"What do you mean 'I'm fine'?" demanded Dyne, storming back into Lemia's parlor.
She glanced at him. If he expected guilt, he did not find any there. Relentless, he drove on.
"The one driving that airship is your-"
"Vane's guildmistress!" She clenched her hands and stubbornly turned her back on him.
"Drop the act!"
"This is my job!"
"You've been telling yourself nothing but lies."
Lemia's eyes lowered, and she looked at the small table on which she had left the story of the airship. His words hurt and her lips quivered in reply, but she could not cry. Too many people depended on her. Everyone needed her and no matter what happened she had to do her best.
"Every time you tell a lie, you push others away," said Dyne. He gritted his teeth. "Burying your true feelings will eat you up inside. And you've kept on lying to yourself! The weight of the lives of those thirty-eight people on the airship is too heavy a burden for you to bear alone! At least not as the 'guildmistress's deputy'--not all the time as the 'guildmistress's deputy'! You should go back to being the 'guildmistress's daughter'! At least then you'd-"
Lemia's shoulders hunched over, shaking. "Stop it!" she screamed. She fought back tears and said, "I'm not like you. I do not have the strength to be able to allow my weakness to show." How could this man possibly understand? She buried her face in her hands. "This... this's the only way... keeping up appearances..."
"Give it a rest!" said Dyne.
She brought her arms down to her sides, fists clenched tight. "I'm all right! I have to think I'm all right! I can't be anything else but all right! Otherwise, I'd... I'd be an ordinary girl!" As the words tumbled out she clasped her hands before her chest and felt her loneliness encompass her like ice. She had to stay strong though. For everyone who had supported her, so that they could have the encouragement they needed. If they saw her calm and in control, then they would take that feeling to heart and use it to inspire themselves.
"What's keeping you from that?" asked Dyne, calmer now.
Lemia placed a hand against the window of her parlor and looked out at the slumbering city of Vane. Still, the lamps of some homes remained burning. "The thought of all those little lights that should be protected. And that sadness is a leader's alone to bear."
She whirled suddenly to face him, the distraught all too clearly etched on her face. "I am the guildmistress's deputy!"
Outside, a signal flare exploded. One of the magicians had sent it. It was time. "That's the signal," she said. It would not be long before dawn. Dyne spun on his heel and jogged back to the ruins.
He found Ghaleon beside a pillar, part of the arcane device that essentially was this entire chamber in the ruins. His friend had a clipboard in hand with the schematics pinned on top as he inspected the machine. Ghaleon looked at his friend in mild surprise. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing," Dyne fumed.
Then the doors to the chamber parted and Lemia stepped inside, her boots echoing painfully clear against the worn stone floor. She seemed so small and lost beneath the vaulted ceilings that rose at three times her height. This was not her place, these ruins of the one great magic race of Vane. Ghaleon regarded her stiffly, looking very much the essence of formality in his stark white shirt and dark pants from where he rested his hand on the control pillar. Dyne simply shoved his hands in his pockets and threw a "Good to see you," in Lemia's direction.
She glanced at Dyne, then stepped onto the ornate disk raised from the center of the chamber's floor. It was a worn old thing, set within a flower shaped depression, but it flared with life at the proximity of her. She placed both feet squarely on the shining reflective surface, but not without a look of trepidation. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her body felt slick and clammy.
Through the window of the chamber, the light of another flare could be seen. A brilliant glow surrounded the position of the airship in the canyon.
Ghaleon turned to Lemia. "Understand the amplified spell will not be controllable if the machine operates at more than ninety percent capacity."
She nodded. "Please. Begin."
He picked up one of several octagonal blocks and placed it meticulously into the topmost of five open slots carved into the stone of the control pillar. It fit neatly inside, sliding into place with a click. Across from him, Dyne carefully turned the dial on another set of controls. Uncertainty marked his face.
The intensity of the light beneath Lemia doubled, the magical energy surging around her. It whipped about her, pulling her curled hair far above her head. At first it startled her, but then she grasped her wand in her left hand and closed her eyes in concentration. My head is spinning...
Ghaleon picked up a second of the blocks and pushed it into another of the slots, this time into one of the bottom row of three.
The magic took form, spinning in a vortex before Lemia's outstretched hands. She grasped her wand in both hands at either end and opened her eyes in surprise. The power pulled, demanding release.
"Fire when ready!" shouted Ghaleon.
Lemia reached deep inside her herself, feeling for all the rage, all the fear, all the pain. She gathered it up in one blow and felt herself rising into a scream. "Come lightning!" she cried, and the magic burst with such force it shoved her back and would have thrown her clear of the disc had the magic amplifier not protected her from such a thing.
Thunder and lightning tore from her wand, growing with power and intensity as they exploded from the ruins and shot free of the serenity of Vane. They outshone the brilliance of the early morning sun and swallowed the tip of the floating city in their light. Still they grew. The magic slammed into the box canyon, rending the rocky walls to gravel and crackling with fury around the sphere of defense that rose around the airship. The storm howled.
Lemia shifted the position of the wand in her hands, bringing it vertical as she fought to pull air in her lungs. Beside Ghaleon, the pillar smoked with the light emitted by five octagonal blocks placed within five holes. Their energy flowed forth to Lemia, crackling with a life all their own.
