The Glyph of Truth

A Feast of Fish

Valdez stepped away from the helm, visibly shaking, his face ashen. "Take the helm, Hugo," he said. "I need some rest."

He slumped into Larkhill's chair and closed his eyes. Dame Ludmilla rummaged around in the galley and returned with a small canteen, which she handed to Valdez. The pilot took a sip from the canteen and coughed. "This tastes like fuel," he said.

"It was all I could find," Dame Ludmilla replied. "Apart from a bag of salt and one box of biscuits, the kitchen is empty. There isn't even any water in the tank."

"What about the store room?"

"Mostly empty," Bowfinger said.

"Bare," Harcourt said.

"That's not good," Valdez pointed out the obvious. "We need food and water for at least a week to get to Arana. We could make it without food, but definitely not without water."

"Can't we stop by a stream or lake to take on some water?" Dame Ludmilla inquired.

"Not easily. Besides, where would we put it? Are there any casks or tanks on board? Apart from the one in the kitchen, which isn't nearly large enough?"

"We are coming down the Eastern slope of the Humpback Mountains," Demijohn mused. "If we turned North instead of South, we could fly to Stormhead Bay."

"Where is that?" Valdez asked. "And why should we want to go there?"

"It's a small fishing village on the shore of the Sea of Wolves. I was born there. My parents still live there. The people would provide us with food and water." He paused. "And there is an abandoned airfield there."

Now, Valdez was interested. "How so?"

"Forty years ago, when the Admirality was surveying the Sea of Wolves, they built an airfield in Stormhead Bay to serve as a base of operations. The buildings are all tumbled down now, of but the mooring rings should still be there. I remember, when we were children, we tried to pull them out of the ground. Of course, we never got very far with that."

Valdez fetched a map from a drawer next to the helm, and unfolded it.

"Stormhead Bay is here," he said, indicating a red and black diamond on the map. "Even the airfield is marked. It is rated 'emergency only'. We are somewhere here." He indicated an area East of the Humpback Mountains. "We should give Daynard wide berth. There is an operational airfield there. If we turn north as soon as we're out of the valley, and follow the coastline, we should reach Stormhead Bay before nightfall."

"Sounds like a plan," Demijohn said. "Any objections?"

Nobody raised any. Now that he knew there was no water on board, Harcourt immediately felt thirsty.

"I always thought you were from Morune," Dame Ludmilla said to Demijohn.

The big man shook his head. "No, I'm from the back country originally. My father is a fisherman. Every man in Stormhead Bay is a fisherman. I couldn't live a life like that. I ran away to Morune when I was twelve, and worked in the mines in Lesser Zant and the Cadian Hills. I helped to organize a few strikes there. After the Cantdown Riots, it became too dangerous for me, and I moved to Spay and then to Glimmermere."

"I didn't know there were any mines in Spay."

"There aren't any. I worked as a longshoreman for a few months. But I'm just not cut out for that kind of work."

Larkhill had the helm and piloted the airship, but Valdez was constantly alert and occasionally corrected him.

They descended the rugged Eastern slopes of the Humpback Mountains, the dark green conifers were gradually replaced by deciduous forests, whose glorious autumnal reds and golds could only be guessed at in the moonlight. Over the foothills, they turned North. Occasionally, the forest canopy was broken by villages surrounded by meadows and fallow fields. Shortly after sunrise, the choppy grey expanse of the Sea of Wolves became visible on the horizon.