opened its mouth and roared, arms flailing. It tried to cover its chest but the cluster was too big to shield. The other dragons swept in and out, the soldiers riding along attacking the same spot as Spaulders and Sulia. A hundred dots of lightning struck the cluster of stars.
An explosion erupted from the starlight giant's chest. It looked like a tiny thunderstorm, swirling with energy, clouds of smoke pumping in all directions.
"Keep firing!" Spaulders yelled, and the dragon roared. The giant stumbled backward, the ocean surging around its legs, as rifles and pistols attacked. Sulia took the dragon in close, and when they were only a few feet from the giant's chest, Spaulders fired over and over. He thought he could smell intense burning, like a forest fire.
The giant went rigid. Energy ran through its veins, burning trails and discharging out the fingertips, eyes, and feet. Spaulders and Sulia heard a splitting sound, and a wave of energy passed over them. The rifle and pistol they held overheated in an instant, and Sulia dropped hers into the ocean. Spaulders let his fall, hanging on to the strap.
The giant's stars winked out, turning it into a dark mass in the night. The mass tipped backward, arms and legs locked, until it struck the ocean, creating a huge splash far below.
The body still had some energy remaining, and they could see its outline underneath the water. Before long, it faded, and the only the ocean sweeping back and forth over it remembered it had been there.
"To the city!" Spaulders said, and Sulia wheeled the dragon around. The city was dark, but even as they got closer it grew brighter. The engines grew in intensity, even the forward engine, until they were blue moons in the night. From the lights, Spaulders could tell the city was crawling upright again.
Friend slept with his wings curled around him. Sulia and Spaulders, and Lieutenant Kennedy, stood next to him on top of one of Serenade's buildings. The city floated over rolling green hills, heading toward the capital of the kingdom Sulia was from.
"It does not catch the eye as Serenade does," Sulia said, "but it is grand, and it is home."
"Home is where the heart is," Spaulders said. Sulia glanced at him.
"We also have such a saying."
"I look forward to discovering more similarities between our universes. It's a shame we can't stay longer. Our own universe awaits a report."
"Now the sudden horizon is safe, we will be able to exchange much," Sulia said. She nudged her dragon, who cracked an eye open. "The city will be surprised to see me, but I must warn them of your arrival."
Her dragon yawned and stretched its wings. Sulia mounted, and secured the straps around her legs. Her dragon tossed its head and roared. From atop buildings all over the city, the other dragon riders dove toward the city. "Thank you, captain. Our people surely would have perished after crossing the sudden horizon. You saved their lives."
"Thank you as well, Sulia. Your intervention rescued thousands."
Sulia shot a smile back. "We are both heroes on this day."
"Surely."
She looked ahead. "I will return by nightfall." She snapped the reins. "Hai!"
Sulia Opalshimmer cheered, along with the rest of her squadron. The dragon she sat upon flexed its numerous muscles, ready to leap into the air should Sulia say the word.
Their hundreds-strong group stood at the edge of the cliff, overlooking an endless expanse of water. They could see a strange sight miles from the cliff, and Sulia focused on it, peering into the sunset. It was like there was a crack in the air, like a broken window stretching eternally north and eternally south. Sunlight hit it wrong, and came back in helter-skelter waves of color. It was nearly time to find out what it hid.
"Fangs!" Sulia called, after the prophet had finished. "Mount! We ride as vanguard!" Not even the whipping wind could tear the energy out of Sulia's words. Not even the eye-catching sight of the sudden horizon could stop her from leading. "Make last preparations now!"
"Spatial distortion ten miles and closing," Lieutenant Kennedy said to Captain Spaulders. "Energies holding steady."
"Keep me posted," Spaulders said, and he walked around the desk to Ensign Ned. "How are the grav-motors?"
"Zero fluctuation, captain," Ned said. Spaulders checked out the front window of captain's tower on the floating city Serenade. The distortion shimmered, catching the sunset behind them. The scientists had lost their minds when they had found it: an overlapping segment of universes, where you could pass from one to the other just like walking down the street.
"I'm going to make an announcement," Spaulders said. He retreated to his chair and settled in. He rolled his sleeves up. He pressed a button on his chair's armrest. "City-wide announcement," he said into the mic, and waiting a second. "Citizens of Serenade. In ten minutes we will pass through the distortion. Everybody to your ready stations--civilians, take safety precautions. We are unsure what will occur once we are through. You have all seen the safety measures in the case of deep space, underwater, or other immediate hostile environments. Be ready for anything. Spaulders out."
He ended the transmission. "Steady on, everyone," he said to the bridge in command of the million-ton structure, floating on anti-grav motors and housing a hundred thousand people. Buildings rose in the windows, tubes and lifts whirred, bringing latecomers to their destinations, and the metal, glass, and crystal constructions caught the scattered rainbow of the distortion, spreading it into further prisms. The ocean below them reflected the city's bulk. Spaulders stood and clasped his hands behind his back, smiling at the unknown.
"Nine miles and closing."
The dragon's body bobbed as its wings forced themselves up and down. Sulia bent herself over the spines on its back, blinking away tears from the wind and sunset. Her squadron of riders spread out behind her, armor gleaming. Far below, on the sun-dappled water of the ocean, the boats carrying the rest of their group surged through the water, watching the dragons and their riders forge ahead. If the coast was clear, they would venture to the other side just as the dragons had.
Sulia brought her vision back up from them. The sudden horizon was growing. It split the sunlight into a hundred twinkling colors, and at the center of the horizontal crack Sulia thought she could see a deep, black abyss, sucking the colors and air inside.
She pushed the fear down. With her dragon and her weapon, she was ready for anything. No force, no monster, no event could make her abandon the promises she had made to her people and herself. She pushed her dragon faster, and skimmed toward the setting sun and the crack in the sky.
The bridge was quiet, save for the constant hum of the city's engines. Spaulders leaned forward, gazing at the place where universes overlap. The city cast a miles-long shadow on the water in front of them, and Spaulders could see the shadow shift and shimmer where the distortion was, even on the water. The hard end of the world he was looking at was a scientific gold mine, and Spaulders knew the scientists where doing everything they could to capture and send information to the other cities, in case of catastrophe.
They had less than three minutes until they hit the distortion. Spaulders used his screen to zoom in on the strange sight. It was like a black bolt of lightning, firing across the world, and he could see points of light, like stars, twinkling at the center. He knew they were just chemical reactions, not images of deep space, but they still unnerved him.
He sucked in a breath and leaned forward again, hands on his knees and jaw set. He hadn't realized how big the distortion was; it looked like it could swallow the entire city and not create a single ripple on its anomalous surface. Well, they would find out in a minute how far they could fit inside.
