Dominion

Shane Arbuthnott

Description

Molly grew up hearing the tales of Haviland Stout, her ancestor who discovered the dangerous magical spirits that inhabit the far corners of the world. Now, on the edge of the New World, in the British Dominion of Terra Nova, Molly and her family collect spirits aboard their airship, the Legerdemain.


But when Molly captures a spirit that can speak and claims to have been Haviland's friend, her entire life is upended. What if everything she knows about the spirits, and her own history, is a lie? In her hunt for the truth, Molly will have to challenge the most powerful company in Terra Nova and find the courage to reshape her world.

Sujets

• Juvenilee Fiction
• Magic
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Orca Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 21 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781459811195
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright 2017 Shane Arbuthnott
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Arbuthnott, Shane, author Dominion / Shane Arbuthnott.
Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-4598-1117-1 (hardback).- ISBN 978-1-4598-1118-8 (pdf).- ISBN 978-1-4598-1119-5 (epub)
I. Title.
PS 8601. R 363 D 64 2017 j C 813'.6 C 2016-904476-9
C 2016-904477-7
First published in the United States, 2017 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949035
Summary : In this fantasy novel for middle-grade readers, Molly works with her family, collecting spirits on an airship. When she captures a spirit that can speak, she begins to think that everything she has been taught may be a lie.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover illustration by Peter Ferguson Design by Rachel Page Author photo by Erin Elizabeth Hoos Photography
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS www.orcabook.com
This book is for my wife, Alexis. You keep my course true and my ship aloft.
CONTENTS
ACT ONE: AIRBORNE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
ACT TWO: GROUNDED
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
ACT THREE: SIC TRANSIT
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ONE
They had been chasing the font for days, and Molly knew the engine was getting tired. While the Legerdemain hurtled through the air, the engine s rivets groaned, and from the aft vents Molly could hear a low chuffing like a horse ridden too hard. Perched atop the mainmast, the huge engine began to tremble with exhaustion, and the entire ship shook with it.
Molly scurried up the mast until she hung just beneath the metal curvature of the engine. She ran her hands along its iron plates and rested her cheek against it. Not much farther, she whispered. You re doing well. We ve almost caught up.
What was that, Moll? a voice shouted up from below.
She pulled herself away from the engine, hoping no one had seen her whispering to it. But her father stared up at her from the deck, a dozen yards down. Nothing, Da! she said. The engine s struggling, is all!
He looked as tired as the engine, his hair and beard wind-mussed. Keep it running! he said. This one s given us good chase, but we ll catch it within the hour!
I know, Da. I mean, aye aye, Captain! she said and then clambered through the rigging to the back of the engine, to get away from his watchful eyes. Back here, with the vents straight above her, the engine s chuff, chuff, chuff almost blocked out the sound of the wind.
You heard him, she whispered into the noisy vents. Within the hour. This chase is almost done. She didn t think it would hear her, but the bone-shuddering tremors seemed to ease.
Kier! Drop starboard nets! her father s voice boomed.
Aye aye! another voice responded. Molly swung out to the right and looked down as her brother Kiernan scrambled across the ship s deck to the gunwale. He struggled momentarily with a knot, and then the nets were loosed-long wooden beams swiveling out from the hull, heavy cords trailing beneath them. The metal filaments in the nets glimmered in the bright sky, dark against the white clouds.
Molly turned her eyes forward and was caught by the view. They were racing through the upper atmosphere, nothing between them and the sun. The Legerdemain s pale wooden keel dug a deep trench in the clouds below. The sails on the fore and aft masts were furled for speed, letting the full force of the wind blow across the deck and across Molly where she hung from the engine. She smiled as the boisterous winds chafed her cheeks and sent her hair sailing out behind her. They were making incredible speed: tired or not, the Legerdemain was in fine form.
Up ahead, their quarry sparked and sizzled, disappearing and reappearing against the blue of the sky . The font . They had caught sight of it a week ago, an aetheric font of fair size sitting at the crossing of two wind currents. They had been drawing close when the font drifted upward into the high atmosphere and sailed away on a fast easterly wind. Now, three days later, they had almost caught up.
