Chapter 9

Flight

"Gemiad said you had a plan, but somehow I don't believe this was part of it," Sheraine said as our boat sailed up the River Eldar. We passed a ship in the process of mooring for the night as the sun was dipping below the horizon now.

"It's not," I admitted as I looked behind us. They'd actually tried to pursue us on the water with a fishing boat. Since it might have belonged to Setalle's husband, and I didn't want to interfere with their livelihood, I had not used my miracle to sink the ship. Instead, I'd undone every knot and caused the sail to just fall off the mast. But that was fixable, so I checked again to see if they'd resumed their pursuit. So far, so good.

I turned to Sheraine. "But I can make this work anyway. I just have to find a place with no people around and plenty of trees."

"And do what?" Sheraine gestured around. "I'm not even going to ask how you know about some land far to the south that the Sea Folk apparently have kept a secret, but we're currently sailing north, not south."

"Sailing there would take too long, regardless. So we'll be flying there, just not using my wings."

"And this involves trees?"

"Yes. I can make a primitive airship with those and other materials from the forest."

Sheraine looked up over my head. "It's said that Aes Sedai could once fly." Her gaze returned to study me. "But that was the Age of Legends. I've noticed you know much about both advanced machines and ancient history. Just how old are you, Ron Shen?"

I blinked a couple of times as I processed the implication behind her question, then burst out in laughing. "Not that old!" I studied her in return, then shrugged. "You might actually be older than me, though I'm not actually as young as I look, either. It's not just Aes Sedai that are long-lived."

I gave her a grin. "There would be one way to settle it, but I know better than to ask a lady her age." I looked at either side of the river, but especially to the western shore. "Now, while we still have some daylight left, I think we should look for a place to go ashore. We'll want to be some miles away from the river as well because I don't want to be disturbed in my work."

"No," Gemiad said. "We had to leave so quickly that neither you nor we had time to get dinner. We'll need to find either a village or a farm where we can buy some food. We'll also need a place to sleep, we've been up all day," she said, indicating herself and Sheraine.

My stomach took that moment to add its own two cents, gurgling loud enough that they could hear it. "Yes, well, good point. And we'll need supplies for our journey as well. It will still take us weeks to reach the Land of the Mad."

VVVV

The forest wasn't quiet, with little in the way of bird songs and the distant hammering of a woodpecker weaving through the noise of the bare branches rattling against each other when the wind blew through. And when I took a deep breath, the musty smell of rotten leaves still hung thick in the air.

The farming family we'd stayed with had risen with the crack of dawn, and so had we. It meant it was still early morning when we'd walked into the forest and even now, deep in the hills, the sun hadn't reached it's high point today.

"Right, time to get to work," I said, clapping my hand together before addressing the women. "This is still going to take me hours to make, I think. So you should make yourself comfortable."

"So you'll finally tell us how exactly we're going to travel to another continent?" Sheraine said. "I must admit, your insistence on being coy about it has grown quite ted-By the Light!" The Aes Sedai exclaimed as I finally let go and just used my full power.

Since Falme, my labor was the equivalent of 5,000 people all working together on a project. At that point, when I set myself to a project at full speed, it wasn't a matter of just going fast. It meant I was doing more than one thing at a time.

"Don't worry, I've not split myself or anything like that," I said, cutting down a tree. "It's more that I'm working in parallel, rather than sequentially," I said, assembling a simple forge. The more I could use real material rather than something I conjured up, the sturdier the end result. "Think of it as several possible actions all being true at the same time," I said, collecting long grass to weave into a sail.

"I've never seen you do this," Gemiad said.

"Because I couldn't before," I admitted, turning felled trees into beams for the frame and planks for the hull. "But I'm stronger after Falme. I could be even stronger, but I've been holding it off. I would have to make choices, and if I make the wrong one, there's no undoing it."

"But what if we ... what if you need that power?" Gemiad looked from one me to another.

"Then it's there at a moment's notice. My power is nowhere near as flexible as the One Power. There are some things that I'd struggle to mimic. But in other ways, it far surpasses it."

"So far, I've seen you fly, summon copies and moving statues, as well as spit out a fire that turned an entire troupe of armed men to ash in an instant. Not to mention what you did to those cursed leashes. But you don't seem to be good at healing, is that it?" Sheraine asked, breaking into the conversation.

"Among others." I shrugged, igniting the forge. The iron wasn't a problem; I just had to transmute a couple of rocks. "Teleporting is another area my power doesn't lend itself well to." I sketched a rough plan out in the dirt. The details were in my head, but getting another perspective should help me suss out anything I overlooked, like supplies.

"Teleporting?" Gemiad asked.