The air tore the scream out of her mouth. She was so close. Her dragon had put the others far behind; she would be the first through. She would be the first to see the new world. She would lay claim to the wonders before anyone else could. Her dragon, sensing the same, stretched its neck forward, longing to touch the sudden horizon. The moment was at hand.
"10 seconds."
Spaulders felt his stomach clench. Tremors shot through his limbs. His fingers hurt, and he saw their deep grip on the armrests.
"3...2...1..."
A dragon smashed through the front window, showering the bridge in glass fragments. The huge, leathery beast, all wings and neck and tail and colored like a pearl, tumbled through and rolled onto its back, and Spaulders heard screams. One of them seemed to come from underneath the dragon, and at first he thought one of his crew had gotten trapped. The dragon flailed its limbs until it righted itself, and he saw a woman, with dark, imperious armor, short hair, and numerous scars showing on her flesh, attached to a saddle on its back. Her head whipped around, and she held a curved blade in her right hand.
At first she thought she was looking at a huge mirror, but when her dragon had driven through it, unable to move out of the way fast enough, she found a room past the glass. Her dragon twisted, and it rolled on top of her. Only her training kept her safe from its crushing bulk. She pulled her sword out and took in her surroundings. There were more than a dozen people around her, all wearing a blue uniform, and unarmed. One of them, a man with a stony face and wide eyes, was staring at her from a throne.
She heard dragon cries coming through the hole she had made, and realized the rest of her squadron was breaking through the horizon. She wheeled her dragon around--its tail and wings battered walls and tables, and the dragon's toothy mouth snapped at one of the people who had pressed themselves against the wall, out of its range. "Hai!" Sulia shouted, and the dragon surged forward, heading for the shattered window. The dragon's legs pushed off from the ledge and dove forward, and Sulia was able to see the world she had entered.
Gigantic structures rose around her. They shined like torches, but she could tell they were just reflecting the sun. They couldn't be natural; they rose straight up around her with varying heights and sizes. They were the color of the sky, the color of a sword's blade, like castles built out of a man-made stone.
She spotted a dragon wheeling, confused, in front of her, and she pushed her mount forward toward it. Light came from all directions, dizzying her, and thought she caught sight of other dragons around her, but they were just mirror images of herself as she flew past the windows.
"Scramble fighters!" Lieutenant Kennedy shouted. "Bring those things down!"
"Wait!" Spaulders shouted. "They haven't made any aggressive movements yet!"
Kennedy pointed at the broken window. "And what do you call that, captain?"
"A mistake. Launch fighters, but no weapons authorization."
"Sir, reporting twenty total enemy units," Ensign Pollis said. "They appear to be humans riding winged creatures. And...we've detected numerous sailing vessels on the water."
The ships were silent, gazing in wonder, terror, awe, at the sun-blocking construct the sudden horizon had disgorged. The dragon squadron were tiny dots circling the gleaming spires. The entire thing floated as if a titan's invisible hand kept it aloft. Nothing so immense could ever stay up with just wings.
"Military vessels?"
"No sir. Sensors indicate they are full of supplies and people."
"How does the universe look?"
"Nominal. Temperature, atmosphere, gravity all have little to zero variance. Really, it's just the dragons."
"Fighters launched, sir," Kennedy said. "Orders not to shoot unless they experience hostility."
"Good. Let's try not to make first contact turn into a full-blown war. Try to initiate a dialogue."
Sulia saw them approach. They could have been dragons, but their wings held steady, the faces impassive and cold. She couldn't see any riders. They grew three times as large as her dragon, cutting through the sky in groups of two, circling them slowly. The fangs she was with watched them with wild eyes, but she signaled for them to sheath their weapons. She held her hand high at the gleaming fliers, and one of them came closer.
To her surprise, a window showed her a human, wearing a round helmet and pointed mask, inside the flier's belly. The human returned the wave, and the flier waggled its wings at Sulia and her dragon. Sulia laughed, and brought her dragon spiraling over the flier, landing on its other side and grinning.
The human inside the flier pointed at a wide, gray area with colorful markings. A few humans stood at one side of it, in front of a wide cave made from the same material. The flier gained speed rapidly, easily outstripping Sulia and her dragon, and grew feet to land on the open area. A segment of it opened, and the human climbed out. Sulia followed, and her dragon flapped its wings to slow its descent. She looked at those waiting as she unbuckled the straps around her legs.
The man she had seen after smashing through the window waited with his hands behind his back. She looked up, trying to figure out which of the structures she had intruded on, but it could have been any of them. How had the man gotten to her so quickly?
She jumped off her dragon and stretched her legs. She patted the dragon's head and said a few soothing words to it as three more dragons landed around her. She looked over her shoulder and saw the man, and a few others, waiting. She straightened up and told her dragon to follow at a distance.
Spaulders watched her approach, her dragon stomping behind her. He had begun to breathe a little easier when one of the pilots relayed his communication with the dragon riders, but now the size and strength of the dragons took his breath away once more. The woman with short hair and scars approached with one hand resting on the hilt of her sheathed sword. The other dragon riders who had landed followed her, and Spaulders could see they would defer to her. She was the leader.
When she was about ten feet away she stopped. The squeal of a passing fighter ruined the moment of silence.
"Hello. Greetings," Spaulders said. "I am Captain Hexta Spaulders." He placed his hand over his heart and dipped forward at the waist, trying to hit all the points of magnanimous greeting. "Can you understand me?"
"Yes," the woman said, in what was more or less the same language. She braced her arm across her abdomen and bent until her upper body was parallel with the landing pad. The riders behind her copied her, and then she snapped upright. "Greetings, Captain Hexta Spaulders. I am First Fang Sulia Opalshimmer, leader of the dragon riders. Do you command this fortress?"
"Yes and no," Spaulders said. "You are a guest of the Federation Floating City Serenade. It isn't a military installation. I am, however, its current de facto leader."
Sulia was staring with her mouth hanging open. Some of the words he'd used had failed to penetrate her armor. He cleared his throat. "Yes. For the time being. The ships on the water below..."
"My people," the dragon rider said. "Here to explore and settle the land beyond the sudden horizon."
An eyebrow popped up on Spaulders' forehead. "And what is that?"
"A portal to another world," she said. She turned and pointed at the sky behind her with an armored finger. "The crack in the sky that took us to your world."
"Interesting. We had just entered a similar anomaly. Our worlds seem to be connected, thanks to your sudden horizon."
Sulia opened her mouth to say something, but the floating city rocked her off her feet before she could. She went down to her stomach and her dragon screeched. Spaulders, trying to keep his balance, turned to Lieutenant Kennedy. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, sir!" Lieutenant Kennedy tapped on her computer pad, fingers flying. "We didn't detect any other disturbances or airborne units, certainly not anything big enough to affect us like that!"
