Chapter 39: Rain, Leynne, Stow Away

…

The train ride felt longer than Link had imagined. He was not quite sure why. His mind still buzzed with the question of what airship had crashed in the north, but it was less focused on what he would do if he discovered his crew onboard. He was determined not to let those worries bother him again, and he constantly reminded himself of his resolve by balling up a fist and aiming it at the car's only window. Now that the sun shone properly over the realm, Link found that it was a little easier to gaze out the grungy glass at the plain. It may have been his unusual optimism, but the grass covering the plain looked a little greener. The northern perimeter of the Lost Woods appeared after a bridge over a river, and Link lost interest.

He tapped the blunt end of Cale's forgotten pen against the desk, his attention back to the open journal in front of him. After unsuccessfully taking a nap, he thought he might have more to write down. But he was just as stymied, and he found himself slowly losing patience. Irleen had fallen asleep in the middle berth, where Link had been lying; he could see her steady, green glow inside.

After a defeated sigh, he reached to the open ration pouch and broke off another piece of biscuit. Without anything to do maybe until they reached the mountains up north, Link decided to snack on one of the new rations Luggard had stocked the Seventeen with. He would eat the rest of the ration later, but he was peckish and, for reasons unknown to him, could not remember what he had for breakfast. He had to admit that this batch was a little tastier than the others; he decided that it would have been best if he had noticed this before he nearly wound up with food poisoning. Of course, without prior knowledge of what rations on the surface tasted like, he realized that he could not have made the judgment soon enough to prevent Cale's unfortunate illness.

So he wrote about that.

~~I've recently discovered the taste difference between good and bad rations. It would have been helpful information before; Cale would probably be with us. And if Cale was with us, we might have another person going hiking with us. Without anything to do in this office car, I nosed into the backpacks that mysteriously appeared in the night. It looks like warm clothes and camping gear. That's my best guess; I can't say I've ever seen either up in the sky or down here.

~~I do know cabin fever, though. It's probably only been an hour, but I can't help the feeling that I'm slowly losing my mind. I guess it's because I'm so used to having something to do. Even as I was recovering in Whittleton, I always had something to occupy myself. Recovering mostly, especially since my own actions left me too hurt to move around. I shudder to think what Doctor Beld would be shouting at me if he knew what kind of trouble I've been getting into lately.

~~Now that the sun is out for the first time, I wonder how Whittleton is doing. I imagine it would be years before the woods around the town recover; it took decades for it to die in the first place.

Link broke off another piece of biscuit as his mind wandered back to Whittleton. Again, the sight of Meilont on the edge of the platform gave him a bout of concern. Any kind of indication of what she said on the platform would have been nice; not knowing was beginning to torture him.

K-krrch. Link pulled the piece of biscuit away from his lips to look at it, confused as to why he heard a crunch when the food had not made it into his mouth.

Gggkh, khhh khhh. Eyes darting about, Link put the biscuit in his mouth and chewed slowly. The crunching sounded like it came from the berths to his left, so he carefully turned his head until he had the berths in the corner of his eye. Movement in the bottom berth caused him to shoot to his feet. Now that he had his attention on the bottom berth, he realized that there was a large lump under the white comforter. Too large to be just a feature of an unmade bed. Link picked up his sword and took a step forward, ready to draw at the first sight of trouble.

His heart began beating faster. He slowly drew the sword.

"Wait!"

Link, at the sight of more movement than he expected, leapt backwards, throwing his scabbard to one side to bring the sword to bear. His left arm swept back to swing, but his eyes managed to register the Hylian girl holding her hands up in surrender before he could lop anything off. She had her silvery-blond hair braided and draped over one shoulder with wispy bangs covering her forehead. If Link had to guess, she was probably just a little older than him. Her skin was milky-white, as if she had never seen the sun before (which, considering the days before today, was probably true). She clambered out of the berth, hands held up as she stood to reveal her height just a hand's width above Link. She wore a waistcoat of dusty orange, decorated with elaborate, floral stitching over a number of pockets closed by button flaps. Underneath, she wore a thick, brown shirt and blue work pants. Her boots looked like worn leather.

