At the aft, the wheelhouse of the barge was unsurprisingly empty. Small windows gave them a view inside. In contrast to the rest of the barge, the wheelhouse was simple wood and brass of straight lines and little polish. It looked crisp and unused, with no charts or navigational instruments in sight. The steering wheel of pale wood was the only thing of note inside. There was no door into the wheelhouse.

“There’s no door!” Brunhilde cried.

“Why would there be? Nobody wants a drunken idiot forcing their way in.” Hope placed her hand on the smooth wood, where there should be a door. She pushed with her hand and her magic. Light splintered from her palms and the outline of a door thrummed into view. The wood became transparent and then disappeared.

She stepped in and grasped the wheel. It resisted her attempts to turn it. She forced her whole weight against it, but nothing. She probed with her magical sight. Fiery shapes fed into the wheel like spokes. It was the centre of power of the barge, but something about it made it rebel at her touch.

Brunhilde watched her from the doorway. Hope swore and yanked but they remained moored in Valentia.

“How do I make this boat do what I want?” Hope asked.

“I can crew a galley or sail ship. This is magic, I don’t have any experience with that.”

“Come and try,” Hope said.

Brunhilde ducked into the wheelhouse and studied the helm without touching anything. The only hint of anything unusual was the smell of magic in the air, a biting scent that made her furs feel uncomfortable on her.

“I don’t want to captain this thing,” Brunhilde said.

“Give it a try. All your boasting about how many sights your family has spied on the waves. And you can’t take control of a pleasure barge?”

“A magical pleasure barge.” She held her hand over the wheel, not wanting to touch it. There was something in the wood. Despite the lack of crew and doorway into the wheelhouse, she could tell it wanted to be guided. The wheel that was like a rock under Hope’s aggression seemed inviting to Brunhilde, as if the craft sensed her naval skills.

Hope leaned in and pushed Brunhilde’s hand down onto the wheel. She closed her grip over a spoke, and the wheel turned. It was warm under her hand, with a familiar feel. Outside the gangplank retreated and the barge slowly turned away from the pier.

“We have no sail, or oars, how do we move forward?” Brunhilde muttered.

As the barge turned the piers and ships of Valentia retreated into mist. Despite the craft’s pliable response to her, Brunhilde felt a thrill of uncertainty. Could she trust this enchanted thing to follow her wishes?

“Take us back, to the first meeting of the sky city and Valentia, I want to see it,” Hope said.

“How?” Brunhilde said. She scowled and moved to let go of the wheel.

Hope pushed in and kept Brunhilde’s hands fixed on it. There was a flash as she loaned her magical sight to Brunhilde, and then the sight of barge and river descended into darkness before her view. What Brunhilde saw next was a sight that she could never fully remember after, but one that haunted the edges of her dreams until her last days.

In the lands of the North the old tales spoke of the giants that made the earth and heavens. They pulled their fingers through the earth to make valleys, where they pinched the rock, they pulled up mountains. Brunhilde felt like one of those giants, looking down on the map of creation. She stood amongst clouds of stars floated in a slick blackness. Ripples of black light span around some. Intricate pathways linked the stars like gossamer web.

“What do you see?” Hope’s voice sounded from a faraway time and space.

“Everything,” Brunhilde said. She fought to understand it all. There was nothing familiar in this sight for her to latch onto. An insect lifted onto the back of an eagle would feel the same, staring down at the distant earth. “I’m lost,” she said.

A star flickered in the chaos. She felt a pang of familiarity, staring at it. In the way it shone white and faint blue, she saw Valentia. The wheel turned under her guidance, and the stars span and rotated. She fought against vertigo as the immensity of creation turned before her. But in the centre stayed that familiar point, Valentia. She felt the barge move.

Standing behind Brunhilde, Hope saw the river change around them. Large fish splashed in the water, riverbanks receded and closed in. The waters heaved like rapids and became like glass in the next moment. But the barge moved forwards through it all with a steady pace.

There was a slight jolt, and out of the mist, Valentia appeared. Similar in size and appearance, but different in energy. The pier was the same, but the harbour was quieter than last time.

