Aenir by Garth Nix, Steve Rawlings Page B

four rivers had to go somewhere. But the mountain was sitting where a lake should be.
    Tal looked away and blinked and then looked back. But everything was still there. A huge mass of gray stone in the middle of a vast channel system that couldn't possibly work.
    That's Aenir,
    Tal told himself.
    Aeniran Magic.
    "Odris!" Adras exclaimed. He started to point, but remembered that he was cradling Tal and stopped.
    Tal looked down. There was a ship below them, moving quite quickly along one of the larger channels. It sparkled in the morning sun, and Tal's trained eye picked up the glint of Sunstones. Many Sunstones.
    He could see a dot on the deck that he presumed was Milla, and Odris was quite clearly the cloud that was twined about the mast. There was something else moving on deck, too, something small. Tal couldn't see what it was at that distance.
    Adras started to descend. Tal closed his eyes and tried to think of what he was going to say to Milla. Would it help if he apologized? Did Icecarls apologize? Or would she just think less of him?
    Should he try and stun her with a Blue Slap before she could do anything to him?
    He wasn't afraid exactly. He just felt terrible. No matter how he tried, he simply couldn't think of Milla as someone whose life didn't matter.
    Then he felt a bump as if they'd hit something solid, and he opened his eyes. They hadn't hit anything, but Adras was suddenly climbing, very quickly.
    "Adras!" Tal shouted in sudden panic. "What are you doing? We're supposed to be going down!"
    "Updraft!" Adras boomed. "A hot air current, too strong for me to fly against. I am only a cloud."
    "What!" Tal screamed. Desperately he tried to think of something he could do. They were rising so rapidly that he was beginning to feel faint. They must already be thousands of stretches up, as high as the Seven Towers back on the Dark World. Far too high to build a Stairway of Light.
    "How do we get down?" he shouted.
    "When the air cools, we will fall," Adras roared. "Have patience!"
    "But I can't breathe!" gasped Tal.
    Adras was silent. Tal had already noticed that his Storm Shepherd companion had trouble when he had to think new thoughts or consider how other beings lived.
    Cool air, he thought. Somehow he had to make the air cooler. But how? He could make it hotter with his Sunstone, but not cooler.
    Then it came to him.
    "Adras!" he shouted. The shout took most of his breath, and the next words came out as little more than a whisper. "Rain! Rain will make it cooler!"
    "What?" "Rain!"
    "Ah! Rain!" bellowed Adras. He swung his arms forward, so quickly Tal thought he was about to be thrown off into space. But he was only shifting him out of the way. The rest of his cloud-body roiled and rippled, spreading out into a broad circular shape and becoming even puffier.
    The cloud grew blacker. Tal rolled onto his side so he could see. He could already smell the fresh scent of rain, and the temperature dropped several degrees.
    It got colder still and there was a hideous grinding noise inside the Storm Shepherd. Tal saw flecks of white appearing in the darkness of the cloud. Then large chunks of ice started to fall.
    Very large chunks of ice. In fact, gigantic hailstones the size of Tal's head. Some were thrown out at a sharp angle, narrowly missing the boy as he twisted and turned in the Storm Shepherd's arms.
    With the hailstones, the temperature dropped to freezing. Slowly at first, the Storm Shepherd began to fall.
    "I said rain!" shouted Tal as they fell faster and faster. "Milla's down there somewhere, you idiot! She could get killed by a hailstone!"
    Then the cold really took effect, and cloud and boy dropped as fast as the hailstones.
    "S000000000rrrrrrrryyyyyy!" boomed Adras.
    "Slow down!" shrieked Tal. But his voice was lost in the rush of their descent. He was shivering uncontrollably now, the chill of the wind making the icy temperature even lower. He felt as cold as he ever had out on the Ice.
    But now he had a