"Who-who are you?" Link asked as he lowered his sword.

She gave him a bright smile. "Valley."

"Valley?"

"Yyyyyep."

Link shook his head. "What are you doing on this train?"

"Madame Seilon sent me."

"Madame… Seilon?"

"Yyyyyep."

Link narrowed his eyes, but it was more out of confusion than anything else. "Why? I didn't think we were being sponsored again. Until Cale gives her a report."

"You isn't. I's just traveling with you. She wants me to watch you, observe you."

"What's going on?" Irleen asked, fluttering out into the open. "Who are you?"

Link sighed and leaned over to pick up his scabbard. "Irleen, this is… Valley, right?"

"Yyyyyep," Valley said with a nod, dropping her hands. "I's from da Library."

"Madame Seilon sent her," Link added, thrusting his sword into its scabbard.

"When did this happen?" Irleen asked.

"I snuck on last night," Valley said as she sat on the edge of the bottom berth.

"Last night…" Link mumbled. Then he started and said, "Weren't you that girl that bumped into Luggard?"

"Da engineer? Yyyyyep."

"You had the same kind of journal that Cale used. I didn't think about it at the time. How did she know we were taking the train to the Snow Realm?"

"Da doors 'round da Library is thin," she explained. "She heard you talking to Irleen before you left."

Link used his free hand to cover his face. "Oh. I can't believe this."

"You's going to da Snow Realm. She said you wouldn't let go. She noes sent me? We noes gets more writings."

"You mean she sent you for more research?" Irleen asked.

"Yyyyyep."

"How far do you plan on following us?" Link asked, glancing at the three backpacks behind him. "I don't think we have the supplies for another person to go with us."

"Dat one noes is yours," she said, pointing to the backpack closest to the door. "Mine."

"Yours?"

Valley nodded vigorously. "Mine."

"Soooo…" Link said, trying to figure out the arrangements with only two backpacks.

"Link, I think Luggard was going to stay with the train," Irleen pointed out.

"Oooh. Right, okay."

"So you sees? We has enough supplies."

Link gave a groan and dropped into his chair. "I really can't believe this."

"What? I isn't gonna be a problem. Is I?"

"I think Link's just tired of scholars following us," Irleen said.

"I just… didn't think we'd have anyone extra," Link said.

"I isn't extra. I's gonna pull my weight. I's been to da Snow Realm before; I cans leads you 'round."

"Although we're going into the Iyuk Mountains?" Link asked her, one eyebrow raised.

Valley shrugged. "So? Has you been to da Snow Realm before? Da engineer?"

"She has a point," Irleen said.

"I knows some of da landmarks," Valley said. "Towns, villages… you's gonna need supplies by da time we gets done."

"We have a map," Link countered.

"I knows the Anouki," Valley said, her grin returning.

"The what?"

Valley's grin turned sly. "Eeeeeeg-zactleh."

"I think we're stuck with her, Link," Irleen said. "Besides, you never know how useful another hand might be. We don't know how long we'll be traveling."

"You sees. I isn't a bad girl." She stood up and walked over to the desk. Her glance fell on the journal Link had left open. "So dat's what you's writing in."

Link reached over and slapped it shut. "It keeps me busy."

"I said something? I does the same ding at home." Then she tilted her head as she thought. "I does the same ding here, too."

"Like Cale?"

"Yyyyyep, except I noes scribbles drawings all over it."

"Oh, so you know Cale," Irleen said as she settled on top of Link's journal.

"I's worked with him a few times. He worries a lot. A little weird that Madame Seilon sent him with you to da Lost Woods."

The Seventeen's whistle blew, causing all three passengers to look towards the locomotive. "I wonder if we're getting close to the Snow Realm," Link said. The car leaned, and he stood up to look out the window. "Looks like a switch track."

Valley nodded in agreement. "Yyyyyep. Dat's a switchman's booth out dere. We's probably turning north."

"Why?" Irleen asked.

