Alexia said to her husband, “Conall, I believe we may have to follow that gentleman.”
“But, Alexia… what?”
“It has worked in my favor before.”
“But who on God’s green earth is the man?”
“He’s a Drifter.”
“Can’t be—they don’t fraternize with foreigners.”
“Well, this one does. He rescued us at the bazaar when we were attacked.”
“What? You were what? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were busy yelling at me about Professor Lyall’s manipulations.”
“Oh. So tell me now.”
“Never mind, we have to follow him. Do come on.” Alexia firmed up her grip on Prudence and dashed after the rapidly disappearing balloon nomad.
“Oh, blast.” Conall, bless his supernatural strength, hoisted all of their luggage easily and trundled after.
The man led them toward the Porte de Rosette. Eventually he veered off and, rounding a corner in the street, came upon a medium-sized obelisk carved of red rock that glittered in the moonlight. He was using it as a mooring, a heavy rope wrapped about the base, and his balloon hovered above like—Alexia tilted her head back—well, like a big balloon. The man stopped and made a move to take Prudence from Alexia. She jerked back but when he gestured at a rope ladder significantly, she nodded.
“Very well, but my husband goes first.”
Conall was looking with white-faced horror at the swinging ladder. Werewolves do not float. “No, really. I’d prefer not, if you don’t mind.”
Alexia tried to be reasonable. “We must get to Luxor somehow.”
“My dear wife, you have seen nothing in your life so pathetic as a werewolf with airsickness.”
“Do we have a choice? Besides, with any luck we’ll be flying into the God-Breaker Plague zone soon. At which point you should be fine and human once more.”
“Oh, you think that, do you? What if the plague doesn’t extend upward?”
“Where’s your spirit of scientific inquiry, husband? This is our opportunity to find just such a thing out. I promise to take lots of notes.”
“That’s very reassuring.” The earl did not look convinced. He eyed the ladder with even greater suspicion.
“Up you go, Conall. Stop dawdling. If it’s that bad, I can simply touch you.”
Her husband grumbled but began to climb.
“There’s my brave boy,” said his wife condescendingly.
Being supernatural, he heard her but pretended not to, eventually making it over the edge and into the balloon basket.
Alexia noticed that the balloon was much lower than the first time she had seen it, during the day. She was grateful for this—less ladder to climb.
The Drifter shimmied up, Prudence strapped to his back in a sling. The toddler squealed in delight. She, unlike her father, was very excited by the prospect of floating.
After a moment’s hesitation, Alexia followed suit.
A little street urchin, all unobserved until that moment, darted forth and unwound the rope from the obelisk mooring. Alexia found herself unexpectedly climbing a free-floating ladder drifting down the street. This was not quite so easily done as one might think, particularly not in a full skirt and bustle, but no one had ever called Lady Maccon a spiritless weakling. She hung on for dear life and continued to make her way up by slow degrees, even as the ladder on which she clung headed for a very large building at a rate rather more alarming than reassuringly dignified.
She made it up into the basket just in time, somewhat hampered by the restrictions proper dress imposed upon the British female. She thought, not for the first time, that Madame Lefoux might have the right of it. But then she simply could not get around the idea of wearing trousers, not as a female of her proportions. The Drifter met her at the top with a strong hand of assistance, quickly hauling the rope ladder up after her.
So it was that the Maccons found themselves floating low above the city of Alexandria in one of the famous nomadic balloons completely at the mercy of a man to whom they had not been formally introduced.
The earl, with a muttered oath, lurched to the basket edge and was promptly sick over the side. He continued to be so for a good long while. Alexia stood next to him rubbing his back solicitously. Her touch turned him human, but it seemed that he was a man ill suited to travel by air, immortal or no. Eventually, she respected his dignity and his mutters of “do shove off” and left him to his misery.
The Drifter unstrapped Prudence from his back and set her down. She began to toddle around investigating everything—she had her mother’s curiosity, bless her. The crew of the balloon, Alexia surmised after a short while, must be the man’s family. There was a wife, upon whom the harsh features of the desert were not quite so attractive but who seemed more ready to smile than her dour husband. This lent her an aura of beauty, as is often the case with the good-natured. The woman’s many scarves and colorful robes wafted in the slight breeze. There was also one strapping son of perhaps fourteen and a young daughter only slightly older than Prudence. The entire family was amazingly tolerant of Prudence’s curiosity and evident interest in trying to “help.” They pretended to let her steer with the many ropes that dangled in the center of the basket, and the boy held her up high so she could look out over the edge—an action that was met with peals of delighted laughter.
The balloon remained rather low, especially for a lady accustomed to dirigible travel. Alexia remembered Ivy’s comment about the Drifters ordinarily landing at night because of the cold and then rising up with the heat of the day. It made her wonder.
With the initial flurry of float-off past, Alexia left her self-imposed position of noninterference, checked once more on poor Conall, who was still expunging, and made her way slowly to their rescuer. It was difficult to walk for, while the sides of the basket were made of wicker, the floor was a grid of poles with animal skins stretched between—not the easiest thing for a woman of Alexia’s girth and shoe choice. Add to that the fact that her moving about shook the entire basket most alarmingly.
“Pardon me, sir. It’s not that I’m not grateful, but who are you?”
The man smiled, a flash of perfect white teeth from within that trimmed beard. “Ah, yes, of course, lady. I am Zayed.”
“How do you do, Mr. Zayed.”
The man bowed. Then he pointed in turn. “My son, Baddu; my wife, Noora; and my daughter, Anitra.”
Alexia made polite murmurs and curtsied in their direction. The family all nodded but did not leave their respective posts.
“It is very kind of you to offer us, a, er, lift.”
“A favor to a friend, lady.”
“Really? Who?”
“Goldenrod.”
“Who?”
“You do not know, lady?”
“Evidently not.”
“Then we will wait.”
“Oh, but…”
The man’s face closed down.
Alexia sighed and switched topics. “If you don’t think it interfering, may I ask? We are very low—how can we float at night?”
“Ah, lady. You know some of our ways. Let me show you.” He made his way over to the middle and threw several blankets off what looked to be a container of gas, of the kind used for lamp lighting back home in London. “For special, we have this.”
Alexia was instantly intrigued. “Will you show me?”
The man flashed a brief grin of excitement and began unhitching and hooking in various tubes and cords. He hoisted the canister so its mouth pointed into the massive balloon.
While he was busy fussing, Alexia took a moment to take in her surroundings.
The balloon was utterly unlike the British-made dirigibles Alexia had utilized in the past. She had traveled in both small pleasure-time floaters and the larger mail post and passenger transports—the company-owned monsters. This balloon was similar to neither. For one thing, the balloon part itself hadn’t the shape of a dirigible and was entirely made of cloth. It was guided by means of opening and closing flaps rather than by a propeller of any kind. For another, the basket was bigger than a personal jaunt dirigible but much smaller than one of the larger cross-country behemoths. It was twice the length of a rowboat but basically square. In the center was the mooring for the balloon and all the associated straps and contraptions required to see it float and directed properly. As the basket slowly spun with the balloon, there seemed to be no particular front or back. There was an area clearly used for sleeping, another for cooking, and one tented corner that Alexia could only assume was meant for doing one’s private business. She supposed that the family lived in the basket and that the various hanging sacks over the edge and from the base of the balloon—which she had assumed were ballasts—were probably goods and supplies.