"Is the magic keeping the fortress afloat failing?" Sulia asked, still on her stomach, looking around.
"It isn't magic," Spaulders said. "It's anti-grav motors." Sulia frowned. "We don't know what happened." He turned back to Kennedy. "Which universe are we in right now?"
"Their's," Kennedy said. She pointed behind him, at the setting sun, and he saw the sudden horizon rippling over it. "Their sudden horizon is in the west, ours is in the east."
"Are their sailing vessels still under us?"
"Yes sir. And getting closer to the sudden horizon."
Sulia jumped up. "A storm?"
Kennedy tapped on her pad a dozen times. "Uh...no ma'am, not that we can detect, but we don't know what can happen in this universe."
"I must see to my people," Sulia said. She ran to her dragon and swung herself up, securing buckles around her upper and lower legs. She looked in Spaulder's direction for a moment, then her dragon pushed into the sky.
With the shuddering castle falling away, Sulia felt immediate relaxation. The entire time she was talking with Captain Hexta Spaulders, she thought she was going to fall. Fall off the open area they were on, into the ocean. Her dragon took the fears away, and in a minute she was out of the flying city and over the water. The sunset turned it gold.
She spied the dozens of ships cutting through the water toward the new universe and dove down to their level, the rushing wind blowing her dry of sweat. She tasted blood as her dragon dove, and it ended skimming the tips of its wings in the sparkling water, passing into the enormous shadow of the flying city.
Her dragon lighted on the deck of a bigger ship. She jumped down and relished the rocking motion of the boat.
"Sulia!" the prophet shouted, coming up to her. "What have you learned? What is it?"
"It's a city, floating as if by magic," she said. "They are well met. They, too, were about to explore what was beyond the sudden horizon--our world. It shuddered under my feet like a beast, and they did not know why. Are you safe?"
"Quite," the prophet said, spreading his hands and looking around. "Scared for you and the fangs, but that is all. Do we continue forward? Is it safe?"
"It seems to be." Sulia looked up at the monstrosity floating in front of the setting sun. It looked like it could have been a gemstone for all its shimmering.
"We are not yet even past the sudden horizon," the prophet said, also looking up at Serenade. "And we have already seen such wonders." He spoke with a low, breathy voice. Sulia turned to look at him.
"I must return. The fangs are still there. Spread word of the city to the other ships."
"We will," the prophet said. "Go on swift wings, First Fang."
Her dragon climbed toward the city. Shafts of sunlight cut through the air as they neared it.
Before she got too close, she saw it wobble, like a child's top about to fall over. In another moment it was upright and solid again, the structures shivering from top to bottom.
One of her fangs, Yaes, appeared next to her, and he signaled to speak.
"The shocks continue," he said, as their dragons labored to keep them at the same height. "The captain believes it is something related to the sudden horizon. He asks if the city may continue over the mainland."
"I'll speak with him. You go to the fleet, and-" Her eyes detected a difference in the water, far past the sudden horizon. She focused on it. It could have been land, just past the world's curve, but there hadn't been anything there before. She turned back to Yaes. "Go to the fleet and tell them. They want to continue past the sudden horizon. I will speak to Captain Hexta Spaulders."
"Yes, First Fang." He began to drift away, then floated back. "I have learned 'Captain' is a title. He is their commander upon the city, but there is also a civilian leader. They are equals in power, like yourself and the prophet."
"I see. Thank you, fang."
Yaes spiraled away, and Sulia directed her dragon toward the wide, flat area where she had spoken to Spaulders.
"It looks like she's returning, captain," Kennedy said. She tapped on her computer pad without looking away. "Still nothing on the shocks. The anti-grav motors seem to be holding steady. Power levels normal."
"Maybe it's just this world," Spaulders said. "Opalshimmer mentioned magic. Maybe magic works here, while technology such as ours doesn't." Spaulders rubbed his chin. "I should ask her."
Sulia's dragon beat its wings, slowing as it landed. Spaulders offered his hand to help her down. She lifted an eyebrow but took it anyway. "The fleet means to advance past the sudden horizon," she told him. "Will they be safe?"
"They'll be safe, but they won't find much. There isn't much land on our world. That's why we've built these floating cities. We outgrew the space we had. At their current speed, it could be a week before they see land, and it'll be little more than shoals."
Spaulders turned and found a steward at his elbow. "Something to drink, Miss Opalshimmer? You must be thirsty. Something for your...mount, as well? Our water is recycled, but fresh."
"You have my thanks," Sulia said. "My fang said you mean to continue toward the mainland."
"If that's all right, of course," Spaulders said. "I don't want to cause a panic."
Sulia looked around her, at the huge, gleaming towers, floating hundreds of feet off the ground. "I may send some of my fangs ahead to herald you." Spaulders handed her a cup of water and she chugged it.
She was about to hand it back when another tremor, the strongest one, knocked her down. The cup shattered near her. "Kennedy!" Spaulders shouted.
"I'm seeing reports of the forward anti-grav motor reducing in power," the woman said. "Down to sixty percent. No other information so far."
"You mentioned magic," Spaulders said, pulling Sulia up. "Do you have any technology? Even rudimentary forms?"
"I-I don't know." Sulia spread her legs, trying to keep her balance. "Nothing so grand as this."
"Captain!" Kennedy said. "A wave!"
"What?" Spaulders turned around. "What about it?"
"A big one." The woman looked up from her pad. "Reports are putting it at over a hundred feet high. Coming this way, from the west."
"Will it hit us?"
"No sir, we aren't in danger. But Miss Opalshimmer's fleet is."
Sulia gasped. "I spied it from the air!"
Spaulders turned back to her. "Can the ships survive a wave that tall?"
Sulia put her hand against her dragon's neck. The glittering beast was slurping from a bucket of water. "Some of them may. I fear many will meet their end. The ships are full of souls, Captain Spaulders."
"Kennedy, when will the wave reach the fleet?"
"Less than ten minutes."
"So soon?" Sulia asked. "It was at the world's edge when I landed."
"Yes ma'am. It's fast, and it seems to be gaining speed."
"Miss Opalshimmer, can the boats return to safety?"
"The shore is too distant."
"Then there's no time to lose. Kennedy, launch carriers to collect everybody aboard the ships. "We'll need to make room for them somewhere in the city." Kennedy started tapping. "Sulia, how many are there?"
"Three-hundred and forty six. Men, women, and children." An alarm blared; she looked around. "I must warn them."
Spaulders nodded. "The carriers will be there in a few minutes. We have plenty of supplies here, so people are the first priority." Another tremor hit, and even Spaulders nearly fell over. Sulia's dragon roared. "Kennedy?"
