‘Down there,’ Pariqamtu shouted. ‘In the water. I see them.’

The Air Lord’s skyfort rose on its zharqasa flight engine as a flight of arrows soared from the huge vessel’s deck towards Gan’s skyship.

‘Jupiter and… ‘Pariqamtu let rip with another warbling cry as if a pack of cats fought a flock of magpies over a choice morsel. Maggie got a sense of a return of recognitions, then a response to a call for help. Maggie answered it herself.

‘Breeze, take over the kheel, but let us drop towards the water.’ Maggie slipped back to the tiller. ‘We have to get lower, and keep clear of the Air Lord.‘

She waggled the steering vanes back and forth. The outrigger flapped about from side to side but the Jupiter slid down towards the water. And almost where she had hoped, near the splashing figures. She tried to see who swam in the dark, but when The Jupiter hit the water the splash pulled her attention back into the sailboat. Water poured over Pariqamtu in the bow then The Jupiter steadied, dead in the water.

Arrows from the skyfort splatted into the harbor around them, and extinguished themselves with a sizzle. When she turned to look she could only see the back of someone’s head.

‘You’re going the wrong way. Over here,’ she cried out to them.

‘I am not going the wrong way.’

‘Jupiter,’ she waggled the steer vane and almost fell over as the rudders, now in the water, provided more resistance than she expected. The outrigger moved forward though as she pushed the rudders back and forth until they came close.

‘Sail over me why don’t you,’ yelled Jupiter.

‘That’s what I did.’

‘Too late.’ Jupiter spluttered. ‘Ow.’

Tamm pulled himself from the water onto the rear of the outrigger platform and reached down to drag Jupiter out.

Maggie threw herself at Jupiter and wrapped him in a hug, her face buried in his wet shoulder. ‘I thought… I thought…’

She could not get her words out. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she hugged him stronger almost afraid he would see them.

Jupiter pulled away, but Breeze jumped on his back and thumped a rapid beat upon it.

‘Breeze. Cool it dude,’ Jupiter said. ‘We just saw each other.’

‘I sensed you were in there,’ said Maggie wiping her face. ‘But couldn’t know for certain.’

‘How?’

Maggie looked away. ‘I don’t know. Just a feeling. But a really strong feeling. And I was right.’ Maggie turned to him and saw his grin. Anger flared in her chest then. ‘Don’t you do that again. She leaned forward and pushed him in the chest. ‘We’re meant to be getting home, and not fighting these… these…’

‘I know. But we can’t stay here.’ Jupiter said. ‘They’re still fighting. They’re firing arrows now.’

Above them the skyships had both spread their sails to the wind. Kitaraham rose faster, with fresher fully lit zharaqsa and a lighter mass than the skyfort. The rebels began to outpace the skyfort. Arrows fell around The Jupiter still.

Jupiter moved to the mast and lifted the boom into place.

‘Who the heck mucked around with the mast? It’s all wobbly.’

Pariqamtu and Maggie pointed at Breeze who bounced up and down.

‘Breeze? Good job dude!’

‘Hey? That’s not fair,’ said Maggie.

Jupiter ignored her, lay on the outrigger platform, pulled his spanner from around his neck, and worked on the forestay to tighten it and make all secure.

The skyfort’s arrows began to fall closer now as Kitaraham pulled away. A caterwauling cry rose up from the skyfort redirecting the archers to them.

‘They’re targeting us,’ Maggie said.

‘The Air Lord. He’s recognized us,’ Jupiter said. ‘Pari-pari. Pull the halyard when I say.’ Jupiter fed the sail into the mast track and the sail rose on Jupiter’s command.

‘I’m glad you’re back,’ said Maggie. ‘Still hadn’t worked out the next…’

‘Where’s the mainsheet?’ Jupiter said as an arrow struck the outer hull jolting the entire vessel.

Breeze pulled the mainsheet rope from the water.

‘Don’t use the mainsheet as a tow rope. Ever.’

Jupiter ran the mainsheet rope that controlled the sail through all the blocks and pulleys and tested the sail.

The wind had pushed The Jupiter well way from the docks now, and the arrows had further to fly. But the skyfort rose higher now. Its twin goals of The Jupiter and Kitaraham lay in the same direction.

Jupiter trimmed the sail to the wind direction and they eased out into the bay leaving the skyfort lumbering behind. Jupiter looked for the mantas but he saw no sign of them.

The skyfort’s sails took them downwind after Kitaraham. The darkening night gave The Jupiter the cover of darkness as he angled away across the wind.

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‘We’ve got to keep some distance from them.’

‘And yet, if we are to not get lost on the way south we need to follow The Way.

The vanukam’s Imperial skyships had long left their docks and now bore down upon the pylons of Qhawadha — The Way where the rebel’s other skyship, Karakatun, had worked to destroy The Way cable house. The rebels slid away on the wind before the Imperial Navy drew close. The Karakatun began to run across the wind out into the bay.

‘How? Karakatun is a square rigger,’ said Jupiter. ‘How can it sail across the wind like that?’

He saw it then. A long shape in the harbor under the skyship. It skittered and skated fast through the water below and a little behind the skyship.

‘So that’s how they control their direction. It’s like a kite sailboarder,’ Jupiter said. ‘The skyship is the kite, and that ship in the water… it holds the water like a keel and angles the skyship across the wind.’

‘I’ve no idea what you mean,’ said Maggie. ‘But I’m getting sea sick with all this bobbing about in the water.’

‘Breeze. Spin up the kheel. Lets get flying.’

The Jupiter bounced a few times, and then rose in the air. Jupiter angled the sail so they moved across the north wind. They headed in a south-westerly direction.

