They took him to the workshop where the magic amplifier was being built. He analyzed the ancient worm eaten plans for the device and called for a fresh piece of parchment. Ghaleon rolled up his sleeves and began copying the plan from one sheet to another with remarkable precision, using only a simple pen as his tool.
"Impressive," stammered one of the aides.
When he finished another aide picked up the parchment and examined it more closely. He glanced at Ghaleon as the white-haired man found something else to which to turn his attention. "But these plans aren't the same as the old ones..."
"Modifications need to be made to compensate for that which has become obsolete," Ghaleon said, absently pulling up one sleeve that had begun to fall. He lifted a large rough hewn stone in his arms and noticed with minor annoyance that the various aides were staring at him with mind-boggled expressions.
"Wow..."
"Cool..."
"He knows so much for a guy who looks so young..."
Then a louder voice demanded, "Help him!" and they scrambled to obey.
A white bird flew from the guild mansion, a note tied around its left leg. It circled once over Lemia, who had released it, then soared on its way. Lemia slowly lowered the arm that had lifted the bird and pulled the cage down from the balcony railing, letting it hang by her side. Dyne stood beside her, still marveling at the bird's flight. He pulled his hands from his pockets, setting one on the railing and raising the other to shield his eyes as he followed the bird's path.
"That's the guildmistress's bird," said Lemia. "It'll fly straight to the ship."
"What's the paper tied to its leg?" he asked.
"A report to the guildmistress, telling her all about our plan."
She brought him inside and showed him a crude diagram of the ship trapped in the box canyon. It was a horizontal view of the ship, running the length of the vessel. "In times of crisis, the airship envelops itself in a magic barrier." She gestured to the light colored arrows denoted the flow of air through the canyon, and stronger markings in black showed the forced exerted from the ship. They pushed straight out in all directions to a limit drawn by a thick circle. "When the lightning and wind spell hit the rock face, the barrier will activate as per this diagram to protect the ship from the falling shards of rock."
Lemia pointed him to another map, this one an overhead view of the area beneath Vane. The placement of the ship was clearly marked in the canyon, and no less than four X's dotted the landscape before its entrance. "All the roads close to the ship have been blocked, because if something unforeseeable occurs as a result of the barrier being activated..." She trailed off, shaking her head, and left the room.
Dyne followed her to a storage room full of trays of rough stone, all labeled and bound securely into place. "So that's why you sealed the gate to Vane," he said, looking around the impressive array of inventory. Lotta rocks...
"Yes!" said Lemia, bending over to fill a cart with some of the stones. "To prevent anyone from interfering or snooping around!"
"Huh?" he said, hefting a single large stone on his shoulder. He came so close behind her she nearly struck his shoulder as she stood straight again.
Lemia gave him an imploring look as she lifted a piece of paper between her fingers, a list of things to collect. "To keep outsiders from entering the city, in other words. How else do you think I've been able to keep the airship matter under wraps?"
Dyne considered that as they traveled to the ruins behind Vane, where Ghaleon worked to construct the amplification device. The white-haired man stood beside a wall covered in metal plates. Bronze tubing shown from where one of the circular sheets had been removed. Ghaleon held a thin metal shaft in one hand and raised his other to where he could turn one of the knobs of the arcane machine. He spared them a sideways glimpse as they entered the room, but largely remained attuned to his business.
"There is not enough time to perfectly reconstruct this," he said. "It will only be safe to use two or three times. Who will be using it?"
Lemia clenched one hand and bowed her head. "I will."
Ghaleon came beside them and rested his elbows on the cart handle as he picked up the list of items he had given Lemia. "Well, that'd only be natural, you being the guildmistress's deputy and all..." He glanced down at the rough cut crystals in the cart and then to the pair beside him. "What's this about a book on Crystal Resonance & Transmission Output Factors ?"
Lemia covered her mouth in mute surprise and Dyne rubbed the back of his head. "Oops. Forgot about that... Dang," said Dyne.
Ghaleon rapped lightly on Dyne's head with his knuckles. "Tsk! Ditz! We'll go get it later."
"I'll go get it!" said Lemia suddenly.
She was already through the door and running down the cobblestone path by the time Dyne poked his head out and said, "I'll go with-" He broke off and pointed up in the sky. "Hey! Look!"
Lemia looked back over her shoulder. "Huh?"
"The bird!" he said.
The white winged messenger soared over the rooftops of Vane. It spotted Lemia and brought itself upright, flapping its wings strongly to keep aloft until it finally perched on her hand.
"It brought back another message!" said Dyne.
And it was true. A new rolled up slip of paper was tied around the bird's right leg. Lemia pulled the note free and the bird moved to perch on her shoulder as she unrolled it. Almost immediately a crowd of aides surrounded her, asking questions and hoping for a glimpse of the letter.
"What? What does it say?"
"Have there been any casualties..."
Lemia could only stare at the note as one of the aides, the one who had shooed away the children, peered over her shoulder. The note read: "We're all fine. No ill effects. Our lives are not in peril. No casualties; don't worry."
She and another of the aides clasped hands in joy, alternately laughing and crying as one of their companions shook his head and sighed. "We'll go on with our plan!" said another of the women, flashing a big smile before she disappeared back through a doorway to another chamber.
Lemia looked as though she had not blinked the entire time she held the letter in her hands. Her eyes shown as the reflection of light off glass.
"What's wrong?" asked Dyne.
Numbly she replied, "This is not the guildmistress's handwriting."
"So that means..."