"Forward anti-grav motor dipped to thirty percent. Engineering doesn't know what's happening."
Sulia leapt up into her dragon's saddle. "What do the-" A carrier, a boxy ship with an empty middle section, roared past. A dozen more followed it. "Answered. Hai!"
Her dragon pushed away, and Spaulders watched it whirl past one of the buildings, following the carriers. "To Captain's Tower, on the double!" he shouted. "Kennedy, I want reports about that forward motor. We'll also need a place to put the fleet until we can get back to land."
"Building four-eight has enough space, sir," Kennedy said. "The motor is holding steady at seventy-"
The entire city bucked. Kennedy threw her arms out, trying to keep from falling backward onto her head, and her pad sailed over the edge of the landing zone. Spaulders shifted his weight forward, and realized the city had tipped so far he could see a small portion of the ocean through the buildings.
"Goodness!" Kennedy said when they had righted. She looked toward the spot where her pad had disappeared, and then straightened up. "I was able to ask for transport before losing my pad."
"Can we re-direct power from the other engines? Is it a mechanical function? There are safeguards in place for this sort of thing!" Spaulders said. He looked at Kennedy, who appeared lost, as a small flier landed near them. They jumped aboard. "To Captain's Tower without delay!" Spaulders shouted, and the pilot blasted off.
A minute later they entered the bridge. "Report!" he shouted. Kennedy acquired a new pad.
Ensign Cloister spoke up first. "The carriers have arrived at the fleet and evacuation has begun. The wave has grown to over a hundred and fifty feet, and is still expected reach them in eight minutes."
"The motors?" Spaulders asked.
"Engineering is going mental," Ensign Ned said. "Power just isn't reaching the forward motor. On all accounts it should still be working." A tremor hit the bridge. "Power reduced to forty-four percent."
"Get us over the mainland," Spaulders said. "Does building four-eight have enough space for everyone from the boats?"
"Yes sir it does," Ensign Ned said. "The first carrier is returning now."
"Another wave has been spotted behind the first, a three-minute difference," Kennedy said.
"None of those boats are going to survive," Spaulders said. "Looks like we're on a humanitarian mission now. Get supplies to building four-eight and make sure there's enough room." He sat in his chair and punched a few buttons, then looked at the hole where the front window used to be. "And get someone up here to fix this window." He hit more buttons. "Riley! Please tell me you have some sort of explanation!"
"Sorry sir, we got nothing down here!" Riley said, speaking from the bottom level of the city in engineering. "We're running around like kids chasing a ball. I hate to say it, but we've-" A tremor turned his words to static for a moment, and Spaulders gripped the armrests of his chair. "-engines. Ino! Run a diagnostics on the emergency power supplies! Can't talk captain, too much to do!"
"What was that about the other engines? Riley!" Spaulders shut the communicator off with a curse. "Get us over the land as fast as we can and get us on the ground!"
"Five minutes until the wave hits," Kennedy said, eyes glued to her pad. "Evacuation approximately fifty percent complete."
Sulia grabbed a child under his arms and nearly threw him into the carrier hovering next to the boat she stood on. "Make haste!" she shouted for the hundredth time. She glanced toward the sunset and found it partially obscured by the growing wave. "The city has space and supplies enough for all; leave it behind if you can!"
"Can they be trusted?" the prophet asked from the carrier as he pulled an old woman on-board. He looked toward the city. "Man was not meant to float so!"
"I have met one of their leaders," Sulia said. "He is a man of honor and dignity. I sensed no betrayal or malevolence. We still have our dragons, and we are still fighters. If they do turn against us, they will not find us easy victims. But we must trust them for now." She glanced at the wave. "Quickly!" She threw people up for those inside the carrier to catch. "Be strong! Let the air take you to safety!"
The children boarded, the women boarded, the men boarded. The huge ship became empty and quiet. The carrier lifted up, leaving Sulia on the deck with her dragon. She ran to it and leapt on, beginning to buckle the straps around her legs. She heard a cry behind her.
She turned so fast her back pained. A girl no more than ten stood at the exit from the hold, a doll in her hands. She was white like the billowing sails.
Sulia looked toward the wave and found it big enough to mystify her. She dashed her head from side to side, buckled the last straps, and urged her dragon toward the girl. She shied away as the beast stomped closer.
"Have no fear!" Sulia shouted. She bent down and held out her hand. "We must away from this place, young one! Take my hand!"
The girl, trembling, shaking, put her hand in Sulia's. Sulia yanked her up onto the saddle. "Hold tight to me. Today you are a dragon rider." The girl squeezed around her middle. "Hai!"
The dragon surged at the port side of the ship, wings beginning to pound up and down. The light was dark and gray; the wave oppressed the ocean. "Faster! Faster!" Sulia shouted, and her dragon obliged, forcing itself forward and thrusting off the edge of the ship. Sulia twisted her head and found the wave stretching over her, about to dig down and bury her in its risen depths.
"Hai!" She shouted, snapping the reins, and her dragon needed no further urging. Its wings blasted up and down fast enough to deafen her. The wave closed over them, but a tunnel through the water ahead of them remained. "Bend close to the beast, child," Sulia said. The girl pressed against the dragon, and Sulia bent forward over her. Water fell.
The tunnel was closing. The path to safety became smaller. Her dragon sucked its wings against its body.
A sheet of water struck Sulia and would have knocked her off had the straps not held tight. Another moment later she was breathing air again, and she felt the gravity turn under her as her dragon pointed itself up, away from the violent ocean. She looked back to see the ships dashed to pieces as the wave tossed them. The girl in her lap was drenched from head to toe and had her eyes shut, nearly squeezing the breath out of Sulia. They rose over past the height of the next wave with ease, back into the sunset's light. The city, glittering and safe, welcomed them.
One of her fangs led her to another flat area, where a few of the carriers were unloading their precious cargo. As soon as Sulia let her go, the girl jumped down and ran to her parents, and the family cheered and cried together. Sulia wiped water out of her eyes. She unbuckled and walked up to the prophet. "Did everyone escape?"
"We lost not a soul. The speed of these creations!" the prophet said, slapping the carrier. "I may never regain my breath!" The city trembled under their feet. "It shakes as if angry! Will the city allow us?"
"I must speak with Spaulders," Sulia said. "There are many details to make sure of." She looked over her people. Those from Serenade were leading them toward the building they had promised. "I must know what he plans." She jumped onto her dragon. "I fear our trials have only begun, prophet."
"I feel the same," the prophet said. "A terrible disturbance caused the waves. Perhaps we should stay to our own worlds."
"Perhaps," Sulia said. She looked up, toward Captain's Tower, gold in the sunlight.
