“She likes Austrum just now.” He was uncomfortable with this whole discussion. “He’s the one she wants.”
Farshaun released his wrist. “You think that way if you want. No one can tell you anything, can they? Go on and get back to your post. I need to sleep. I’m too tired to think now. We’ll talk again in the morning.”
Railing took the old man’s hand and squeezed gently. Then he lay the hand back on the other’s pallet, rose to his feet, and stood looking down at the already sleeping man.
Come back in the morning? He would be back in an hour. Maybe less. Farshaun was failing.
He climbed the ladder to find Mirai and tell her so.
Five
Sometime just before dawn, Farshaun Req died.
He did so quietly, making no fuss or sounds of distress or efforts to save himself. His passing did not awaken Mirai, who was sleeping right next to him. When she opened her eyes the following morning and looked over at him, his face was calm and peaceful. He seemed, she told Railing, as if he had just decided it was time. As if he had fallen asleep in mute acceptance of the inevitable and drifted away.
All of which did little to assuage her grief. She was inconsolable all that morning, distancing herself from everyone. She took her turn at the helm and worked the lines with the Rovers, but kept herself apart as she did so. She cried constantly and didn’t bother to hide it. Railing saw her in tears more times than he cared to think about, but when he tried to approach her, she quickly turned away.
Later on he saw her with Austrum, standing together near the pilot box, her head buried against his chest while he held her, his arms wrapped tightly about her. Railing felt so helpless and ruined in that moment that he could barely breathe. He turned away at once, but the damage was done. He’d seen enough to know what was happening. He guessed he had always known.
But he was sensible enough not to ask her about it. People handled grief in their own way, and it was mostly a private matter. As it was, he had his own grief to deal with, and it was a complicated and debilitating process. He was riddled with guilt by what he now perceived as his failure to save the old Rover. Farshaun Req had been like a father to him, had mentored him as an airman, and had stood by him through everything that had happened since they had set out from Bakrabru all those weeks ago.
It was his fault, no matter how you looked at it, that Farshaun was dead. It was his insistence on making this journey that was responsible.
He stewed on it for the rest of the morning while going through the motions of whatever his tasks required of him, speaking a few words here and there when necessary, accepting condolences, listening to tributes, all of it a jumble of words that felt more like accusations.
The Rovers had wrapped Farshaun in a section of sailcloth and placed him belowdecks in the cold locker at the stern of the airship. Because they wanted to bury him and mark his grave, they had to fly on for a time to find a spot where this was possible. It might take them until evening, Challa Nand advised. But the body would keep well enough in the cold locker until then.
“You should say something when we lay the old man to rest,” Skint said to Railing at one point. “You were close to him; you meant something to him. He would want you to speak for him. More so, I think, than any of the Rovers.”
Or he would prefer Mirai, Railing had thought at the time. She loved the old man, too—maybe more than Railing did. It seemed to him that she might do the better job of it. At least she wouldn’t be burdened with the guilt he carried. At least she wouldn’t have to speak the words and know she could have done something to prevent the need for them.
But now, having seen her with Austrum, he wasn’t sure he could ask her anything. He wasn’t sure he could even speak to her without finding a way to turn it into an attack. All he could think about—when not dwelling on his guilt for Farshaun’s death—was how much he wished that Austrum had never come into their lives and how badly he wanted Mirai back again, whatever the nature of the accommodation they might be able to find, so long as it didn’t include the big Rover.
But he might as well have wished for time to move backward for all the good it was going to do him. All he had the right to hope for now was a reasonable end to his efforts to save Redden. If he could manage that much, he would have gotten all he was entitled to.
So when the Quickening set down toward sunset, descending to a broad meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers cupped in the valley of a series of massive peaks, high above sea level and well hidden from everything that couldn’t fly, he turned his attention to doing what he had promised both Skint and himself he would do. With the entire company in tow, he left the airship and walked with the big Troll down into the meadow and laid Farshaun Req in his final resting place. The air was sweet and unexpectedly warm; the meadow seemed to be encapsulated in its own climate zone. Birds wheeled overhead and butterflies and bees zipped about through the wildflowers and grasses, oblivious to what those gathered were doing. Farshaun was lowered into the earth still wrapped in the sheeting, a stone marker was set in place at the head of his grave, and Railing stepped forward.
“I’ve never known a better man,” he said, his voice resonating loud and clear in the stillness of the moment. It echoed off the peaks, sounding eerily distant and disconnected. “He was admired by everyone who knew him. He was my friend, and he understood my dream of flying airships and taught me most of what I know. He taught Mirai and my brother, Redden, too. We all loved him, and we will miss him terribly. I wish we had been able to keep him with us a little longer. I wish I had never agreed to let him come on this journey.”
He paused, steadying himself. “But Farshaun was never someone who let others dictate his choices, and I don’t expect I could have done so here. I take comfort in knowing he died in the place he loved most—in the air, aboard an airship, with airmen he admired and the world at his feet. I imagine he is flying somewhere now, off in the blue, off on another journey. I can’t imagine him doing anything else. I will always think of him this way.”
He stepped back, shaking his head, fighting the tears, drained of words and emotional strength. He stood with his head bowed as the Rovers sang a short, traditional song that was meant to speed the dead on their way to a place of safety and peace and to help the living let them go. Challa Nand closed the proceedings with a pronouncement calling on the forces of nature that inhabited and protected the mountains to take notice of their loss, and include their friend.
Then it was back to the airship, the light failing quickly now, though the air remained warm. Night was coming on, darkness speeding its way out of the east in lengthening shadows and a dimming of the skies, the winged herald of day’s end. Railing trudged back to the airship with the others, walking close to Skint. He was vaguely aware of Mirai walking with Austrum, but he refused to look at her, not wanting to be troubled by their body language or wonder at the nature of their words. He was suddenly exhausted, and felt like he could sleep for a week.
“That was well said back there,” Skint observed, dropping back to walk beside him. “I was right about you and the old Rover; you and he did have a strong connection.”
Railing gave a desultory nod. “Well, it’s gone now.”
The Gnome Tracker snorted. “Oh, I don’t think so. Such things survive death. They live on in the hearts of the living. They help keep the dead from being forgotten. Didn’t you know that?”
He moved away. Railing walked on for another few moments, and then he stopped where he was. He watched the others move ahead of him, so despairing that he no longer wanted to keep their company. Instead, he turned around and started back toward the grave site.