Unnoticed, Ghaleon stood behind Dyne, facing the other direction. He raised one hand against the sheared end of a broken wall as he peered around it. The sight was not good, bringing vivid concern to his pale face.
"Look outside," he said.
Shadows played on the grassy plains beneath the floating city of Vane. As the sun set, the shadows grew longer, larger, showing more of what could yet be found near the horizon, things such as the two sides of a box canyon and the ship trapped between them magnified beyond all proportion.
"Damn it!" shouted Lemia.
The stampede back to the guild mansion was frantic, a long sprint from the ruins out back to the rear of the mansion. Lemia did not even pause for breath as she hurtled down the steep steps to the first floor with Dyne and the rest of her entourage in tow.
"If we only could have been given one more day!" she lamented.
The double doors leading to the courtyard loomed before her, two frightened aides guarding them from either side.
"This is all my fault! All my..."
She had barely breath to fill her lungs, but she gritted her teeth as she crossed those last few strides to the threshold of the mansion.
"Deputy!" screamed one of the aides. Her voice reached a frenetic pitch. "We won't be able to fool them any longer! What do we do?"
Lemia opened one of the doors and found herself instantly pinned against the other. There was a mob outside; shouting, shrieking, and sobbing in fear and agony. Two children threw themselves at the hem of her dress, the same she had comforted only earlier this day. Lemia was aghast, overwhelmed by the sheer aura of apprehension.
"The- The ship's shadow..."
"My mother..."
"How on Lunar can they get out of there?"
"Haven't you done anything! What good are you as the guild's deputy?"
Their pain and panic melded into one. Children, adults, elderly, all felt the touch of their loved ones pulled farther and farther away. Ragged breath mixed with tears as they begged for what they could not see.
"So this's what she was afraid of," said Dyne, coming out of the guild mansion. He felt for a solution, wanting to help more than anything, but this was something beyond him.
The calls of the townspeople dimmed to a drone in the back of Lemia's mind as she stood firm and resolute. Even the cries of a child would not faze her. "Look at me," she said, bringing a hand to her chest. Her earnest gaze carried a sincerity the people could not ignore. Their cries dwindled to hiccups and sniffles.
"Why do you think I'm so calm?" she asked. She turned to the children. "Because I'm 'better' than everyone else? No." She shook her head as she brought their elders in her circle. "I'm calm because there is nothing to worry about! Vane is home to the greatest magical talent in all of Lunar! And it is that magic which has the power to solve this problem." Magic that could suspend an entire city high above the surface of Lunar.
The crowd began to calm and Lemia brightened her tone. "No one is injured! No lives have been lost! Believe me!" She smiled. "It's all right!"
It took some time, but the people gradually filed away from the mansion. By the time the last few left, the day had nearly fled and the skies were lavender over Vane.
"This's all because of the sun," said Dyne, watching the people go as he stood beside his friend. "The shadow it cast aroused everyone's suspicions. And yet the girl's face," --he looked at Lemia waving wearily at the last departing-- "is so pale..."
One of the children turned around, the boy who had mistakened Dyne for his father. He saw Lemia, smiled, and waved in return.
Ghaleon lifted his clipboard in front of him, already scrawling notes on the paper before him. "Don't worry about her," he said.
Dyne did not miss the mandate slipped into the tone of his friend's voice, but while Ghaleon might think of the many, Dyne could not help but think of the few, or even the one.
The library was dark when Lemia entered it late that evening. The hum of the guild's daily business had faded, biding its time until the bustle of the next day, but in isolated pockets the people continued to work. This would be a night of little sleep as they labored to repair the machine they so desperately need. Lemia could not sleep even if she wanted to. It was always this way when she worried. A little busywork would keep her occupied though, and she already had a task left to finish.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she murmured, pushing aside one of the library doors. "Crystal Resonance & Transmission Output Factors... "
She walked down the many aisles, some stacks as high as eight shelves, with ladders to assist those who needed volumes from the very top. Lemia did not have to use one of those though. She found the area she sought within shoulder height of herself.
"Volume 2... Volume 5..." She shifted the books in her hands. "I don't need the other three volumes..."
Her voice sounded shaky even to herself, but it helped to talk, to let out some of the energy that had built inside of her. Even if the words were only a mundane stream of thought, they were better than nothing.
Lemia pushed the stacks back into neatness when her hand brushed the cover a book by one of the gaps left by the librarians. She pulled it out, surprised, and cradled the volume in her hands. On its cover was the airship.
She sank to the floor, hugging the books to her chest as the shelves of the bookcase dug into her back. This time the tears would not stay hidden and she buried her face in one hand. Her sobs were soft, muted hiccups. It would do no good to wail, but she would bear her sorrow alone as she knew she must.
Footsteps. Somebody was already in the library!
Lemia shrank into the shadows, brushing away the tears so surely her lids would turn red from the treatment. She quelled a ragged breath and gathered her courage to peer around the corner.
It was that man, the one with the white hair and pointed ears indicative of the magic race. He had an open book in one hand, a finger pointed at a passage he presumably had been reading, two more books tucked under his other arm. The man regarded her coolly, perhaps annoyed by her interruption or lamenting the fact that one as lowly as her had been the one to do so.
He moved towards her and Lemia scrambled to her feet. If only she didn't look so guilty... "It's not what it looks like!" she said. "I wasn't cry-"
But he only reached out and plucked the books from her arms, leaving the one in her hand, the one with the cover of the airship. Then he walked away, leaving Lemia to sag into the darkness, once again all alone.