Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,60

Rani had grown up and acquired the Lathi. They had gone to some exceedingly strange places, and the stories about the sinking islands and the people who lived inside giant, dead-sea creatures would have sounded made-up, if Emilie hadn't known better.

Rani also taught Emilie how to hold the tiller and the sail to keep them on course, so they could keep going while Rani slept. Emilie would never have thought she would do something like this, sailing a small boat, let alone voyaging over an otherworldly sea, guiding it with a sorcerer's compass. Being so close to the water, dependent only on herself and Rani, mostly Rani, for safety, was very different from being aboard the Sovereign.

In all, she was enjoying the trip immensely, except for the fact that all their friends were in danger. Emilie knew she should feel guilty about that. But she had never done anything like this before, and the sea and sky and the islands were endlessly diverting, providing a constant distraction from their predicament.

They were both awake by the time the next eclipse passed on, and Emilie, squinting at the horizon in the gradually brightening light, was the first to say, “Land!”

“I see,” Rani said thoughtfully. “I think we are there, Emilie.”

Emilie hoped so. The island ahead stretched for some distance, and was higher than the others in this region. From this vantage point, it looked like the shore was lined with rocky cliffs, topped with tall dark green vegetation. If this wasn't their destination, Emilie didn't know how they were going to get their little boat around it. “How do you know?”

Rani, her hands occupied with the sail and the tiller, jerked her chin toward the starboard side. “Because I think that is one of the Queen's barges, over there. We did not beat them here, after all.”

Emilie looked, staring hard, knowing by now that Rani's eyes were sharper than hers. After a moment, she made out the dim gray-blue shapes, long and low, in the water toward the far end of the island. She could barely see them, but the good thing was, she didn't think anyone aboard would be able to spot their tiny boat. She thought she saw the sun glinting off something metallic, and said, “Can you see the Sovereign?”

“I see something big and coppery; I think that must be it.” Rani grimaced, tipping her straw hat back. “But it is surrounded by the barges, so that's one of our plans in the crap hole.”

Rani's language was also a bit more earthy than Kenar's, something else Emilie liked about her. They had talked about possibly sneaking aboard the Sovereign, once they located it, and joining forces with Lord Engal and Kenar and the others. They could warn them about Lord Ivers, and tell them that Miss Marlende was aboard his airship, heading toward the surface, and not a hostage to the Queen. “You don't think we could sneak aboard it?”

“No, we would have to swim underwater, amid a small fleet of people who live underwater part of the time; I think we would be as obvious as if we painted our boat red and beat a drum as we sailed right up to them.”

She was probably right. “So we're going to try the island?” The other plan was to locate Dr. Marlende and the Cirathi, and try to rescue them. It was a broad, vague plan, at best. “And hope the Queen hasn't attacked the nomads yet?”

“We try the island,” Rani agreed, as their little boat sped toward it. “And hope.”

Several hours later, they dragged their boat up onto the narrow strip of beach below the short sandy cliff. Emilie stumbled a little and had to stop and stretch. They had been stopping briefly on the low islands, sometimes to look for springs, sometimes just to answer calls of nature and stretch their legs. Last night was the longest interval they had gone without stopping. She helped Rani take down the sail and clip the poles to the side again, and they pulled the boat up behind some rocks to hide it if any Sealands' or nomads' ships patrolled past this shore. The sand was soft, and their feet and the boat kept sinking into it. Emilie fell down a few times, but they managed it.

They left their straw hats in the boat, but Rani took the bag with their dwindling supply of food and filled a waterskin from the clay jar in the boat. She also had a