Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,9
relax. At least Barshion was willing to admit that she was telling the truth. And she really didn't want to talk about herself anymore. She looked at Kenar, reminded of all the questions she wanted ask him. “Are all the people down in the Hollow World like you?”
“No,” Kenar said, absently, looking past Emilie and Miss Marlende, at the port. “The Cirathi are explorers, traders. We travel far, and see many different places and kinds of people. We learn languages with great speed, compared to others; I learned Menaen from Dr. Marlende and Jerom and the rest of their crew, before coming here.” His voice turning wry, he added, “Lord Engal finds that suspicious.”
Miss Marlende said wearily, “Sometimes I think he finds everything suspicious.”
She was looking out the port too, and Emilie turned and saw the water beyond the rail was now dark as pitch, impenetrable by the ship's lights. There was nothing out there to betray that they were traveling through water, not even bubbles. A shudder crept up Emilie's spine. They must be very deep underwater, already, and some distance out to sea. And we're going even deeper.
Dr. Barshion stood, moving to the port. With a trace of concern in his voice, he said, “The bubble seems to be holding.”
“Seems?” Miss Marlende lifted her brows. “If it wasn't, I think we'd know by now.”
Emilie realized the faint sensation of falling, and of forward motion, had ceased. “It doesn't feel like we're going down,” she said. But it was growing colder in the cabin, and moisture trickled down the inside of the port.
“The bubble - the spell protecting the ship and allowing us to breathe - compensates, so we don't feel the weight of the water above us,” Barshion told her.
“Or we'd be crushed like an egg,” Miss Marlende explained.
Emilie nodded. She hadn't thought about the weight of water before, except when she was trying to carry it in a bucket, but now it seemed obvious that all that water above them must be very heavy. Heavy enough to bend or break metal and glass. “How will we get to the Hollow World, again?”
“There are fissures in the sea floor,” Miss Marlende said, her face thoughtful. “Deep ones that lead all the way through, connecting the outer layer of the world with the inner. Passing through them would be impossible, of course, except within the aether currents.”
“Most of this, of course,” Dr. Barshion said dryly, “Is theoretical.”
Kenar snorted quietly. Apparently it wasn't theoretical for him. “But Dr. Marlende did it, didn't he?” Emilie said.
“My father took a different route,” Miss Marlende told her. “He used an airship, and went down through the extinct cauldron of Mount Tovera, on the island of Aerinterre. Kenar took the same route up. The trip has never been made by sea, before.”
That wasn't encouraging. Emilie was still having trouble believing she was here. It had all happened so fast. She asked Kenar, “But why did you come here? I mean, I know it was to get help for Dr. Marlende, but why...? It must be a long way.”
Kenar said, “I owed him a favor.” He turned away from the port and said, “So why does a young girl of good family from the country flee her home?”
Emilie thought, Uh oh. The others hadn't bothered to ask, so she had been hoping to avoid the subject entirely. “I wasn't fleeing,” she said, to buy time. It was a complete lie, she had been fleeing, but the last thing she wanted to do was explain why.
She was saved from further questioning by Dr. Barshion, who said in frustration, “There must be some word by now...”
He went to the door and opened it, and began to interrogate the guard about where everyone was and what was happening. Miss Marlende moved closer to listen, then turned away, muttering to herself in a disgruntled fashion. She said, “It sounds as if we'll be here for a while. They think there might still be some intruders on the ship.” She walked back to the drinks cabinet, frowning at it. “I'm desperate for tea.”
“The steward's cubby should have a tap and a gas ring,” Emilie said, glad to show that she was a little useful. She didn't know much about aetheric magic, but she could do tea. “We can make some, if there's any here.”
Miss Marlende went to ransack the cabinets in the cubby, while Dr. Barshion argued with the guard, Kenar watched the dark water, and Emilie found some mugs