"Come wind!" she called, and the gale whirled forth from her wand.
It whipped away from Vane and sucked away the storm in the fervor of a cyclone. The wind caught the ship within its gusty touch and hurled it from the confines of the canyon. The ship sailed freed, bright within its glowing globe of light; unharmed.
"It's out!" shouted Dyne.
Lemia smiled, mouth still open, as only a weary person can. She pulled the wand close to her chest, knowing that if she allowed herself to relax that she could fall completely to the floor.
The dim forms of people sitting on the rooftops came into view with the dawning of the sun, and they cheered, hailing the return of the airship. Down in the mansion, the aides, one of them even with a spyglass in hand, laughed with joy at the sight that greeted their eyes.
"There's hardly any exterior damage!" said one.
Another folded his arms across his chest with a deep chuckle. "I guess it's not ready for the museum after all!"
"It's a weird-looking ship, but, it doesn't look cold," said Dyne with a smile. "It looks rather gentle, in fact."
Behind him, Ghaleon's eyes widened in surprise.
"Of course!" said Lemia. "It's Vane's 'Great Inheritance', the symbol of Vane's history and heritage!"
Ghaleon watched the ship make its way towards the city. Small rocks still bounced and fell from the ship's protective bubble. There shouldn't be so much of it now, but then that had been a good deal of magic that had shattered the canyon. His eyes followed the ship from the top of its sails, down to the passenger cabin, then the prow. The debris rattled, then fell with alarming speed. The barrier was gone. It took him only a moment to register the thought, but even that was too long.
The lamps. All the petals were dark and only the single center lamp remained bright! "The ship's energy!"
He was not the only one who had noticed. The voices of Lemia's aides echoed in the chill morning air, carrying all the way to his place in the ruins.
"The last lamp is going out!" they cried. "Hold out! Hold out!"
The ship loomed high in the air, its single bright eye in full view for all to see, and even that was failing. The cringing magicians below could see the light fade even as they watched. One of the aides fell to her knees, hands clasped together in desperate hope.
"At least until they touch ground... The ship can't..."
Lemia watched the ship approach impassively, as though she could not believe what her eyes beheld.
"The ship!" said Dyne, clamping a hand on the shoulder of his dazed friend. He slammed Ghaleon against the pillar and shouted, "Do something! You're powerful enough!"
Anger and agony burned from Dyne in a way one rarely saw, but Ghaleon gave his friend a look of pure aggravation. There was nothing he could do. "Magic is not omnipotent! The machine has limitations. If the machine does not respond to the controls, whatever spells that are fed into it will run amok. That ancient ship cannot..."
"You can't let that ship crash! Is that what you want to happen?"
Lemia watched, wide-eyed as the ship neared the edge of the floating rock. It was so close, but not nearly close enough! "The lamp..." she said. And the eye went dark. "It's gone out!"
The ship fought, striving against the natural laws to stay adrift, but it could not stop the plummet. Lemia screamed, burying her face in her hands. "No! Mother!"
"Do something!" said Dyne, face now raw with panic. "I'm begging you!"
Ghaleon's eyes flashed with understanding. "That's it!" He grabbed Dyne by the sleeve, reversing the flow of adrenalin between them. "Answer me this! What do you want right now?"
Lemia looked at them over her shoulder. Her face was pale and streaked with tears. Beneath her, the energy of the magic amplification device still hummed with power.
"Hope for it!" said Ghaleon. "Pray for it!"
He slammed the back of his fist into a crystal block of the pillar so hard the stone shattered. A feral look took hold of him, his slit eyes raging bright and teeth bared like fangs. The ship...
Lemia brought her clasped hands to her face. Mother...
Dyne squeezed his eyes shut as he bent down his head. This girl...
Ghaleon raised his right arm high, light shining from the palm of his outstretched hand. "Goddess Althena!" he called.
Light burst from the disk beneath Lemia, from the stone beneath Dyne's feet. It was so bright it engulfed them. Though Dyne raised a hand to shield his eyes, the light did not hurt enough to blind. The room dissolved to light, leaving only the three figures suspended within; Dyne with hands clamped about head, Lemia struggling to remain standing, and Ghaleon with both hands pressed together as the focus.
The light spread, swallowing the ruins, washing over the city, engulfing all of Vane and the land beyond. It brought the ship into its embrace and then there was nothing but soft white light.
Lemia woke, still on the disc of the magic amplification device. Near far from her a spilled cage had rolled over and its door unhinged. A white dove hopped out and twittered its cause. "The ship..." she gasped, rising to her knees.
Not far from her, Ghaleon sat up from his own position on the floor. He kept his head down, hand pressed against his forehead as he groaned. "What about the ship?"
Lemia crawled to the chamber's balcony and hauled herself up to the elbows on the railing. She sent the dove flying overhead. The bird swooped over Vane, then dove to the ground where the ship rested, the front of the sails smashed face first into the earth.
A hand reached up from the shadows and the bird alighted on the bandaged finger of a lovely blond woman in her middle age; the guildmistress.
Lemia cried for joy. Still unable to stand, she buried her face in her arms, sobbing with relief. Dyne came beside her, planted his hands firmly on the railing, and tousled her hair. "You did great," he said. "Just great." And a moment later, Ghaleon joined them.