During the chase, the font had filled their nets with smaller spirits. Their hold was already near bursting. But the font was growing. Molly knew what that meant: something big was getting ready to come through. Catching the slower eighth- and ninth-level spirits was easy, but if they wanted to catch whatever was about to come through, they would need to be right alongside the font when it emerged. It would need to be in their nets before it even knew they were there.
The ship suddenly rocked, and the crew on the deck stumbled. Kiernan hung far over the gunwale, above open air, before catching himself.
Engineer! her father s voice roared.
Molly winced; he only called her by title when she d done something wrong. She felt the mast below her fingers shivering as the engine juddered atop it. I m on it! she cried.
She did a quick inventory. The plates and access hatches along the starboard side of the engine looked fine. On the fore everything was clear; the intake vents were wide, the engine drinking in air. On the port side she could see a few of the iron plates rattling; those would have to be patched to keep the engine s spirit from breaking free, but loose plates didn t explain the rocking. She swung to the aft.
There it was. One of the aft vents was jammed, slats half open. The air from the intakes would be backing up inside, choking the engine. She clambered up the rigging and took hold of one of the handles riveted to the engine s sides.
The engine shook fiercely, and she heard cries from below as the Legerdemain swung sideways, deck boards groaning. She looked down quickly to check that the mast still held strong to the deck; if it broke, the ship would plummet to the ground.
She reached the jammed vent and ran her fingers over it. One of the long slats had fractured, wedging another slat shut with a metal fragment. She pulled a screwdriver from her belt and heaved herself closer.
The effluent from the vent washed over her, warm, thick and oxygen rich. She took one deep breath of it, then bent to her task.
The wedged slat was beginning to bend now, the force of the air behind it buckling the metal. Molly levered it down with her screwdriver, pulling at the metal fragment with her arm awkwardly hooked through a handle. The air from the vents pushed against her. With a shove that nearly unbalanced her, Molly forced the slat down and yanked the fragment out. As soon as it was free, the vent flew open, blasting Molly with warm air and knocking the screwdriver from her hand. She watched it fall astern. It had a long way to fall before it hit the ground.
That was a good screwdriver , she thought. Probably can t afford to replace it with one as nice. With a curse she threw the piece of metal to join it.
The Legerdemain steadied out and began picking up speed. Molly took a moment to scan the deck. Things were chaotic but not panicked. No hands lost, then. To be sure, she did a roll call of the Stouts on board: her father-at the helm, correcting the Legerdemain s heading; her brother Kiernan-trying to untangle a net with one of the long fetch poles; her brother Rory-standing aft, a line wrapped around his hand for safety. For a moment she found herself looking for her sister, Brighid. She stopped as soon as she realized what she was doing.
With her adrenaline abating, her arms were beginning to ache. She climbed down to the engineer s loft-the round platform halfway up the mast-and sat down.
The broken vent had slowed the chase but not by too much. The font was still only a short way off their bow, and with the ship s course evening out, they were gaining again.
It was a lively one, no doubt about it. Some of the aetheric fonts barely glimmered, almost as invisible as the air that birthed them. This one sparked and spat like a ball of blue fire. The fonts fascinated her. She remembered the first catch she had really been part of, when she was six and working as a deckhand. That font had looked like a pulsing indigo orb tucked between their nets, surging with the colors of deep-blue evening and white burning sunlight. In its depths there had been a shadow, like an open doorway, and she remembered straining to see deeper inside, leaning over the gunwale until she almost lost her balance.
Fonts were capricious, dangerous. And she could stare at them for hours.
There was a large crackle from the font, and a loop of energy surged out from its surface to brush their bow. The ship rocked. Molly got to her feet. Oh no, she muttered. No, no She got a hold of the rigging. Da! she shouted. It s gonna-
But he had already seen. Hard to port! he shouted. Get those nets on it!
She saw him spin the wheel, and the tiller shifted. Sails were unfurled, catching the wind with a snap and turning them sharply. The font was growing in leaps now, swelling outward. In its center, she could see that telltale