"That's the direction of the Snow Realm, Irleen," Link told her.

"I thought that was south."

Link frowned at her. "I thought you were the one who said that way was north."

"Yeah, down here. But aren't you used to the opposite directions?"

Link blinked at her for a moment. "Huh?"

"Remember? Earlier, when we figured out that what you called 'north' was actually 'south'. Like when you were trying to figure out if the crashed ship was the Horizon's Eye."

"Yeah, I know that's south according to how we figure direction in the sky. We're going the right direction."

"But isn't the Snow Realm to the south?"

Link shook his head. "No, it's to the north."

"I feels dizzy!" Valley declared.

Irleen jerked around in the air, making Link wonder if that was how she paced. "So, let me get this straight. The Snow Realm is to the north of the Forest Realm, right?"

"Yeah," Link said with a nod.

"But you said that the ship crashed too far north for it to be the Horizon's Eye."

"Irleen, you're the one that pointed all this out to me! I got them confused! What I thought was 'south' in the sky is 'north' down here!"

"Okay, okay, you don't have to scream it at me!" The car fell into a brief silence. "So we're going 'south', right?"

"Would you—"

Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir! Link, not anticipating the brakes as he leaned back in his chair, flopped onto his back due to the inertia from the stopping train. Valley gripped the edge of the desk and braced herself. Irleen, immune from bashing into anything, just laughed.

When the train stopped, Link picked himself up. "I could use some warning when that happens."

"He always brakes hard like dat?" Valley asked.

"Sometimes it's hard to tell if he doesn't. We must be at the survey point."

"This should be fun," Irleen said as Link pulled the door open.

The noon sun showed that the sky was still clear. The Seventeen had stopped in the middle of a field, where some of the grass growth looked healthy if a little off-color. A few minute's walk ahead of him was a large lake with two suspended tracks crossing it. One looked as if it went into the Lost Woods, but the other had a gentle slope into a tunnel running under the woods. He nodded in acknowledgment of its existence, realizing that traveling to the other side of the Forest Realm would be difficult without finding a way to bypass the Lost Woods. But then, he wondered if there was any power left to the Lost Woods without the mist.

Grey cliffs bordered the lake to Link's left. When his eyes searched in that direction, he saw where the clear sky ended. Rain clouds covered the skies over the nearby Snow Realm, and their falling cargo obscured most of what lay beyond. Link had never seen rain before, never known what a storm could even look like until the Undying Storm. The clouds over the Snow Realm looked tame. No lightning, no thunder… just the faint wash of rain over the plain north of them. He found some kind of comfort in this; he previously held the impression that he would find himself traveling through another storm which would threaten to tear the Seventeen apart.

Link stepped out of the office car with a look of awe on his face, followed by Valley and Irleen. Leynne jumped down from the locomotive and hustled past Link. Luggard bled some steam from the locomotive and leaned his head out the cab door. "Looks 'bou' as bad as ya imagined it, righ'?"

Link, having walked as far as the cab, glanced over at him. "Actually, it doesn't look too bad," he said in a normal voice, not really intending for Luggard to hear.

"That's just so… weird," Irleen said.

"What?" Valley asked. "You noes has seen rain before?"

Link shook his head. "We can't. We're up so high that the only storm clouds we see are a magical prison around Forelight Island."

"Only once in a few days to we ask the Great Tree in the middle of the island to make rain for us," Irleen said. "But this is so…"

"Weird?" Valley finished.

"Weird."

"Very… weird," Link agreed. Luggard jumped down from the locomotive and stood at Link's side opposite Valley. Link could sense him there and said, "Have you ever seen something so… amazing?"

Luggard gave the rain a frown as Leynne, tools tucked under one arm, stepped up beside him. "I… ain' though' o' it tha' way b'fore," he confessed. "T' me, it's the same, ol' Snow Realm blatantly pokin' fun a' us by rainin' instead o' snowin' like it's suppose t'."

"I'd have expected people to officially rename it oh some such nonsense," Leynne said. "It's been so long since theh's been any snow on that plain, it really becomes counteh-intuitive."

