Darkness and Light

Chapter 7

It was quiet on deck. Sturm worked his way around the starboard side to the bow. Sighter had mounted a telescope on a spindle there, and Sturm wanted a look around. It wasn't easy moving in his thick fur coat, hood, and mittens, but he decided that it was no worse than being in full body armor. The flapping of the wings scarcely could be heard as the Cloudmaster climbed steadily upward. The flying ship had pierced a layer of soft white clouds, which left a coat of snow on the deck and roof. Once it cleared the cloud layer, however, the rush of air over the wings swept the snow away. Great pillars of vapor stood around them, fat columns of blue and white that looked as solid as marble in the moons' light. Sturm studied these massive towers of cloud through Sighter's spyglass, but all he could see was their sculpted surfaces, as smooth and still as a frozen pond. He hadn't seen a gnome in over an hour. Wingover had tied the steering wheel again, and they'd all disappeared below to work on their inventions. Occasionally he heard or felt bangs and crashes under his feet. Kitiara, fully and fetchingly buried in her fox fur coat, had gone to the dining room and stretched out on the table for a nap. Sturm swung the telescope left, over the pointed prow. Solinari shone between two deep ravines in the clouds, silvering the airship with its rays. He scanned the strange architecture of the clouds, seeing in them a face, a wagon, a rearing horse. It was beautiful, but incredibly lonely. He felt at that moment like the only man in the world. The cold crept through his heavy clothes. Sturm clapped his hands on his arms to stir his blood. It didn't help much. Finally he abandoned his frosty post, and returned to the dining room. He watched the sleeping Kitiara sway gently with the motion of the ship. Then he smelled something. Smoke. Something was burning. Sturm coughed and wrinkled his nose. Kitiara stirred. She sat up in time to see the entry of a bizarre apparition. It looked like a scarecrow made of tin and rope, but this scarecrow had a glass jar on its head and smoke coming out of its back.

"Hello," said the apparition.

"Wingover?" asked Kitiara. The little scarecrow reached up and twisted the jar off its head, and the hawkish features of Wingover emerged.

"What do you think of Roperig's invention?" he asked. "He calls it the Refined Personal Heating Apparatus, Mark III."

"Mark III?" said Sturm.

"Yes, the first two prototypes were not successful. Poor Fitter has a burn on his… well, he'll be standing at dinner for a while. That was Mark I. The Mark II took off most of Roperig's whiskers. I warned him not to use glue on the Perfect Observation Helmet." Wingover held out his arms and spun in a circle. "Do you see? Roperig sewed a continuous coil of rope to a set of long underwear, then varnished the whole suit to make it watertight and airtight. The heat comes from a tin stove, here." He strained to point at a miniature potbelly stove mounted on his back.

"A fat tallow candle provides up to four hours of heat, and these tin strips carry the warmth all over the suit." Wingover finally dropped his arms. "Very ingenious," said Kitiara flatly.

"Has anything been done about the engine?"

"Birdcall and Flash can't agree on the cause of the damage. Birdcall insists the fault lies in Flash's lightning bottles, while Flash says the engine is fused in the 'on' position." Kitiara sighed. "By the time those two agree on what to fix, we'll have run out of sky."

"Could anything fly as high as we are now?"

"There's no reason why another flying ship couldn't get this high. It's largely a matter of aerodynamic efficiency."

He thumped a dial or two and added, "I suppose a dragon might get this high. Assuming they still existed, that is." "Dragons?" Sturm repeated. "Dragons are a special case, of course. The really big ones, Reds or Golds, could achieve very high altitudes."

"How high?"

"They had wingspans of 150 feet or more, you know," said Wingover, enjoying his lecture. "I'm sure I could do a calculation, based on a fifty-foot animal weighing forty-five tons — of course, they couldn't glide worth shucks — "

"It's freezing on the inside now," interrupted Kitiara, scratching the frost off a small pane of glass. She breathed on the cleared spot, and it instantly turned milky white. Stutts started up the ladder from below, but his Personal Heating Apparatus caught on the ladder and there were some moments of struggle to free him.

"Everything sh-shipshape?" he inquired.

"The controls are fine," Wingover responded, "but we're still going up. The height gauge has gone off the dial, so Sighter will have to calculate how high we are."

Stutts clapped his rope-wound hands together. "Pperfect! That will make him very happy."

The gnomes' leader whistled into the voice tube.

"N-now hear this! Sighter r-report to the wheelhouse!" In seconds, the little astronomer came banging up the ladder, tripped on the top rung, and fell on his face. Kitiara helped him stand and saw why he was so clumsy. He had pulled his jar-helmet on in such a way as to cover his face with his long beard. Stutts and Kitiara worked and twisted to get the jar off. It came away with a loud pop!

"By Reorx," Sighter gasped. "I was beginning to think my own whiskers were trying to choke me!"

"Did you b-bring your astrolabe?" asked Stutts.

"When am I without it?"

"Then g-go up on the roof and shoot the stars. We need to know our exact p-position."

