Both the dragon and the ship began to plummet, and Kali and the others were propelled into the membrane. As it stretched Kali began to pray that it wouldn't break. She did not have to pray for long, though, as the dragon's rate of descent was so great that the weightlessness they had experienced soon dissipated. This resulted in all four of them being thrown about the craft like peas in a pod.
"Hooper, what in all the farking hells is going on!?" Slowhand shouted.
"Gravity, I think."
"That isn't what I mean and you know it!"
Kali stared up at the dragon and her brow furrowed. The wound on its underside had spread, encompassing now its sides and the beginnings of its wings. Cartilage and muscle and even bone were becoming visible beneath the flesh now and it was obvious to Kali what she was seeing. A reversal of the process that had formed the creature in the first place. This, then, was the fate of all those creations, bar the k'nid, who left the influence of the Crucible. The dragon was coming apart before her eyes.
And if it came apart at this height, then the ship would too.
Their dizzying fall continued and, as they dropped below a certain altitude, the membrane that had held them from the void disappeared, exposing all on the deck to the raw maelstrom of the wind. It was impossible to communicate with the others, words and even screams whipped away in the deafening roar, and it was almost as impossible to maintain their hold on the ship, winds ripping at them and making the flesh on their faces flap and ripple. Aldrededor, though, was fighting his way back to the controls, presumably in a desperate attempt to try and level them out. Even if he made it, the Sarcrean certainly had his work cut out for him, the decaying dragon having fallen now into a spiralling descent that span the world around them.
Kali willed the dragon to quite literally keep itself together for just a little longer, until they were at an altitude where Aldrededor might be able to safely regain some control. She had no doubt now that the same benign intelligence — perhaps all that was left of the dwelf — that had guided them through the Dragonfire was still at play here, because the dragon was clearly trying to raise and flex its wings and pull them out of their terminal dive. Even as great scaled and fleshy chunks of it were torn away by the tumultuous descent, the dragon, for whatever reason it had brought them here, was now trying to bring them safely home.
Kali pulled herself down the deck to Aldrededor's side, where the ex-pirate was linked to the ship once more but clearly straining to impose his will upon it. As he did, she stared at the dragon again, heart sinking as she saw its flesh had now all but been stripped away.
It was surely only a matter of minutes before there was nothing left of the creature at all. Still, as it fought, its wings, slowly, began to lift.
And as they did, the ship began to level out.
Kali looked down. Their angle of descent was still way too steep, way too fast. But it was a start. The dragon was trying, and they had to try too.
"Aldrededor, you have to pull us up!" Kali shouted. "You have to pull us up when I tell you!"
The ex-pirate's flowing moustache was plastered against his cheeks by the wind now. "I… will try… Kali Hooper."
Kali slapped him on the back. "I know you will!"
"Hooper, our friend is a goner," Slowhand shouted.
"Just a few moments more." Kali willed.
Again, she looked at the dragon and was staggered and awed as, quite deliberately, its head — actually more a cadaverous skull now — turned on its long neck and looked at her, as if acknowledging its complicitness in her plan. The creature knew what it was doing, all right, and it could only know if it did indeed carry the consciousness of the dwelf. Kali looked up as a beating that could be heard even above the roaring wind began and saw that at last the dragon had managed to fully flex what remained of its wings. As they slowly, majestically, swept at the air it began to pull the ship onto a more level keel.
But it would not be enough unless they did their bit.
Kali stared one last time at the dragon, swallowing as its saddened eyes began to dull, then turn grey, and then, like the rest of its form, began to discorporealise. The air around her filled with a dry, golden rain that coated her face and tasted bitter on her lips.
"Aldrededor, now," she said, a tear in her eye.
"Everybody hold on."
The Sarcrean's eyes shut, his jaw clenched and his temples throbbed with concentration. Above him, the dragon was now nothing but a skeletal afterthought and, even as he pulled back on the ship's controls, that too began to stream away into the wind.
Thank you and goodbye, Kali thought sadly, wishing she had more time to mourn the passing of the ancient creature.
As the dragon vanished on the wind, the Kerberos ship soared from its ashes, punching through its discorporealising remains into clear sky, pulling up from what had become a forty-five degree dive into a much gentler descent. Only the angle of the descent was gentle, however, the ship still hurtling through the air at previously unimaginable speed.
As Twilight rolled beneath it, Kali could not work out how high they still were because she could see no landmarks below. But then as the ship drew lower, penetrating a thin layer of cloud, she understood why — they were coming down over the sea.
Storm tossed waves roiled beneath them and lightning flashed. How far out they were, Kali didn't know, but she understood instantly why the Twilight Seas were considered so dangerous by those who sailed them. Here, beyond the Storm Wall, she could see that vast areas of the deeps were whorled by giant whirlpools. Waves clashed like opposing armies, the fallout of battle spreading for leagues and, in one place in particular, Kali saw a wall of water so high it was moving dizzying slowly, but seemingly with purpose, across the turbulent expanse. What the hells was that? Kali thought. It even seemed to have things riding the side of it, something on top of it.
Whatever it was, their passage was such that it was soon gone and at last, ahead of them, Kali began to make out the jagged edges of what looked like a large island. From its shape she recognised Allantia, and beyond that a much larger landmass that, by extension, had to be the northern coast of the peninsula. As the ship passed over Allantia, a dark mass flecked with both red and white rose ominously on the eastern horizon, bending southward for leagues after leagues — a mass that was without doubt the World's Ridge Mountains.
Kali felt a momentary stab of disappointment, that of missed opportunity, because if only they had come in the other way she might have been able to see what lay beyond. She shrugged the feeling aside in favour of a much more positive one, however, because Aldrededor had brought them almost exactly where they needed to be.
The ex-pirate brought the ship onto an almost level keel and Kali turned to congratulate him but, as she did, the ship shuddered violently beneath her. It sounded and felt as if it had taken far more of a battering than it could stand.
Kali looked to the east where the thick bow of the Sardenne Forest could now just be made out, wrapping the base of the World's Ridge Mountains. The problem was, she could feel the ship moving ever so slightly away from it, on a south-easterly course.