"But then we has to find all da maps in da land and correct dem," Valley pointed out. "I noes is doing dat job."

Leynne and Luggard put on identical faces of confusion and leaned forward to see clearly who stood on Link's right. Link caught their movement out of the corner of his eye and sighed. "Luggard, Leynne," he said, one hand sliding back and forth for his meager introduction, "this is Valley. Don't ask me; I don't know what's going on anymore."

"I's a scholar," she said to them, showing them her cheesy grin.

"I thought the Library wasn't suppohting you this time," Leynne said.

"It isn't," Link replied, his eyes narrowing to an irritated glare at the rain. "Madame Seilon just sent her along. She stowed away on the train last night."

"I checked this mornin'," Luggard said. "Where's ya hidin'?"

"I isn't saying," Valley replied. "I might needs to hide again."

"She was hiding in the bottom berth."

She put on a pouty face and crossed her arms. "Liiiiiiink!"

"What should we do with heh?" Leynne asked.

Link shrugged. "She's already got the supplies she needs. She might as well come along."

"Welcome aboard!" Irleen declared.

"We go' a long day t' go," Luggard said. "Why don' ya ge' started, Leynne?"

"Because Link's standing on my suhvey point."

Link glanced down at his boots. He found that he was standing on top of a cross of bare earth and jumped out of the way. Luggard walked back to the locomotive and appeared to inspect some of the modifications. Valley backed away as Leynne set to work, watching him curiously. Leynne started setting up a complicated-looking device on a tripod. He kept placing one eye against the contraption, which looked to Link like a pictograph box with more knobs than necessary. Link stepped around Leynne to look at the front of the device. What he found looked like a telescope pointing towards some distant point beyond the curtain of rain.

"Link!" Leynne suddenly snapped. Looking up from the device, he jerked a hand to indicate Link to get behind him. "You'h in my sight; I can't calibrate this with you standing theh."

"Sorry," Link replied, stepping back behind the device. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to find a bearing," Leynne said. "I thought you would be familiah with that soht of thing."

Link nodded. "Familiar, but I've never seen it done. Most navigation in the sky is usually done by reading maps of the Sky Lines."

"The what?"

"The Sky Lines. They're like prevailing winds, except they're strong and regular streams which take us around the kingdom."

"You chaht them… how can you even tell wheh they ah?"

"They're visible."

Leynne pulled his eye away from the device. Then he slowly turned to Link. "They'h… visible."

Link nodded and turned to look for the Undying Storm. Pointing a finger, he said, "There should be a bluish line protruding from the northern side of that storm up there. That's one of the Sky Lines."

"You mean 'south', right?" Irleen asked.

Link sighed and dropped his hand. "Irleen, we're not starting that again."

"Well, I just want to make sure I understand which way you're going."

"I'm using directions according to how they are down here."

"Okay!"

Leynne glanced up at the storm. Then he told Link, "Why don't you lay out those maps I bought? I'll have some directions foh you in a moment."

Link nodded and started back to the office car. Valley bounded after him. "You's thinking that we's gonna find that ship?"

"No reason to doubt Leynne," Link said. "He sounds like a good navigator."

"But a grump," Valley added.

"Us being around when he working probably doesn't help," Link said with a shrug. He climbed into the office car and started looking for the tube he knew should be holding the map. "Whatever he's using, it's probably very delicate."

"Any idea what that thing was?" Irleen asked.

"Fancy pictograph box," Valley said.

"Some kind of scope, I think," Link said, shoving aside one of the backpacks. "You'd have to get Leynne to explain it to you; I've never seen anything so complex. Irleen, did you happen to see what Leynne did with the map?"

"Uh… no, I wasn't really paying attention."

"Could you go check the locomotive?"

"Sure." Irleen disappeared out the car door.

"So, you finds de other Architects?" Valley said. "What you's gonna do?"

"I guess ask them if they could build a ship for me," Link said. Valley tilted her head at him. "Yeah, I know, it seems irrational. I just… I don't have any other option."

"Actually, I thinks it's kinda cool. It's ambitious!"

