“Aria showed me. It’s a ruin on a lake about a day’s walk from here.”

They rejoined Similce at the staging area. She’d gotten all the aeronauts rounded up, but they all looked as spooked as Isabelle felt.

Similce saluted. “The supply unit is ready.”

Isabelle returned her salute and addressed the crowd. “My brave aeronauts, I have reason to believe that ripple in the world that we all just experienced came from the Vault of Ages. I further believe that we shall experience more of these disruptions. I know you are afraid, and it might seem sensible to get as far away from this place as possible, but there is nowhere to run. If I am right, that strange skip in the world was felt all the way to the Craton Massif and beyond. Hasdrubal, who betrayed you, has managed to find and penetrate the Vault and it is his intention to use the tools of the Builder to rend the world from its moorings and cast it into the abyss. Our only hope is to find him and stop him. So gird your souls in courage, and let that which you love be the beacon that pulls you on, for we are all that stands between the Builder and oblivion.”

Isabelle was no great orator, but the aeronauts believed her. They tightened the straps on their packs and bent their shoulders into gale-force winds of fear.

Isabelle looked to Jean-Claude and frowned. “The vanguard group is going to have to move quickly.” Jean-Claude, battered and bruised, looked like he could hardly stand.

“It’s the end of the world,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be late for it.”

“Neither would I,” Bitterlich said, emerging from behind a clutch of porters. His manner was easy, but his gait was stiff. He stopped and saluted. “Reporting for duty.”

Isabelle shook her head. She could order them to stay. They might even obey her. It would even be the right thing to do if she thought their presence might diminish the chances of them stopping Hasdrubal.

The world shuddered again, and this time she found herself in a vast hot desert, with nothing but sand dunes and rocky upcrops in all directions. Her aeronauts variously yelped, milled about, or froze in confusion. Something that might have been a scorpion if it wasn’t the size of a carthorse spun in surprise at their sudden appearance. Its tail lashed. She threw on her cappotto.

The world as it had been returned as if that other realm had never happened, except for the sand on her boots. Breathing heavily she looked at her men, and her aeronauts. “We’d best get a move on.”

She set off at a brisk but human pace, pulled out her timepiece, and started the tracking hand. Was there a pattern to these disruptions?