She bid goodbye to him and re-mounted her dragon. Soon she was in the air again, drying off, and whistling toward the building she had crashed through when the two worlds had met. She spotted the empty wall where the window had once been, and drifted past it.
"Captain," Kennedy said. "I believe Miss Opalshimmer would like a word."
Spaulders looked up from his screen and saw a dragon holding steady on the other side of the shattered window. He stood as the city jostled. "We were able to view your escape from the wave. I'm glad to see you're still with us."
Her dragon gripped the lip of the window with its back legs and poked its head inside the bridge. "The people I have sworn to protect are in your hands now. You have my trust, captain, but if you turn against us I will cut you down."
"You have nothing to fear," Spaulders said. The city shook. "Not from us, anyway. I'm afraid the forward engine is still having problems. We're moving toward the mainland as quickly as we can, and then your people will be back where they belong."
The world turned to fury around them. The entire city vibrated, blowing everyone in the bridge off their feet or rattling them at their desks. Sulia's dragon screeched and disengaged from the lip of the window, wings and long neck striking walls and ceiling. Unlike previous occurrences, the shaking continued, and dust began to drift down.
"Kennedy!" Spaulders said over the grinding sounds coming from all directions. "Please tell me the engine hasn't failed entirely!"
Kennedy was doing her best to hold on to her pad. "Then what do you want me to say, captain? Do you want me to say 'the other engines are also losing power'? How about 'Serenade is beginning to tip forward, and we don't have the power to correct it'? I can say those things, can't I?"
Spaulders felt gravity shift under him, and down began to point toward the window. "If I'm being honest, I'd rather you didn't!"
"You haven't left me much I can say then, captain!"
The grinding died, and the tilting stopped. The entire city listed ten degrees forward, and small tremors rose through it. Spaulders climbed into his chair and contacted engineering.
It was about thirty seconds before he heard anything. "Captain, I know what you're going to say-"
"I'm very creative, Riley."
"Yes sir. Certainly sir. Uh...we don't know." Spaulders pinched his nose. "We know what's happening, we just don't know why."
"Tell me what is happening, then."
"Something's sapping the power." Spaulders heard something shift, and Riley's voice came through a little clearer. "Sorry sir, everything's mucked about. As I said, there's a power drain, but we don't know where, or why, or what. Something is taking power from the engines. Mainly the forward engine, but all of them to a degree."
"Any theories?"
There was a silence, and Spaulders had worked with Riley long enough to know the man was rubbing his chin. "None. I'm sorry sir, but I've never seen anything like this. However, we are in a different universe now. There could be...I don't know...mold spores, or little birds or something that are messing up our systems. But we have no way to check, especially with the engines in trouble and the city tilted. We're at red alert just keeping Serenade afloat."
Spaulders worked his jaw from one side to the other. "Riley, I may have a solution. Give me a moment." He looked out the window. "Sulia, we've helped you, now you help us."
"What is it you would ask of me?" the rider said.
"If you and any other riders who will agree can fly around the bottom of the city and look for anything that might be damaging our systems, we might be able to get to the mainland safely. If the engines lose any more power, this whole thing could smash into the ocean."
"I know of nothing that does as you suspect, but we will look nonetheless, you have my word."
She took off, her dragon's hide sparkling in the dwindling light. Spaulders returned to his communicator. "Riley, our new friends our going to check the city's undercarriage for anything that looks amiss. You and everyone else down there get to work putting us upright."
"We'll try, captain, but we aren't having much luck right now. The-"
Spaulders' communicator beeped. "I'll leave you to it, Riley. I know you can figure something out. Spaulders out." He switched calls. "Spaulders here."
"I'm beginning to regret giving you command, captain. Dragons, tremors, and now refugees? You know that sort of decision is my prerogative."
"We aren't taking them on for the entire voyage, ma'am," Spaulders said, sighing. "We're dropping them off as soon as we reach the mainland. I certainly wasn't about to let them get annihilated by those waves. I assume you caught sight of them?"
"Yes, they were quite big. Captain, as prime minister you are required to notify me of decisions that could affect the populace in such a manner. Now we're dolling out supplies we've stockpiled to people we don't even know!"
"As long as all goes well, they won't even be staying the night. Even at low power, it will only take us a few hours to hit the mainland."
"Why can't you just use the carriers to unload them now?"
"Launching carriers--or any fliers--at a tilt like this is tantamount to suicide. Also, if, God forbid, the city starts to go down, then we need every carrier available to evacuate everyone, not just the refugees."
The other end of the communicator was silent for a moment. "Does engineering have anything for us?" the Prime Minister asked.
"They're looking into it. The dragon riders are making sure there's no damage to the engines."
"You're trusting people we don't even know to make sure we don't all burn up in a city-wide explosion?!"
"Their leader is a woman you could learn from, ma'am. She knows her people are in our hands. I should say we trust each other. She is smart, honorable, and competent. The dragons she commands are perfect for this task."
There was another short pause. "Keep me updated and don't bring any other refugees on-board!"
"Yes ma'am." Spaulders shut the call off, and everyone on the bridge rolled their eyes. Spaulders pushed his communicator away and rubbed his face. He looked out the broken opening. "Can we get someone up here to fix this window?"
"Prophet, you were right," Sulia said. Only her dragon could hear her. "There are wonders here."
She flew around the bottom of the city, eyes trying to pick out anything out-of-place. The city's engines, four immense domes, suspended from the bottom and glowed an electric blue. They were big enough to make her dragon look like a moth flitting around a campfire, and they seemed just as dangerous. Sulia's eyes felt too small to view all of it at once, and her neck craned in all directions to take it in. Thick ropes spanned from one edge of the city's underside to the other, tubes like snakes curled in bunches, and lights illuminated any shadow the sun made.
Yet Sulia saw nothing to create the problems the city had. She understood none of it, but everything seemed to be connected to its proper place. None of the tubes were split and leaking fluid, none of the ropes dangled unconnected, and none of the immense inverted domes sported cracks.
As her dragon dove in and out of the forest of machinery, Sulia wondered at their glowing color. Were they filled with water? An unfathomable amount of dye? Her dragon refused to get near them, and she also felt sudden, blistering heat when they got too close. How could heat possible keep something as staggering as Serenade in the air? Spaulders had said it wasn't magic--but what other explanation was there?
Her dragon led itself out of the city's belly, toward the rim. It began to follow its perimeter as Sulia scanned, peering against the sun at the tilted structure floating at one millionth the dragon's speed.
Behind it, the sudden horizon was a thin black crack, through which the sun could not penetrate. Despite the wonder of the city, Sulia looked at it. She had still not seen what was on the other side, what Spaulders' world looked like, though she knew it could not be much different from her own. The only thing Spaulders found surprising was the dragons.