Link blinked at her in surprise. "Really? You know, the last person I told pointed out that it was a really big job. And… I had the impression he thought I was a little crazy."

"Who was dat?"

"Leynne."

Valley gave him a nervous grin. "Oh."

Link nodded. "Even if I find more Architects, it still wouldn't be enough to put together a ship. We would need people to help put the ship together, and then we would need people to help me crew it; I can't do it by myself no matter how small the ship."

Valley scrunched her face in thought. "Hmmm. Interesting."

"It's a problem," Link said as he spotted Luggard walking into view over her shoulder. "One I'm not sure of a solution to yet."

"There's gots to be one."

"Ya lookin' for this?" Luggard said in an irritated tone, holding the map's carrying tube through the door.

Link leaned past Valley. "Yeah, thanks," he said, taking hold of the tube.

"Didn' notice 'til Irleen started screamin' a' me."

"Well, you weren't being very perceptive," Irleen huffed as she fluttered in the door.

"Flyin' 'roun' 'n 'roun' somthin' chirpin' a' me in a language I don' know doesn' tell me much. B'side ya los' yar mind."

"I don't chirp!"

Link stepped over to the desk. "Sorry about that, Luggard, but I couldn't find the map anywhere." He pulled the cap off one end and slid the contents onto the desk. And he found that not only was the map inside, a few more sheets rolled out. Curious, he picked up one and unrolled it. It appeared to be another map, and after a quick look, he recognized it as a closer map of the northern part of the Snow Realm. After double-checking with the larger map, he unrolled another sheet. This one, about half the size of the maps, showed a pictograph of mountains with a train track in the foreground. Link ran his fingers through the other sheets, finding that they were also pictographs of mountains as well.

Valley stepped up beside him. "What's all dis?"

"Looks like Leynne's pretty serious about finding that ship," Link said, shoving the pictographs aside to make room. He spread out the realm map and used the tube to hold down one edge. He grasped for a moment, then he picked up the boomerang he had left on the floor next to his sword and shield and used it to hold down the opposite edge.

"Rain's blockin' sight all way t' the mountains, though," Luggard said. "How's we gonna find it when we can' see?"

"I didn't have a very good view the previous day, eitheh." Luggard jumped to one side in surprise. Leynne stood at the doorway with a finger tapping against his left temple. "But that isn't what I needed to see."

"Wha'd ya need?" Luggard asked.

"You'll want to see this," Leynne said with a grunt as he climbed into the car. "What kind of traffic will we have to deal with?"

Luggard gave a shrug before climbing in. "Mos' traffic's t' the east, I think. No one comes this far wes'."

"Noes is much reason to," Valley spoke up. "Da old Anouki village's da only settlement on dis side of da Snow Realm."

"The old Anouki village?" Irleen asked.

"Da Anouki moved west because the rains noes left," Valley said, stepping to the berths to give Luggard and Leynne some more room. "Da Anouki noes likes warm weather, but they hates rain even more. It makes them smelly. They lives on da west edge of da Fire Realm; dat's da closest they cans gets to da cold."

"Because the Fire Realm's frozen," Irleen said. "But they don't go further in?"

Valley shrugged. "Dere's a difference between 'cold' and 'frozen'. Dey noes cans goes further in because dere's a large ice plain cutting off da rest of da realm. Otherwise, yep, dey'd goes in further."

"Naturally," Luggard grunted. "So, Leynne, wha's this trick ya go' t' find the airship?"

"It isn't a 'trick', Luggahd," Leynne said, producing a pencil from his trouser pocket. "It's a navigation scheme I've thought up since I saw the aihship. It's useful foh finding things when you can't see it oh don't othehwise have any idea wheh it went."

"'Ow?"

"You look at everything else. Do you have a triangulah angle ruleh?"

"A wha'?"

Leynne sighed. "Something that looks like a triangle."

Luggard gave him a shrug while Link pulled open one of the desk drawers. "Why couldn' ya jus' say tha'?"

Link pulled out a triangular piece of wood. "Like this?"

