They flew north for the remainder of the day, staying east of the Rock Spur until they reached the fringes of Drey Wood and Elven country and then turning a few degrees west toward the Sarandanon. By sunset, they reached the shores of the Innisbore and anchored for the night. By sunrise they were flying again, this time along the ragged edge of the Breakline. The weather was changing now, the skies darkening with storm clouds and the air turning damp and hot. The landscape was bleak and colorless beneath them, the last of the forests and grasslands disappearing. The winds had picked up, and a firm hand on the controls of the airship was more critical than ever. Mirai and Farshaun and now and again another of the Rovers who had come aboard with the old man took turns, each giving the others a chance to rest when weariness took hold. The Ard Rhys stayed close to the pilot box, scanning the terrain ahead, intense and troubled as she watched everything carefully.

Redden overheard snatches of discussion between Khyber and Farshaun regarding the whereabouts of the Speakman. He moved about and might be found in any of a dozen places, but he frequented certain of those places more often than others and Farshaun was playing the odds. The Ard Rhys would have preferred something more definite, but there was no help for it. With a nomad like the Speakman, you took your chances and hoped for the best.

Shortly after midday they reached the first of his shelters and after setting down and taking a close look around determined that he hadn’t been there in months.

They continued on, turning west into even less hospitable country, the terrain rocky and crisscrossed by chasms and deep gullies and riddled with strange smooth patches that Farshaun said were sinkholes.

“Step into one of those,” he told Redden when the boy asked about them, “you might as well be stepping into quicksand. Only you disappear a whole lot quicker. Poof! Gone in less than a minute. No one knows how far down you might sink. Maybe thousands of feet.”

In the late afternoon a squall caught up to them, and for thirty minutes it poured rain, the drops so large and icy they actually stung when they struck exposed skin. Everyone wrapped up in cloaks and hoods and hunkered down until the storm had passed. Afterward, they found ice balls on the decks, though within minutes they had melted away.