The sudden horizon shifted. Sulia thought it had been a trick of the setting sun behind it at first, until it shifted again. As well, it grew larger. She eased her dragon around so she could see it better, flying closer.
It was bigger. Now, instead of just a thin, pitch-black center, there was some sort of disturbance inside. The edges rippled, stretching up and down, flowing like waves. The stretched and distorted rainbow she had surged toward not too long ago now gnashed like teeth. Before her eyes, the sudden horizon yawned, blocking the sun for a brief moment, showing her a picture of vast endlessness, full of twirling lights. They danced, frantic like fairies, aggressive like wolves' eyes in firelight.
The sudden horizon shrank back to its normal size, and Sulia tore her eyes away. She remembered to breathe.
Her dragon made its way back toward the city, flapping its wings. It is weary, Sulia thought. As am I. I see nothing attached to the city. I must ask Spaulders for rest and rations or I won't be of any help when it is necessary.
The floating city shivered in front of her, and Sulia realized it must be a tremor seen, not felt. It tilted forward a small amount, but the tops of the towers still dropped in height enough to blow the breath from her lungs. Even so far away she thought she could hear the shouts and screams coming from every building.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the sudden horizon rippling, tossing like rapids. The rainbow along its edges grew and shrunk, showing off one color, then another. The lights within the ebony middle section sparked and spun, and seemed to grow in size.
The sudden horizon pulled itself open, as if hands the size of the city yanked it apart from both top and bottom. The lights inside it strung themselves into lines, making up legs, arms, a spine. The thin starlight giant reached an arm out toward her.
It passed into the light of her universe, and the immense hand took shape before her. Big enough to swat her from the sky with its smallest finger, the entire hand could swallow a hundred of her with ease. What little of the sun's natural light bypassed the sudden horizon's cloak of darkness glanced off knuckles and fingers and wrist, made of some material shimmering and translucent, at one point invisible to the eye and the next solid and formed of utter, unbroken mass. The lights forming the giant twinkled as it tumbled further out of the opening, hand growing over her like the wave.
Her dragon screeched loud enough to bring her back to action. She dove, under the starlight giant's closing fist, and spun around to point herself back at the city. "Hai!" The dragon flapped its wings, climbing back up to the tilting city. She figured the giant was not something anybody could miss, but she would make sure its presence was known to Spaulders.
"Everyone still with us?" Spaulders asked the bridge. The city was at a further tilt. Alarm bells were going off, convinced the city was on a one-way path down. "Kennedy, can you...Kennedy?"
The woman was gazing at something on her pad, eyebrows together. She tapped it. "Kennedy?"
She looked up. "Sorry captain. The sudden horizon has just shifted its power output."
Spaulders frowned. "Surely that isn't as important as making sure the refugees are adapting, especially since the city is now at a fourteen degree tilt."
Kennedy's eyes widened but stayed on the screen. "Kennedy..."
"Captain," she said, finally looking up at him. "Go to red alert." She put her screen in front of him.
The picture had some interference. He could see the sudden horizon. It looked loose, like a stretched-out shirt. She could see a dragon and rider--it could have been Sulia--flying toward the city as fast as it could. The interference moved.
Spaulders shook his head slightly and peered closer. A form took shape. Spaulders perceived limbs, a torso, a head. He frowned and blinked. "Is..."
Kennedy nodded.
"How?"
"From the sudden horizon, sir."
Spaulders sucked in a breath. "Red alert."
Looking at the city's underside, lights began to change color. Blue dots switched to red. People, tiny enough to be specks of dust, ran.
An explosion came from under her as the starlight giant stepped forward. She glanced down and saw a swell of water ripple outward, and then another as the giant advanced. The hand was still right behind her. She put her hand on the dragon's neck. "Fly with me, friend. The sky is our domain. If the giant reaches the city, thousands perish." She sucked in a breath. "Hai!"
Her dragon spun, flipping until she faced the immense, otherworldly creature. The hand approached from her left, and she rolled away to the right, going for the space next to the giant's head. She pulled out her sword, and the little sliver of sun still over the horizon turned its blade to fire. The dragon swept in, too fast and agile for the giant to strike, and she slashed the giant's head as she whipped past. It sounded as if she struck stone, and was surprised to not see sparks.
The blade of her sword turned to dust and blew away. She looked at the handle and hilt with an open mouth, and then let it drop from her hand into the ocean. "Don't touch it," she said to her dragon. It swirled around the giant's torso, and Sulia looked for any sort of weak spot. A hand moved in her way but her dragon evaded it. "At least its eyes are on us."
"Riley, get us away from that thing!" Spaulders said into his communicator. "The farther we are from it, the safer we are. Full speed!"
"I would if I could, captain," Riley said. "But the drain has gotten worse. In fact-" The city rumbled. The tilt increased. "Is there anything higher than red alert?"
"Kennedy, is it possible to launch defense fliers at this angle?" Spaulders asked. "Ensign Cloister, make a city-wide announcement about a possible evacuation! Pyoris, how do our weapon batteries look?"
"No good, captain," Lieutenant Pyoris said. He hung on to his station at an angle. "The power drain is too severe. We use them and we're all swimming."
Spaulders slammed a fist on his armrest. "There must be something we can do to stop that thing." He placed his hand against his chin. "What about-"
A sound like the opposite of something cracking in half--a strange, warped, downtuned slamming together--rocked the city. The city fell forward, and Spaulders tumbled out of his chair, hitting one of the consoles at the front of the bridge. "Evacuate!" he shouted. "If that wasn't the forward engine failing, then nothing was! I want all carriers full of as many people as they can!"
The city was sinking. With the forward engine gone, it rotated forward until it was nearly ninety degrees. Spaulders looked out the missing front window and saw mostly ocean. "Everyone out!"
"It must not reach the city!" Sulia shouted at the other dragons as they pulled up to her. "We defend our people and theirs with our lives if we must! I will speak with their leader!" She wheeled around and saw the city dropping forward, its buildings pointed at the still-distant shore. Her tired dragon labored forward, tongue lolling out. She could feel its heart through the saddle. "Curse this forsaken day! Let it rot! Let it burn!" she shouted.
She flew around the first ring of buildings, heading for the place of command. Her dragon dived and weaved through the horizontal buildings; she listened to alarm bells, screams, and engines beginning to heat up. With the base of the city hiding the sun, the flight was dark and cool. Sulia urged her dragon on.
They had to climb toward the elevator at the back of the room, and Spaulders was the last one to go. Thanks to the tilt, only a few could get inside before they had to ride it down to one of the pickup spots. Spaulders watched Kennedy hit the button and saw she'll send it right back up, and then he was alone, braced against the hard leather of the back of his captain's chair. He heard sirens firing, the coughing sputter of engines trying to keep millions of tons of metal up, and his own heavy breathing. He swallowed and readied himself to climb up to the elevator.
