moon before plummeting down in another fountain, approximately where Smith had been standing two minutes earlier.
“Now they’ll see,” gloated Lord Ermenwyr. “We’ll leave them all befuddled in our, er—”
“Wake,” said Smith.
“Yes, and after dark they won’t have a chance, because we’ll slip silently away through the night and evade them!”
“I don’t think we’re going anywhere silently,” said Smith, shouting over the clatter of the mechanism. “And there’ll be moonlight, you know.”
“Details, details,” Lord Ermenwyr shouted back, waving his hand.
They fled south, keeping the coastline just in sight, and the warship followed close. Its smashed yard was replaced in a disconcertingly short period of time, so the Kingfisher’s Nest lost some of its lead again. The whole chase had a bizarre clockwork quality Smith had never seen in a sea battle before. The Kingfisher’s Nest paddled on, puffing steam like a teakettle, while the warship’s crew kept up its clattering commentary. Were they trying to intimidate? Were they being sarcastic?
They never gave it up in any case, all the way down the coast, past a dozen fishing villages, past Alakthon-on-Sea, past Gabekria. The sun sank red, throwing their long shadows out over the water, and the white foam turned red and the breasts of the seabirds that paced them turned red as blood. When the sun had gone they fled on through the purple twilight, still pursued, and the warship lit all its lanterns as though to celebrate a triumph.
“Aren’t they ever giving up?” complained Lord Ermenwyr. “What did we ever do to them, for hell’s sake?”
“They’re chasing us because we’re running,” said Smith wearily. “I guess they think we’re spies, now. It’s a matter of money, too. We got off a shot at them and did damage, so we’re a legitimate prize if we’re taken.”
Lord Ermenwyr lit his smoking tube with a fireball. “Well, this has ceased to be amusing. It’s time we did something decisive and unpleasant.”
“It has never occurred to you to pray to Her for assistance, has it?” said Willowspear in a doomed voice. His lord pretended not to hear him.
“It would help if we had a dead calm,” said Smith. “That would give us the advantage. Could you do something sorcerous, maybe, like making the wind drop?”
“Hmf! I’m not a weather mage. Daddy, now, he can summon up thunder and lightning and the whole bag of meteorological tricks; but I don’t do weather.”
“In fact, I don’t think I ever saw you praying at all, not once!”
“Could you summon us up a catapult that’s bigger than theirs, then?” Smith inquired.
“Don’t be silly,” said Lord Ermenwyr severely. “Sorcery doesn’t work like that. It works on living energies. Things that can be persuaded. I could probably convince tiny particles of air to change themselves into wood and steel, but I’d have to cut a deal with every one of them on a case-by-case basis, and do you have any idea how long it would take? Assuming I even knew how to build a catapult—”
Smith hadn’t heard the shot, but he caught the brief glint of moonlight on the stone ball as it came in fast and low, straight for the glowing point of the lordling’s smoking tube. Without thinking, he dropped and yanked Lord Ermenwyr’s feet out from under him. Lord Ermenwyr fell, the ball shot past. It smashed into the nearest of the boiler domes, where it stuck. The dome crumpled along one riveted seam and began to scream shrilly, as steam jetted forth.
“Those bastards!” Lord Ermenwyr gasped. “That could have been me!”
“It was meant to be,” said Smith. “But please don’t call them names when they board us, all right? We might get out of this alive.”
“They’re not boarding us,” said Lord Ermenwyr, scrambling to his hands and knees. “I defy them!”
“Notice how we’re slowing down?” said Smith. “See the steam escaping from the boiler? It’s like, er, blood. It’s the vital fluid that makes the clockwork oarsmen row. And, since it’s leaking out—”
“Dead meat!” bellowed Crish, wrenching the ball loose. He turned and shot-putted it straight into the bows of the oncoming warship, where it did a lot of damage, to judge from the hoarse screaming that followed.
“This isn’t helping—” groaned Smith.
“I’ll show them dead meat,” said Lord Ermenwyr, in a voice that made Smith’s blood run cold. He looked up to see that the lordling had risen, and had thrown off the glamour that normally disguised him. His pallor gleamed under the moon; he seemed an edged weapon, a horrible surprise, and there was something