I hummed in thought, laying out the frame. This craft needed no keel, we weren't sailing through the water, weight would be the issue. That's the reason I was going to use glue and fitted joints rather than nails. "Yes, ah, the Aes Sedai call it Traveling? A way to travel instantaneously from one point in the world to another without having to pass through the intervening distance. Of course, there's also Skimming, but since that just reduces the travel time rather than bridge the distance immediately, you can't really call it teleportation."

"You know how to Travel?"

I blinked at the Aes Sedai. "Of course not. I'm not a channeler." I shrugged. "Just know the theory behind it." At last, there was enough room in my head for some thoughts not related to assembling the project, and three of me slapped our faces. "Right, and Traveling is a lost Talent."

"You did not just forget that," Sheraine choked.

"I … actually did," I finally said with some heat in my cheeks as I cursed my inattention. I glanced at Sheraine from the corner of my eye, weighing the chances she might drop this. She caught me looking, and the look in her eyes, as well as her crossed arms, told me the Aes Sedai wouldn't.

I might as well. "So … theory of Traveling. It's got to do with the Pattern, the fabric of reality, if you will." This could still be fine if I kept things vague enough. Was Sheraine even powerful enough? And it was also a Talent. If you didn't have it you might not get the weave to work anyway. "Traveling involves manipulating that to shorten the distance. Connect two distant points in space with each other."

I nodded to myself as I got up while another me transmuted some rocks into steel for forging and I also started assembling the hull. That should do it.

"And how did they do that?"

Of course, it wasn't enough. If I had someone drop a hint to the secret to teleportation, would I give up so easily? Well, as long as she didn't go running off on her own, a few more hints shouldn't do any harm.

"I don't know. I'm not a channeler, remember? But," I said, drawing out the word as I started to weave the fields of fabric I'd be needing for this. "I can speculate. One way would be by poking a hole in the Pattern from point A directly to point B."

Sheraine reared back, shaking her head. "That … can't be safe. No, that would kill any Aes Sedai who tried it even if she somehow knew a weave that could do it."

I shrugged. "Might be how men did it. Supposed to be that saidin and saidar operate differently. Which could mean that those channeling saidar would have to do the opposite of that."

"The opposite of drilling a hole through the Pattern?"

"Can't be filling," Gemiad said. "There's normally no holes in the Pattern. Are there?"

"No, thankfully. In truth, it makes me think of the Bore, but that place has been on my mind too often these past months," Sheraine said with a shudder.

"Then, maybe it's not the action but the noun," Gemiad said as more trees came crashing down. Even keeping it lightweight, I'd need plenty of wood. "And Ron called it the fabric of reality as well. You can stitch fabric together, so maybe that would work? Turn two places into one place?"

"There … might be something to that," Sheraine said slowly. "It does sound right. Though I could only see that working if you knew both places very well, or you wouldn't know what to change."

"Actually, I think you would only need to know your point of origin. After that, it should be about convincing the pattern that another place is actually the same as where you are right now. That's the theory, anyway."

Sheraine sighed. "Fascinating as this is, without knowing what sort of weave to use, this remains idle speculation. And why are you building a ship in the middle of the forest, miles from the river? Are you going to carry that while you fly?"

"What? No, that would … could actually work, though it would have to be smaller than what I'm making and we'd be vulnerable to storms." I shook my head and looked at what progress I'd already made. The hull glistened at the seams from the drying glue, while a couple of me's assembled scaffolding so we could bring up the internal machinery and furnishings. "This is an airship."

"How?" Gemiad asked before Sheraine could find her voice again.

I gave them both a grin as I held up a finger. "By taking advantage of something you see all around you, lighter things float on top of heavier substances."

"And how is this going to be lighter than air?" Sheraine asked, gesturing at the hull.

"By fixing a large bag, several times the size of the ship, to the top of the craft. That will be filled with hot air from the furnace, which I'll then transmute into something even lighter than that. Imagine holding a cork underwater and then letting it go. It will shoot up, and if you'd attached a string with a pin or something, it would pull that up as well. The same principle applies here. The forces are just far greater, which is why it can drag all of us and the cabin into the sky. Which reminds me, do you know how to tie off weaves? Specifically, one that can heat up the air?"

Sheraine nodded before turning to Gemiad. "And you, you are not to try or experiment with that without supervision. More than one Novice has killed herself by thinking she could use the One Power to keep her room warm during a winter's night only to set her entire room aflame."

I clapped my hands together as my hammer struck the expanding sheet of steel. "Excellent, that should speed up construction a lot. We might actually be able to leave today."

VVVV

I'd forgotten to take into account that while it was warmer this far south, the sun still set just as early. So the finished airship sits in the glow of a couple of light orbs channeled by Gemiad as we make final preparations, such as bringing food and our belongings aboard.

