Page 14 of Suffer No Fools
"He's back below," Vadim said. "I wish we could have raided his rooms in the palace before we left, but we didn't have time. He's got nothing to shield him against the cold."
"Gulde will make him some warmer clothes."
"I wish she could teach him how to weave fire," Vadim said. "All this time, Coryn was using him without our knowledge."
"Frost was making progress with Jasmine before we left," Stan reminded him.
Trin glanced over her shoulder and waved, and Vadim waved back.
"Noticing a difference in our speed?" she asked.
"You're better than water weavers!" Vadim raised his voice to be heard over the wind, and his adorable soon-to-be-adopted daughter smiled in return.
He pointed. "Why don't you spend more of your time at the helm? Earth weaves are as fast as the increased water currents Efren uses."
"This is a sailing vessel." Stan pointed back at the two sails fully bowed from the twin air weavers powering them. "Air is always faster than water, or earth."
"But your stores are lower than Tovey's. You could be just as effective with earth weaves."
"We balance each other. He converts more of my core power to wind, and I direct it into the sail for him. He's almost too powerful for sailing. Remember how he used to spend half the night fixing the rigging and repairing tears and rips in the sails?"
"I remember you refused to help him mend the sails back together." Vadim grinned. "All those years I spent watching you work came in handy when we needed to fix the airship."
"Trin told me." Stan watched the slip of a girl as she listened intently to Jermain's instructions. "I'm glad you found her. I'd hate to think what those academy brats would do if she had to return."
"Coryn would have protected her as best she could, but the academy students' only adult supervisors were mundane workers. Can you imagine Tim trying to come between you and Tovey in a fight?"
Stan laughed. Tim had intervened in at least one fight. "I took a tin plate to the forehead once. Say what you will about Tim. He has good aim."
Vadim joined in his laughter and waved again as Trin glanced over her shoulder with a bemused frown. "You know what I mean."
"I do. That's why I'm proud of you."
"Me?" Vadim shook his head. "Be proud of her. She's the one who was ready to sacrifice everything for the empire. Hugo, too."
Stan still couldn't believe their young emperor had consented to die so Vadim could bring him back. It seemed unnatural, even if it was the result of Vadim's balance between life and death weaves.
"We destroyed the metal disks, and we have the only grand seeker who could identify Hugo in a mess of fire weavers on board. He's as safe as can be."
"We don't have a mess of fire weavers to hide him," Stan said. "Does Glamiere?"
"I don't know," Vadim said.
So many of their plans relied on Glamiere. Stan had spent weeks at a time in their ports, but he didn't know a blessed fact about their politics. He hoped they hadn't rescued Hugo from one prison to put him in another.
#
Tovey
The twins, Roy and Ray, were identical in every way, including the amount of air they could push into their sails. They'd learned rudimentary basics in their home south of Landale. They'd spent only two days as captives on the naval ship before they'd been rescued by Nola and her crew. Two days was not enough time to learn to sail.
Tovey quickly remedied that, shoring up their bad habits. Instead of billowing wind into the center of the sails, he taught them to start at the bottom and fill up, so they knew when they'd reached the maximum capacity of the sail. "Now, all you need to do is keep it full."
"What if the captain asks to go faster?" Roy asked.
"That's when you adjust the angle." Tovey showed them how to work the rigging at their feet to swing the sails out until they were perpendicular to the ship, or to angle them to catch the crosswind.
"If you push more air than the sail can handle, you'll only rip the sail," Tovey said. "These sails are heavier than most for that reason." He glanced at Stan, who was still talking to Vadim on the navigation deck. The earth weaver had fashioned the sails to be virtually indestructible after Tovey had ripped them a fifth or sixth time. Tovey hadn't even asked, though he had stayed up half the night each time to repair the cloth.