Sighter snapped his fingers. "Not a problem!"

He went out of the deckhouse through the dining room. They heard his feet stomping across the roof.

"Uh-oh," said Wingover, staring dead ahead.

Sturm said, "What is it?"

"The clouds are closing in. Look!"

They had flown into a box canyon of clouds. Even if Wingover put the wheel hard about, they would still plow into a cloud bank.

"I'd better tell Sighter," Sturm said. He went to the door, meaning to shout up at the gnome on the roof. About the time he cracked the door open, the Cloudmaster bored into a wall of luminous white. Frost formed quickly on Sturm's mustache. Snow swirled around him as he cried, "Sighter! Sighter, come down!"

The frozen mist was so thick that he couldn't see a foot beyond his nose. He would have to go get Sighter. He slipped twice on his way up the ladder. The brass rungs were encased in ice, but Sturm knocked it off with the butt of his dagger. As he cleared the roof line, a blast of frigid air stung his face. "Sighter!" he called. "Sighter!"

The rooftop was too treacherous to stand on, so Sturm crept forward on his hands and knees. Flakes of snow collected in the gap between his hood and coat collar, melted, and ran down his neck. Sturm's hand slipped, and he almost rolled right off the roof. Though there was four feet of deck on either side, he had the horrible idea that he would tumble right off the ship and fall, fall, fall. Cutwood would calculate how big a hole he'd make. His hand bumped a frost-rimed boot, and Sturm looked up. Sighter was at his post, astrolabe stuck to one eye and completely covered with half an inch of ice! Snow was already drifting around his feet. Sturm used his dagger to chip away the ice around Sighter's shoes. His Personal Heating Apparatus, Mark III must have blown out, for the gnome was now stiff with cold. Sturm grabbed the little man's feet and pulled — "Sturm! Sturm, where are you?" Kitiara was calling.

"Up here!"

"What are you doing? You and Sighter get inside before your faces freeze off!"

"It's too late for Sighter. I've almost got him loose — wait, here he is!" He passed the stiff gnome over the edge of the roof to Kitiara's open arms. With commendable agility, he then scooted down the ladder and hurried back inside.

"Brr! And I thought winters at Castle Brightblade were cold!"

He saw that Rainspot was on hand to doctor the frozen Sighter. "How is he?" asked Sturm.

"Cold," said Rainspot. He pinched the tip of Sighter's beard with a pair of wooden tweezers. A quick snap of the wrist, and the lower half of Sighter's beard broke off.

"Dear, dear," Rainspot said, clucking his tongue. "Dear, dear."

He reached for the astrolabe, still in place at Sighter's eye, with Sighter's hands clamped to it.

"No!" Kitiara and Sturm yelled. Trying to break the instrument loose would probably take Sighter's eye with it.

"T-take him below and thaw him out," said Stutts. "Sslowly."

"Someone will have to carry his feet," said Rainspot.

Stutts sighed and went over to help.

"He's g-going to be very angry that y-you broke his b-beard," he said.

"Dear, dear. Perhaps if we dampened the edge we could stick it back on."

"Don't be st-stupid. You'd never get it aligned p-properly."

"I can get some glue from Roperig — " They disappeared down the hatch to the berth deck. Sturm and Kitiara heard a loud crash, and both rushed to the opening, expecting to see poor Sighter broken to bits like a cheap clay vase. But, no, Stutts was on the deck, Sighter cushioned on top of him, and Rainspot was hanging upside down with his feet tangled in the rungs.

"Dear, dear," he was saying. "Dear, dear."

They couldn't help but laugh. It felt good after spending so much time worrying whether they would ever walk the solid soil of Krynn again. Kitiara stopped laughing first.

"That was a crazy stunt, Sturm," she said.

"What?"

"Rescuing that gnome. You might have been frozen yourself, and I'll wager you wouldn't thaw out as easily as Sighter will."

"Not with Rainspot as my doctor."

To his surprise, she embraced him. It was a comradely hug, with a clap on the back that staggered him.

"We're coming out of it! We're coming out!" Wingover yelled. Kitiara broke away and rushed to the gnome. He was hopping up and down in delight as the white shroud peeled away from the flying ship. The Cloudmaster emerged from the top of the snow squall into clear air. Ahead of them was a vast red globe, far larger than the sun ever appeared from the ground. Below was nothing but an unbroken sheet of cloud, tinged scarlet from the moon's glow. All around, stars twinkled. The Cloudmaster was flying headlong toward the red orb.

"Hydrodynamics," Wingover breathed. This was the gnomes' strongest oath. Neither Sturm nor Kitiara could improve on it just then.

"What is it?" Kitiara finally said.

"If my calculations are accurate, and I'm sure that they are, it is Lunitari, the red moon of Krynn," said Wingover. Sighter appeared in the hatch. His hair was dripping, and his broken-off beard fluttered when he spoke.

"Correct! That's what I discovered before the snowstorm hit. We're a hundred thousand miles from home, and heading straight for Lunitari."