Brunhilde pulled her hands off the wheel and tumbled backwards, pinning Hope to the floor.

“Get off you furry ox!” Hope cried.

Brunhilde rolled off her and groaned. “That was a cruel task you gave me. Let this little boat guide itself from now. I can’t bear another sight of all that,” she said.

“You won’t have to if you guided us well,” Hope said.

They made their way down the pier, into a Valentia that was disturbingly quiet. The clouds above were pink with sunset, and though their rosy hue gave the docks and market and even more luxurious feel, there was less life and vitality on show. Despite the presence of large trading ships there were less workers unloading cargo, and no eager shoppers struggling to obtain the best deals by rifling through cargo as it came off the ships. The marketplace was busy, but not filled with the life and sounds it held before.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

A messenger boy was leaning against some crates, cleaning his fingernails.

Hope grabbed him by the shoulder. “What year is this?” she asked.

“The eighteenth year of the elephant,” he said.

“Is that before or after the second year of the swan?”

“The years of the swan? They were centuries ago! Are you looking for magics from then? I can show you a dealer of ancient powers.”

Hope let go of him and glared at Brunhilde. “I wanted to go back, not forward.”

“Go back, to where- to when? My head hurts.” Brunhilde rubbed her temples. The vision of stars still burned in the dark when she closed her eyes. “I told you I have no skill with magic.”

“You use your runes all the time,”

“Runes are not magic. Runes are the language of the earth. Magic is from the heavens,” Brunhilde groaned.

“You seek runic magics. I know a friend who sells runic jars, very powerful items for storing spirits,” the messenger boy chipped in.

“Shush. Let’s go back. Take the opposite way that brought us here. That should take us back to earlier Valentia.”

“Please, no. My brain still burns with arcane thoughts. Let me rest at least.” Brunhilde leaned against the crates.

Hope had never seen her this pale or discomfited. She searched for comforting words, but a Princess rarely encourages a barbarian.

“Rest then,” Hope said.

“Do you want a restorative? I know a trader who can provide you with stews and herbal infusions to dispel any pox,” the boy said.

“Take us there, then,” Hope said.

“I have work to do here, perhaps a couple of coins to hire my services?” he said with a grin.

Hope grabbed his shirt and slammed him into the crates. “Take us there out of generosity and compassion for my friend here. You’re a phantom who has no use for coin, but perhaps a dream of stew might help soothe.”

Under the sudden viciousness of her gaze the boy led them to a vendor. Where Brunhilde sat down and devoured great mouthfuls of stew. As she ate, Hope surveyed the marketplace and distant city. The palace was still there, looming into the sky. And the market was filled with rich things from varied lands. But the sunset shade of the sky lingered unchanged as she waited for Brunhilde to recover.

“When will the sky city visit?” Hope asked.

“Ah yes the sky cities. They were a magnificent sight,” the merchant said. He smiled and ladled more soup into Brunhilde’s bowl.

“They don’t visit anymore?”

“No. We taught them all our secrets, and so they went back up into the skies.”

“You. Taught them?” Hope said. She fixed the man with a glare.

He sat back in his canvas chair and patted his belly. The chair creaked under his weight. “Yes. Valentia is a city of great learning. We gathered all the many secrets of the world, and traded them to the sky cities. Once we had provided them with all the world’s secrets, they arose back into the sky, and became the stars. You can see them when night comes,” he said.

“There is nothing on this earth that the sky cities need to learn,” Hope said.

“Not any more, we lavished them with the fulsomeness of our knowledge.” He spread his arms wide to indicate the city. He sank back down into his chair with a satisfied grin.

Hope saw that she would easier heft him above her head than shift his smug ignorance. “Let’s leave these oafs,” Hope said. She pulled at Brunhilde.

The barbarian stretched and pushed her bowl away. Dream or no the food had restored a semblance of good-feeling to her. She had no wish to board the craft any time soon though.

“Let’s enjoy this market for a while,” she said.