The city bucked down, and he lost his grip. He slipped off the chair and caught his arm around the console next to it, legs dangling. He tried to squeeze himself underneath it, but the space was too small.
The elevator dinged and its doors opened. The city bucked again, and then returned to a horizontal position. "At least the other engines work," he said. He licked his lips and looked for a way to reach the elevator.
"Captain!" he heard under him. He looked between his feet and saw Sulia through the broken window, riding her clearly-exhausted dragon. "We must speak!"
"I'll pencil you in for Wednesday!" he shouted back. "I'm afraid my schedule's rather full!"
"No! I will catch you now!" Spaulders, and Sulia's dragon, looked at her and frowned. "Surely it is the only way for you to escape injury!"
Spaulders almost believed her. "What happens if you don't catch me?" he shouted down.
"I will!" She slapped her closed fist over her heart. "On my honor as a dragon rider and the first fang!"
"Your dragon looks like he's almost to fall out of the sky!"
"He has strength enough!"
Spaulders looked up at the elevator. It suddenly seemed a much longer climb. "All right, but if you miss me, I'm coming back to haunt you as a ghost!" Sulia went white, and Spaulders wondered if ghosts existed in this world. He decided to double down. "I will rattle chains from my limbs! I will follow you everywhere! You won't escape me until I drag you down with me!"
"Such curses unbecome a man of your position!" Sulia said. "I promise I will catch you!"
The city shook, and Spaulders' grip slipped. "Okay! You win! Here I come!" He looked down. "Ready!"
"You have nothing to fear!"
"Please stop saying that," he muttered, and let go.
He fell through the broken window, past Sulia and her dragon. She was already moving, beginning a dive, and quickly caught up to him. "Limp!" She shouted over the whistling air. "Make yourself limp!"
He plummeted past the side of a building, and caught his reflection. He looked like a rigid scarecrow. "Limp?"
"Go! Limp!" she shouted, and he got the message. He tried to relax himself. He wasn't falling. He was just floating down.
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward her, grabbing around his torso with both arms. Her dragon, zooming downward, around the buildings, started to level out in a wide arc until they were horizontal with the ground again. Sulia cradled Spaulders like a large child. "What was it you wanted to talk about?" he asked.
She looked at him and frowned. "The giant from the sudden horizon. My weapon did nothing against it. I hit it with my sword and it blew to ash!"
"Of course." Spaulders looked around. "There. Set me down over there, on that building. And..." He looked around. "I'm going to go inside. Get as many of your dragon riders as you can to meet me there in a few minutes. We have weapons that should be able to hurt it."
Sulia nodded. "Your city. Will it fall?"
"It might. It seems whatever came out of the sudden horizon was draining the power. We get rid of that thing, and we might get power back."
"Then we make haste." The dragon landed on the side of the building and flopped forward, making use of the opportunity to rest. Its tongue lolled out and it gasped. Sulia glanced toward the giant. She saw some of her dragons keeping it busy. "Can your metal dragons attack it?"
Spaulders shook his head. "They aren't agile enough. They're built for long-range battles. Your dragons are perfect for this." Spaulders hauled himself out of the saddle. "Come back quickly, there isn't much time."
Sulia nodded, and patted her dragon's neck. "We are nearly there, friend. One way or another, this day ends soon."
"Does he have a name?" Spaulders asked. Sulia chuckled and nodded.
"He finds it distasteful. To me, he is friend. I am the same to him."
Spaulders nodded. "Works for me." He looked at the dragon. "Be strong, friend. Sulia, I'll need that rope."
Sulia scowled and unhooked the rope behind her saddle, throwing it to him. "Be careful, captain." She led the dragon toward the giant, and it forced itself into the air.
Spaulders went to a door on the side of the building, which pointed straight up. He tied the rope around the doorknob and let it fall, then climbed down. Halfway down the rope he had to swing himself into a hallway, and he ran down the wall toward the end. He pushed open the door and found it a mess. To his delight, there were five people within the mess.
"Captain!" Sergeant Tunwrey said. "You shouldn't be here! You need to evacuate!"
"All of you grab as many guns you can and follow me, that's an order," he said to all of them. "We're conducting a joint mission with the fangs. Get cables you'll be able to tie, pistols, rifles, heavy weaponry, everything. Secure the weapons to yourselves and follow me up the rope."
"Sir, Serenade is going down!"
"No it isn't, sergeant." He waded into the disarrayed armory and scooped up a pistol and a rifle with a strap. He put the strap over his head and arm. "Not if I can help it."
Those in the armory looked at each other and began digging for guns.
Spaulders jammed the pistol into his pants and ran back to the rope. He spotted three more people climbing the rope and shanghaied them to fetch more weapons. One of them, a woman who couldn't have been younger than ninety, saluted so hard Spaulders expected to see a bruise. "Tell anyone you can find to do the same," he said. He leapt for the rope and pulled himself up.
A few minutes later he put his arm through the doorway and hoisted himself onto the side of the building. The sun was nearly down, only the smallest sliver existed over the horizon--the real one. The sudden horizon belched rainbow dust and twinkling dots, and the starlight giant continued to swat slow, heavy hands at the few dragons dodging around it.
Sulia and more than a dozen others flew toward him. As soon as Sulia landed he ran forward, pulling the pistol out of his pants. "Here. This end toward the giant, pull this with your finger." She fired a shot into the air, and a bolt of yellow light coughed out, disappearing a mile up. "The starlight giant looks like it's made or kept together with energy. These weapons overload electrical systems." He caught her wrist. "Humans are electrical. You hit a friend with one of those, he's as good as dead."
"Have you armed yourself?"
He slung the rifle down. "I have more soldiers coming up. Each of them to a dragon. They'll bring their own harnesses; I need to borrow more rope."
"Yaes," Sulia said to one of the riders. He brought out rope and threw it to him.
"I'm going to attach myself to you, Miss Opalshimmer," Spaulders said. "I appreciate taking things slow." One of the soldiers Spaulders had met in the building poked his head out the building. He saw Spaulders sitting behind Sulia, tied to her with rope. "Sergeant, we attack the giant." He nodded to Sulia, who was looking over her shoulder at him. "For our people and theirs."
"Hai!"
Sulia's friend rose, bearing the additional weight without complaint, and jogged toward the edge of the building, building speed and flapping its wings. It dove forward off the building, letting gravity aid it, and then angle up, dodging through the buildings, toward the back of the city and the giant.
Spaulders switched off the rifle's safety, and tried to sight on the giant. He was too far away to fire, but even so, the dragon's erratic motion made it difficult to aim.
