May 1, 2011

• Plotting and Mapwork

              The clouds broke up as they descended.  One moment the ship would be in white damp blindness, and the next they would burst out into morning sunlight and clear air and a maddeningly blue sky.  The tattered remnants of the storm were gusting away in the wanderwinds, swept up as with a broom and dustpan.

              Every time they broke free of the cloud, the ground below stood out clearer, sharper.  Soon Sadler could see the shadowed sides of low hills, and the meandering path of a river tracking through the grasslands.  She balanced on the bulwark, steadying herself with one hand in the ratlines, peering at the world below.  Raeth and Cooper crouched nearby over a chart, pinned to the decking with a dagger and weighted with a pistol.  Others idled about the maindeck, trying to help.  Morris leaned on one of the ship’s guns, still wearing the Argan uniform coat he had scavenged, looking worn and bedraggled.  Sadler felt a fresh pang of empathy for him—so out of his element, still finding his feet in a world that was not his—but she pressed the feeling down.  She needed no distractions right now.

              “That looks like the Welling,” said someone.  “Is that the Welling?”

              “No,” said someone else.  “We were blown off-course to the south, not to the north.”

              Sadler’s ears popped, and she swallowed hard until the pressure faded.  Her practiced eye scanned over the river as she saw it below, then looked at the chart, trying to match up the loops and curves on paper with what she saw.

              “It may be the Sheafbourne,” said Raeth, pointing at the chart.  “I do think it is.  If it’s the Sheafbourne, then there’s a village off to the west of it.”

              “No,” Morris said suddenly.  “It can’t be.  Look.”

              Everyone followed the line of his finger, to a few smudges near the river.  Cooper shrugged.  “What are we looking at?”

              “Those are standing stones, there on the high bank.  Monuments left by the old tribes of Raelund, centuries before the Conquest.  There are no standing stones anywhere on the Sheafbourne.”

              “Are you certain?”

              The graduate student‘s voice turned sour.  “I’ve studied the ruins of the Western Borderlands for the last three years.  I’ve written two papers on their standing stones alone.  Yes, I’m certain.”  He turned to Sadler and held out his hand; she hesitated only a moment before handing him her spyglass.  “Yes,” he said, once he had the ruins in focus.  “Squared-off top, cylindrical shape.  Those are Heckerman pillars.”

              “Does that help?” Sadler asked.

              He gave her a small smile.  “There are only three clusters of Heckerman pillars in the Borderlands, and only one of those on a river.”  He closed the spyglass against his palm with a click.  “This is the Aescflow.”

              Raeth seemed unconvinced.  “Are you sure?”

              “As sure as I am of my name.”

              “If this is the Aescflow,” Cooper said, pointing to the chart, “then we can follow it east to Aescford, without problem.  We must be within a few hours.”

              “There’s a telegraph station in Aescford, isn’t there?”

              Cooper nodded.  “We can raise the alarm from there.”

              Sadler felt a smile growing on her face, and called over her shoulder to the helmsman: “Turn us east, and follow the river, Adlaem.  All ahead full.”

              “All ahead full, aye.”

              “How’s the rudder handling?”

              Adlaem held his palm level with the deck and wiggled it.  “She’ll turn, but not smoothly, and not quickly.  I don’t know what Patch rigged up, but it isn’t Scipdun standard.”

              “It’ll do.”

              Cooper went to put the chart away, and Raeth ducked below to check on the prisoners.  Sadler hopped down off the bulwark and said, leaning closer to Morris, “Nicely done.”

              He colored slightly, but all he said was, “Is this a problem aeronauts often have?”

              “Navigation can be a tricky thing, when all you see is clouds and sky for hours on end.  With the right tools and a clear head, you can plot your latitude, but longitude is a trickier beast.  Much of our navigation is done by dead reckoning.  Landmarks.  Eddison’s the only one of us who is any good at the other kind.”

              “We had to do a lot of plotting and mapwork when working with a dig site,” Morris said.  “We weren’t charting a course, mind you, but I’ve gotten very good with maps.”

              He trailed off, and his eyes took on a faraway look.  Sadler felt embarrassed, bringing up his past livelihood like that, considering all he must be going through.  The silence seemed to drag on, and she finally broke it, saying, “Don’t worry.  We’ll get you back to your dig sites soon enough.”

              She regretted it as soon as she said it.  Idiot! she thought.  Do you want him to think you’re eager for him to leave?  Morris, for his part, only nodded vaguely, as if unsure if the prospect pleased him or not.

              She started to modify her statement, but abruptly decided that it was far too likely she would say another stupid thing.  “I need to keep lookout,” was all she said, and stood up, feeling his eyes on her as she walked away.

              Fool, she said to herself.  And then, offering a quick prayer to Loga of the Silver Tongue, I swear, I’ll never mock Frost’s bumbling attempts at romance again.  Just keep me from getting in my own way.

              She stepped up on the forecastle and leaned against the bulwark rail, looking along the winding river for some sign of habitation.  A moment later Halle stood beside her.  He was wearing a smug look beneath his beard.

              “So,” he said, sitting on the rail.  “Bunking down below with the earthworm, eh?  Arm around his shoulders, all cozy-like?  What would the captain think of—”

              Halle’s voice broke off in a choked sound.  Sadler calmly looked down at him, tightened her left hand’s grip on his harness, and pushed him a little further over the rail, until his entire torso hung over the ship’s side.  Halle’s hands clutched frantically at the rail; his feet kicked at the air, trying to regain his balance.  Below his head, a thousand feet of wind and cloud stretched down to the Aescflow River.

              “You may want to change the topic, crewman,” Sadler said softly.  She held him there another heartbeat, just to watch his mouth gape and his eyes bulge, then pulled him roughly back to his feet.

  Copyright Chris Russo © 2011.  All rights reserved.  Plagiarizers will be keelhauled at 16,000 feet.
  

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