Leynne snatched it from his hand. "Pehfect. Theh's a protractoh in the front pocket of that bag theh. Would you get it foh me?"

"Sure."

"We ah heh," Leynne said after measuring out an X in between the depictions of the cliffs surrounding them.

"'Ow do ya know?" Luggard said, rounding behind Leynne to see better.

"I've measuhed that spot foh my puhposes; I know its distance from the mountain and the track. I also have a pahticulah spot measuhed out from the top of the plateau behind Anouki Village as well as a control point fuhtheh down. I know foh a fact that we have to travel past the cliffs, it's just a question of wheh. If this is wrong, then we waste time having to retuhn to take measuhments again."

"Here you go," Link said, passing a protractor to Leynne.

Leynne took and set it on the map. "Fihst, the control point. And, Link, I have a drafting compass in that same pocket, if you don't mind."

"Okay."

Leynne put the point of his pencil on the X he made and used the triangle to draw a line past the cliff that served as the entrance from the Forest Realm to the plateau he mentioned. At the point where he stopped, he then used the pencil to strike a notch into the triangle's wooden surface. "Nohmally, I wouldn't have to do this if I'd the mind to remembeh to bring my own chahts, but this will have to do," he explained. "From heh, I know the distance to the point on top of the plateau. Link? My compass?"

"Here it is," Link said as he handed it over. "It was under the pencil shavings."

"Must be why I couldn't find it back in Library Town," he mused before setting the compass on top of the triangle. He opened it using the notch he made on the triangle as a guide, then he struck out an arc that bisected the plateau. "I've suhvey the distances between these two points on the plateau, so I know approximately how fah apaht they ah. I also know the distance between the landmahk on top of the plateau and Anouki Village." He used the notch again to readjust the compass and made another arc. Then he used the edge of the triangle to draw a line between the survey point and the intersection of the two arcs. "Thus, we have ouh second reference, and I can be suh that we ahrive in the cohrect spot."

"Wow…" Valley breathed.

"Makes sense, huh?" Irleen said, hovering over the charts.

"Nope. But I likes it."

"I have the angulah measuhments from my scope outside," Leynne said as he picked up the protractor. He placed the straightedge on the survey point and used the numbers on the curved edge to find the angle he wanted, using the triangle to count off the degrees he did not need. He made a short line from the edge of the protractor up, then he set the protractor aside, used the triangle to line up the survey point with the line he had just made, and struck the pencil almost completely across the map. From what Link could tell, the line was just a few degrees east of true north. Leynne used the blunt end of the pencil to tap the mountains. "And that's wheh ouh aihship is."

"Great," Luggard said. "But where? Ain' like these maps go' a clear picture o' the mountains."

"Link, did you find the otheh chaht I had in heh?"

"Yeah, I put it under the big one."

Leynne pulled the other chart out and held it to the side so that he could see both. "I found this chaht because it has a cleareh rendering of the nohthehn topography. Due to all of the rain foh the past few decades, it looks as if the cliff face has been eroded away." He paused as he glared at the maps. Then he set the other chart down and pointed to a blur on the second chart. "This looks to be the most direct route to the aihship."

"Tha's good 'n all," Luggard said as Leynne started looking through the pictographs Link had shoved aside, "bu' 'ow's ya gonna find the ship up there?"

"I know that, if the aihship crashed on a mountain, it would have been one of the smalleh ones," Leynne said. He stopped on one pictograph and compared it with the map in front of him. "From theh, all we've to do is staht locating debris from the crash. I'm cehtain that most of its hull would have been crushed and flung foh some distance. Once we find remains, we find the ship."

"Dat's gonna take a long time," Valley pointed out.

"A few days, I imagine," Leynne agreed. "Luggahd, you may yet have the luxury of retuhning to Library Town foh some supplies; any trek we make will suhely take a day oh so."

"I go' fuel 'n supplies for me t' stay ou' 'ere for ten days by meself if I need," Luggard said.

"Good," Leynne said, handing a pictograph to him. "Because I believe that we have ouh destination."