"Shake them off?" Slowhand said. "You must have weapons. Use them!"
"What good did your weapon do, brother?" Jenna snapped back at him, striking Suresight dismissively with the back of her hand. "Tell me that!"
Slowhand couldn't deny how useless his bow had proven, and looked desperately at the k'nid, biting his lip. "Is there something I can do?"
"Yes. Stay out of the way."
With that, Jenna moved off to position herself just behind the two men manning the airship's twin wheels, barking orders from where she stood, omitting only Querilous Fitch whose duty seemed to consist wholly of standing stock still and glowering at the archer. Slowhand ignored him, unable to help but be impressed with the way this crew handled their strange vessel.
Since the debacle of the Clockwork King, he had come to regard the Final Faith not only as dangerous but as dangerously irresponsible. Blundering buffoons whose interference in the peninsula's past could bring it close to doomsday. But here it was different and he was sure that was due in no small part to the tactical skills of his sister. She handled her crew with ease and they repaid her with utmost loyalty. Slowhand felt a momentary surge of pride, recognising that she had obviously come a long way since the last time he had seen her, even if her development had taken place under the auspices of the Faith.
The only thing that gave him cause for concern now was what the hells she was doing — especially as the airship was heading straight for the rock face.
"Urm, Jenna…"
"Steady as she goes," Jenna ordered, seemingly unphased. "Steady… steady… and… turn now!"
Both of the men manning the wheels reacted instantly, spinning hard to the left. Slowhand felt the deck tip beneath him as the gondola swung beneath the canopy. It swung so far, in fact, that as the dirigible went into its turn, the side of the hull and the airbag scraped against the face of the rock. The air was filled with a wrenching that sounded as if the gates of the hells themselves were opening.
Jenna's manoeuvre had been executed perfectly but there had to variables — the prevailing wind, air pockets — in an airship such as this, and what had been executed perfectly in theory did not necessarily turn out so in practice. It wasn't her fault, then, that the hull sounded to him like it was in danger of tearing itself apart. Despite being told to stay out of the way, Slowhand couldn't help but feel like the protective brother and raced to the guard rail, unslinging Suresight as he went and then using the bow to push off from the rockface. Slowhand staggered back, yelping, as he was punched in the face and then spun away from his position. He glared into the angered face of Jenna.
"What in the almighty hells do you think you're farking doing? You're tearing this ship apart!"
"Am I, brother?" Jenna shouted again. "Look! Look!"
Slowhand did, and suddenly realised his mistake.
The ship's impacting with the rocks hadn't, it seemed, been a miscalculation on his sister's part, but a carefully calculated strategy to remove their troublesome visitors. As he watched, those k'nid that were working their way towards them were scraped away from the dirigible's bag as they were caught between its surface and the rock. The screeching things tumbling away into oblivion. However, it only removed those k'nid that clung to that section of the hull. Slowhand was opening his mouth to point this out when he realised, once again, that Jenna was way ahead of him.
"Swing her round! One eighty degrees full rudder!"
The deck lurched beneath Slowhand as the order was instantly acted upon, and he was forced to cling to a handrail to prevent himself stumbling. Jenna, however, strode the tipping deck with ease, clearly practiced with her 'airlegs' and still barking orders as she went. Slowhand watched as she executed a series of manoeuvres that made him swell with pride, making the airship do things it was clearly not designed for. Despite the fact that the airship collided with the rocks around it on a number of occasions — and the faces of its crew were clearly concerned about the battering it was taking — they nevertheless continued to obey without question, until the last of the k'nid had been ripped away. Only then did Jenna sigh with relief.
"Resume course. Steady as she goes."
Slowhand was about to move towards her and congratulate her on the flying display when Fitch strode towards her instead, whispering something in her ear.
"Dammit," Jenna said. "How bad?"
"The orb has purged energy." Fitch said. "We need to replenish it, enter Waystation One, or we will not reach Gransk."
"We can't afford to lose the time, but I suppose there's no choice. All right, prepare to take her in."
The orb, Slowhand thought.
Presumably the pulsating orb that seemed to drive the airship, but the waystation, what was that? And what and where the hells was Gransk?
"Problem?" he said, moving forward.
"Nothing that can't be rectified."
"Where, in this… Waystation One?"
"That's right, in Waystation One."
Slowhand was getting a little tired of being left out of the loop, even if, strictly speaking, he had no place in it. "What are you doing here above the clouds, sis?"
"Where did this ship come from? What the hells is going on?"
"All hands," Jenna said. "Prepare to bring us around."
"Yes, Captain Freel."
Now Slowhand said nothing. Instead he simply stared at his sister instead.
That she had effectively ignored him — was ignoring him — after all this time spoke volumes for the depth of indoctrination the Faith had instilled in her, but that wasn't what disturbed him the most. What was with the Captain Freel bit? That wasn't her name. What was going on? He perhaps couldn't blame her for adopting another name but what he didn't understand was why Freel? It wasn't an assumed name like his own. So, unless she had become really boring in the intervening years, did that mean she had the name Freel for a reason? Had she been adopted? Gods, had she married? Whatever the reason it hinted at a history he knew nothing about, and considering that she was his twin sister, that simply wasn't right.
One thing was clear, however. The two of them were not going to be playing catch-up right now.
"Three degrees right rudder. Orb to half power. Ready a pulse on my mark."
"Aye, Ma'am."
"Half degree correction and… mark! Steady as she goes, Mister Ransom. Prepare to take us in."
Responding to Jenna's commands the Final Faith crew — with the exception of Fitch who simply stood with his arms folded, staring at him, which Slowhand most definitely didn't like.
"This… civilian should not be seeing this." Querilous Fitch snapped.
"What would you have me do, threadweaver. Throw him overboard? He's my brother, dammit."
"No. I am your brother now."
That was it as far as Slowhand was concerned. He was about to go for Fitch when something took his mind entirely off his intent. Because Jenna's commands had turned the airship back towards Thunderlungs Cry — or rather back and beneath it — and what he saw there he was immediately convinced was what had made Thunderlungs' lover falter and fall all of those many centuries ago.
Beneath the Cry was a huge cave mouth that was not a cave mouth at all — at least not a purely natural one. It appeared to have been bored out of the rock and led deep inside it. All along its sides — leading inward in two neat rows — were lines of great, glowing tubes set inside rune-inscribed arches. Tubes which pulsed in sequence as if designed to guide an airship in. And that, it seemed, was exactly what they did, because the airship passed between them and was swallowed by the huge cavern mouth.