‘We need to follow Qhawadha — The Way, or we will get lost.’

‘Why don’t we fly with Kitaraham?’ said Maggie.

‘I don’t want to fly directly downwind,’ Jupiter said. ‘It looks like the easiest point of sailing, but it’s not. And when we fly so we reach the same speed at the wind, that’s as fast as we can go, just drifting like a feather. But if we sail across the wind, that’s when we start to really move. Even if it is like we’re flying off to the side of where we want to go. It’s still faster. We’ll tack over and work up close to them.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘It’s no wonder we couldn’t get this thing sailing. Too complicated.’

‘It’s not really. I’ll teach you. Meant to before.’

‘Good idea, then next time we won’t have to wait for you and your crazy adventures.’

‘Crazy? Maybe?’

‘Maybe?’ Maggie laughed. ‘Definitely.’

As the Jupiter flew across the bay the inky expanse stretched wide beneath them. Tamm pointed to brightly lit towers that rose in the distance beyond the town. A path of light twinkled on the harbour. ‘We should aim for Qhawadha — The Way.’

‘But with the Air Lord after us…?’ Maggie said. ‘Why are we going closer? Why don’t we follow Karakatun.’

’They do not fly south,’ said Pariqamtu. ‘If you wish to fly into the heart of the Empire. We must take The Way.’

’And the Air Lord’s skyship cannot follow us.’ Tamm said. ‘They can fly free and be blown directionless over the land when with the wind. Or they take The Way and be drawn along by cable or gharumal towing. But The Jupiter can always sail where we will. There is no danger.’

‘Sure. As long as we fly high enough, and far enough away to be of reach,’ Jupiter said. ‘But it is night. I don’t want to fly too long in the dark.’

‘Even in the moonlight?’ Tamm said. ‘It will rise soon.’

‘No. There is too much to crash into.’

‘And we’re tired,’ said Maggie. ‘Is there somewhere we can set down for the night?’

They landed close to a beach on the far side of the bay and pulled up onto shore. Jupiter and Maggie huddled and leant back against the hull wrapped in their jackets cloth cloaks, while the two manisaurs took turns to keep watch through the night.

They woke before first light the next day. But the morning held no joy. They had no food. Their visit to the markets of Qhayuvakham for food had been pointless. They had lost everything in events of the day before.

Had it only been yesterday?

Only the day before Jupiter had been a prisoner about to be hunted. In that time he had lost Zaj, but saved the mantas. And had stoked frustration with Maggie.

At least now we are heading south and know where we have to go.

He wished for zhavaqiko to drink but that would have to wait.

I could really do with something warm around about now.

‘So The Way is a cable way?’ Jupiter stared at the towers.

At dawn, as the moon set, the lights of the pylons winked off across the water. Beyond, further towers stretched towards the horizon. The coming day blushed the sky. They would have to get going soon.

And there’s no point waiting around here.

‘Qhawadha is the route the cable way first takes in the north,’ said Tamm. ‘The cable runs from one tower to the next. Originally built in ages past to service watch tower sentinels along the high point in the north of Qhayuhanpathi - the long land. But now it serves as The Way for hauling skyships across the land.’

‘So Qhayanpa, how big is it?’ Maggie said.

Tamm’s next words meant nothing to Jupiter. He had no context for the dimensions.

‘Big then?’

‘Oh yes. Big. It would take four moons to walk by gharumal south from here. And the land in the far south is cold. Snow lies on the land for nine months of the year.’

‘I get it, it’s long,’ Jupiter said. ’But how wide is it?’

‘Qhayuhanpathi has many arms,’ said Pariqamtu. ‘From one side to the other is twice the length.’

‘So it’s big and wide?’

‘Qhayuhanpathi. As the name is long.’ Tamm intoned this as if from a line in a poem. Jupiter reckoned it probably was.

They saw smaller skycutters towed along the cable. They bobbed over the hills and peaks like skiers on a rope tow. Jupiter understood then how the skyships, when they could not sail on the wind by choosing the height with the right jet stream, could reliably move along Qhawadha and service this rugged landscape. Made a lot more sense than cutting roads through the forest.

Of the Air Lord and the rebels skyships he saw no sign.

From what Tamm told them as they set sail, Jupiter learned the land of Qhayuhanpathi or Qhayanpa extended as big as a continent. He had thought how some of it reminded him of Aotearoa New Zealand. But New Zealand was a couple of small islands, the size of Japan or Great Britain. Qhayanpa though sounded bigger than Australia. More like part of, or most of, South America.

That makes sense. Qhayanpa probably is South America. But how do all the islands in the north fit in with that. No North America?

In the middle latitudes a long peninsula stretched far away to the east, something like Europe did from Eurasia. But without a warm sea, like the Mediterranean, the cooler and wetter made it more like the climate Jupiter had grown up in.

Living in the middle of the ocean does that. Not too hot, or too cold.

He had seen some of the wet forested north with its many coastal communities fishing the rich waters. And the archipelagos of islands fringed by coral reefs, like Zenska and Black Spire.

At the base of the great eastern peninsula lay the heart of the Empire. A confluence of land, sea, river, and wealth.

They flew into that heart now. Always The Way lay on their left, the port side of The Jupiter. But they never approached close all that day.

Jupiter kept a keen eye for any warships amongst the vessels drawn along The Way.

The Air Lord’s skyfort would be obvious. We’ll come together again. But not too soon I hope.

If Zaj had been turned, she knew exactly where they intended to fly to. They had spoken of it.

How long would the Air Lord hold a grudge though?

I guess we’ll find out.