As they got closer, he realized hitting the giant wouldn't be the difficult part. It was nearly half of Serenade's height. Its broad chest could have housed ten families. Its head would have made an opulent bridge for any city or starship.
As Sulia and Spaulders closed, the three dragon riders still distracting the giant met with her, and she explained the plan. They flew back to the building with the army, leaving only one dragon and two humans to battle the starlight giant. Spaulders told Sulia to fly past it.
She directed her dragon, and Spaulders took aim. Before he could fire, the dragon swirled and juked, spinning upside-down and threatening to dump Spaulders out of the saddle. An immense hand, burning with dots of light in the evening, swept past, slicing through the space the dragon would have been had it not taken evasive action.
"It moves with more ferocity than before!" Sulia shouted as the dragon righted itself and began to curl around the giant's back.
"From draining Serenade!" Spaulders replied. He looked over his shoulder at the city. It was still holding steady at a horizontal angle, but it was slow and lethargic. He sighted down the rifle again. He fired, and a yellow beam lanced out of the gun's muzzle with a sound like a compressed accordion. It struck the giant's arm as they traveled behind it, and little bolts of lightning danced around inside it.
A long, low rumble emitted from the giant's head as it turned to focus on them. "Sulia..."
"It cannot catch us," she said, and snapped the reins. The dragon flapped its wings to gain a bit of height and then dove under the attacking hand. Spaulders fired as his stomach rose into his throat, and the bolt hit the giant in the side. This time, the trail of lightning left strange marks inside its half-transparent body. They looked like burned trees. "Keep firing, captain!"
"Look out!" Spaulders yelled. A hand appeared out of the darkness in front of them, cutting off their passage. Spaulders shot it, but the attack did nothing to push it away. He looked over his shoulder and saw the giant's other hand closing in behind them. He wrapped his arm around Sulia's waist.
Before she evaded, a mini thunderstorm struck the giant's back. The lights illuminated a dozen dragons, each with two riders. The giant halted and stood still, stunned into inaction. Sulia took the chance to escape the shrinking space between the hands. The rest of Sulia's dragons scattered around the giant, and Spaulder's soldiers fired whenever they had a chance.
Sulia retrieved the pistol from where she had stowed it, and took the chance to fire at the giant's leg. Spaulders squeezed off one blast after another, aiming for the giant's big torso. It was too big to evade, too slow to hit any of them. It would fall in minutes if not moments.
A second later it jabbed forward with a flat hand, knocking one of the dragons out of the air, which spiraled to earth, hitting the turbulent ocean with an unheard splash. Spaulders and Sulia watched it with wide eyes.
The giant stepped forward, moving a leg faster than it had before, pointing itself right at Serenade. "Captain!"
"It might be taking enough power from the city," Spaulders said. He shot at the giant and watched lightning bounce between stars. "Or..."
"Speak, captain!"
"Our weapons might be powering it." Sulia looked over her shoulder at him, frowning. "But it doesn't change anything."
"We must focus attacks," Sulia said. She took her dragon around the giant's legs, toward the main group of dragons. "Striking at the same point will wound it faster."
"Couldn't agree more," Spaulders said. "Any way to signal your dragons?"
"Tell me where we should strike."
"There." Spaulders pointed in the dim light, at a group of stars clustered in the center of the giant's chest.
Sulia patted her dragon's neck. "Friend, tell them the plan." The dragon roared. She looked at Spaulders. Roars came back at them. "The vanguard is ours. You and I will both fire at the center spot. That will tell the others where to attack."
Spaulders nodded. "Keep steady, it will be hard to hit the spot otherwise." Sulia nodded, and brought her dragon in front of the giant.
"Glide, friend. Let the wind guide us true," she whispered in her dragon's ear. Its wings held flat and steady. Spaulders lifted the rifle up to his eye, and Sulia held the pistol out.
They fired, sending a dozen yellow bolts out in a few seconds. They struck the cluster of stars on the giant's chest in rapid succession. The giant opened its mouth and roared, arms flailing. It tried to cover its chest but the cluster was too big to shield. The other dragons swept in and out, the soldiers riding along attacking the same spot as Spaulders and Sulia. A hundred dots of lightning struck the cluster of stars.
An explosion erupted from the starlight giant's chest. It looked like a tiny thunderstorm, swirling with energy, clouds of smoke pumping in all directions.
"Keep firing!" Spaulders yelled, and the dragon roared. The giant stumbled backward, the ocean surging around its legs, as rifles and pistols attacked. Sulia took the dragon in close, and when they were only a few feet from the giant's chest, Spaulders fired over and over. He thought he could smell intense burning, like a forest fire.
The giant went rigid. Energy ran through its veins, burning trails and discharging out the fingertips, eyes, and feet. Spaulders and Sulia heard a splitting sound, and a wave of energy passed over them. The rifle and pistol they held overheated in an instant, and Sulia dropped hers into the ocean. Spaulders let his fall, hanging on to the strap.
The giant's stars winked out, turning it into a dark mass in the night. The mass tipped backward, arms and legs locked, until it struck the ocean, creating a huge splash far below.
The body still had some energy remaining, and they could see its outline underneath the water. Before long, it faded, and the only the ocean sweeping back and forth over it remembered it had been there.
"To the city!" Spaulders said, and Sulia wheeled the dragon around. The city was dark, but even as they got closer it grew brighter. The engines grew in intensity, even the forward engine, until they were blue moons in the night. From the lights, Spaulders could tell the city was crawling upright again.
Friend slept with his wings curled around him. Sulia and Spaulders, and Lieutenant Kennedy, stood next to him on top of one of Serenade's buildings. The city floated over rolling green hills, heading toward the capital of the kingdom Sulia was from.
"It does not catch the eye as Serenade does," Sulia said, "but it is grand, and it is home."
"Home is where the heart is," Spaulders said. Sulia glanced at him.
"We also have such a saying."
"I look forward to discovering more similarities between our universes. It's a shame we can't stay longer. Our own universe awaits a report."
"Now the sudden horizon is safe, we will be able to exchange much," Sulia said. She nudged her dragon, who cracked an eye open. "The city will be surprised to see me, but I must warn them of your arrival."
Her dragon yawned and stretched its wings. Sulia mounted, and secured the straps around her legs. Her dragon tossed its head and roared. From atop buildings all over the city, the other dragon riders dove toward the city. "Thank you, captain. Our people surely would have perished after crossing the sudden horizon. You saved their lives."
"Thank you as well, Sulia. Your intervention rescued thousands."
Sulia shot a smile back. "We are both heroes on this day."
"Surely."
She looked ahead. "I will return by nightfall." She snapped the reins. "Hai!"