The wind was picking up, so we had to hustle, the craft already tugging at its anchors. The bags of sand, which functioned as ballast, hung from the sides and rapped against the hull whenever it did. Sheraine had fixed some light orbs inside the airship to provide light there. The windows I had installed couldn't provide light when there was none outside. The air inside was heavy with the scent of freshly cut wood mixed with the bite of the glue.

I surveyed the clearing. "Is everything aboard? We haven't forgotten anything?"

"No, that was the last of it," Gemiad said as she finished climbing up the ladder and into the pilot cabin. I would have preferred to have placed it at the front of the ship, but the control surfaces were here at the back and complicated control links would have taken more time.

"Alright then, it's time for lift off." I turned to the speaking tube connecting the pilot cabin with the engine room. "Sheraine, we're ready to go. When I say the word, you pull the red lever towards you, not the green one. It should be quiet, if you hear loud noises you need to run and then shout. Not the other way," I cautioned her. I wasn't going with a combustion engine for the airship.

"Shouldn't I do so now?" Her voice was tinny and far away, but the copper tube did its work. He would have to shout once the propellers started to turn.

"No. We need to be clear of the trees. Just keep a hold of something, you, too, Gemiad. It might get a little bumpy. Pulling in the anchors in five, four, three, two, one." If I had more time, or more crew, I could have solved this with mundane means. But as a godbound, I could cheat.

Vessel and pilot as one

I committed the last of my Effort and my awareness spread into the wood, along the ropes, into every gear and piston. The anchors unhooked themselves as the airship reeled them in, the knots holding six of the ballast bags undid themselves and they hit the forest floor with dull thuds.

The airship groaned as it rose up, Gemiad stumbled at the unexpected forces, but we weren't just moving up, we were moving to the left. "Sheraine, pull the lever!" At the same time, four more bags unfastened themselves while I pushed my mind against the pistons even as hot air started to flow into one compartment.

We ascended fast now but were still going left and a treetop scraped against the hull. I could both hear and feel it through the wheel before the tree snapped off. But I could feel something else as well. The propellers on either side, one rotating clockwise while the other went counterclockwise, finally came alive.

Slowly at first, then faster, their hum penetrated the hull and pushed the airship forward. I spun the wheel, eyes on the compass, and the nose sluggishly turned south. "She turns like a whale, but I've got control."

"This feels different," Gemiad said, letting go of her handhold and peering through the side porthole. "I've flown several times now, which is still a strange thing to be able to say. But this …" she looked over at me. "This isn't through your wings or even the One Power. Humans could make this."

"Not exactly this," I said. We were still ascending. I checked my rudimentary altimeter, we should be over fifty meters above sea level now. We needed more though, but unless we leveled off soon I would hold off on dropping more ballast. "But something like it? Oh yes."

My senses were still extended through the craft and I could feel the wind coming from the north, giving us an extra push. Everything looked in order, but I couldn't help but feel like I'd forgotten something. But what? Not the crystal tablet, that was in my jacket, we had food, water, the ship had both three small cabins as well as a toilet. "I feel like we've missed something."

"What are you talking about?" Sheraine said as she came up the short stairs that led into the main deck of the airship. "We must be a hundred span in the air already. Please tell me you didn't forget something that will see us all plummet to our deaths. Or did you forget we do need to land eventually?"

"It's more like fifty span, and nothing like that. I just can't help but think I overlooked something …" I started. "A name! I forgot to name her!"

Gemiad and Sheraine looked at each other, the former shrugging. "Why would that matter? I'm mystified enough that waterborne ships must be named. No farmer names his cart."

"But every rider names their horse," I said. "And this is the first airship this world has seen for three thousand years. When they write about this adventure, it can't just be the airship. It needs a name."

"You're not planning on writing about everything in your newspaper, are you?"

I shrugged, still stuck on the name. I'm just not good at names, which why I'd ended up introducing myself as Ron Shen to everybody. "It could work as a serialized adventure. Oooh, write that idea down, Gemiad. Serialized adventures, one chapter every issue so that people will have to buy the next one if they want to find out what happens next."

"And what would you write, exactly?"

"Well, I probably will have to sensationalize it a bit. Maybe add a fight with sky monsters or have some lost tribe living on a crumbling floating city straight from the Age of Legends try to destroy our airship as they don't wish to share the sky with anybody. I'll leave the story of what actually happened to the writers of the Fourth Age. By which I mean you, among others, Gemiad."

"Me?"

I nodded. "The Fourth Age isn't that far away, and channelers live for a long time. It will give you plenty of time to try all sorts of things and you shouldn't define yourself just by your ability to channel." But the part about writing, fiction, there was something there.

"Albatross. We'll call this airship Albatross."