At that moment a dark rumble sounded from the sky. Light flashed briefly and a sound like mountains being torn apart echoed from above. Hope and Brunhilde threw their hands over their ears and crouched instinctively. The merchant cupped his ears briefly and then went back to stirring his wares as the sound died away.

“What is that?” Brunhilde asked.

“The sky cities’ salute. They send those sounds down to thank us for our generosity throughout the years,” the merchant said.

“Sounded more terrifying than thankful,” Brunhilde said.

“Ah, one of the doomsayers. Some just can’t enjoy the beauty of the skies,” the merchant said.

The clouds above convulsed like the wake of a great whale moving through water was passing through them.

“The sky is dying,” Hope said quietly. She was staring up at the clouds, using that sight that let her see arcane things.

Brunhilde felt a touch of the spear of memory. In her homelands her aunts and uncles that had fought in great battles all spoke of a specific moment. A strange moment before a battle where one noticed the feel of the binding on one’s shield, or the shape of a nick at the end of a sword. A trivial detail thrown into sudden focus by the realisation that one was about to enter a great tale. Personal stories of great triumph or defeat in her tribe always had that touch of the spear of memory at their beginning.

When her father talked of how he met her mother, it was the smell of herring cooking, mixed in with smoky timbers that started the tale. This spear-point piercing Brunhilde’s mind was the sight of Hope’s jawline in profile as she stared up at the burning sky. Dark-skinned and cloaked in a rainbow, the princess was a singular sight even amongst the garish fashions of the marketplace. She looked lost, like a Princess without a palace, but also resolute in the face of whatever forbidden knowledge she stared at. They both carried strange destinies that had thrown them far from home.

“Have we been friends?” Brunhilde asked. She felt distant from the marketplace, as if she were on the barge and slipping away into the mist of the river.

“We need to get out of here,” Hope said without looking back.

“I think we’ve been friends before,” Brunhilde said. Their travels in time had confused her. She wasn’t sure how long they had been travelling together.

Hope span and grabbed her companion. “We have to get out of here. This is the Age of Rain. There is a war going on in the heavens and now, or tomorrow, or next century the heavens will burn and destroy Valentia, and every other city on the face of the earth.”

“This is just a dream, though.”

“You have no idea what was unleashed back then. The past is like a shipwreck, far out to sea. What we see now are the waves of that shipwreck reaching our shore. If the shipwreck is large enough the waves will drown us, no matter that we aren’t on the ship.”

“What about the people here?”

“They’re gone already. Long gone. We have to get out of here now. Come,” Hope said.

Brunhilde grabbed a tent-pole of the stall and hefted herself up. She balanced herself on the edge of the two adjacent stalls and shouted out to the crowd.

“Valentia! Your skies are burning, don’t ignore the signs above you. Seek shelter! Find caves in the hillsides to rest in. Stock up your food and prepare for great ruin to fall upon you. There is a great calamity coming!” She continued to shout her pleas and the marketplace stopped to listen to her.

At first there was laughter and many ignored her. But she refused to stop, even as Hope pulled at her boots to get her down, and the mood of the crowd changed. They shouted back, cursing her persistence. A flagon was thrown at her, soon exotic fruits and broken pottery followed.

“Only the brave will be remembered. Die in ignorance then!” Brunhilde roared at them. She ducked down into the streets.

“Happy now? That was a complete waste of energy,” Hope scolded her.

“I do feel better. Never let hopelessness stop you from following your truth.”

The two jogged back to their ship as the marketplace booed and jeered at them.

Brunhilde threw herself into the cabin and onto a pile of cushions. She roared with laughter, her face flushed red.

“Have you finished riling up the shades of the past?” Hope said.

“I tried. Who knows, perhaps my warning can save some of them?” Brunhilde said.

“You don’t understand anything about how this works.”

“No, I don’t. I prefer it that way. Too many magical ideas in your head makes you slow.” She moved to the bar and a flagon slid into her hands. Mead poured through the air into it.

“You have to get us out of here,” Hope said.

“Let the ship move itself, I’m done with leading it about.” She sipped her drink and chuckled to herself.

“If you can do it, then I must be able too.” Hope stamped out of the cabin and headed for the wheelhouse.