As the day progressed, Cole tried to enjoy the scenery. At least the land had grown more interesting, with ridges, hills, and ravines. Grasses and brush grew everywhere, along with numerous bushes and occasional stands of tall trees. He saw rabbits and squirrels, and occasionally glimpsed deer or foxes.

Cole kept an eye on the sun as it began to sink. Durny had made a point throughout the day of hurrying the mules along, not wanting to end up near the Brink after dark. The sun was less than an hour away from setting when Durny dropped back to ride beside Cole.

“Come with me, slave,” he said. “Let Ed and Vidal tend the mules for a spell.”

Durny dismounted and Cole did likewise. Durny motioned for him to follow, then led him onto a trail and up a rise. Up ahead the trail came to a sudden end at what was clearly a precipice.

Durny nudged Cole’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “You claimed not to mind edges. Why not give that one a try?”

Cole crept to where the ground stopped, and then he leaned forward to look down the cliff.

And down.

And down.

He had never seen anything like it.

He wasn’t looking down at the ground in the distance. He was looking down at sky that darkened toward purple the farther he peered.

Durny came up beside him. “Welcome to the Brink.”

“Permission to speak?”

“Granted.”

“Where’s the bottom?”

Durny shrugged. “Far as anyone can tell, there is no bottom. Expeditions have explored by climbing and flying. No one who ever returned has seen where the cliff bottoms out. It seems to go down beyond infinity.”

“It’s like the end of the world,” Cole said, staring out at the emptiness.

“Exactly.”

Cole glanced at Durny. “The world can’t just end.”

“This one does. At least in this direction. The Brink doesn’t go all the way around the Outskirts, at least as far as we’ve been able to determine.” He waved a hand to the right. “Go far enough in that direction and you’ll reach the Eastern Cloudwall. Can’t go over it, can’t slide under it, can’t dodge around it. Of those who have tried to go through it, none have returned. Same story with the Western Cloudwall, if you follow the Brink in the other direction. What lies behind or within the cloudwalls none can tell, for they cannot be breached by land or air. Notice anything else out there? Look closely.”

Scanning outward from the Brink, all Cole saw were sky and some clouds, the same view he got if he looked up. Wait, on one of the smaller clouds, in the distance, he observed the distinct shape of a castle with several towers.

“That cloud looks just like a castle,” he said, pointing.

“That is a castle,” Durny replied.

“It can’t be,” Cole said. “It’s floating.”

“Once again, welcome to the Brink.”

Cole gave Durny a suspicious stare. “You have to be kidding. This place might be weird, but not that weird.”

Durny reached inside his coat and removed a collapsible brass spyglass. Extending it, he raised it to one eye and focused it before passing it to Cole.

Since the spyglass was powerful, it took Cole a frustrating moment to line it up with the castle. Sure enough, the structure appeared to be made of stone, inexplicably resting on a wisp of cloud with nothing but blue sky all around. It had battlements, banners, towers, windows—even a visible drawbridge.

Cole lowered the spyglass. “How is it possible?”

“Specifically, I have no answer,” Durny said. “Generally, we’re in Sambria. This part of the Outskirts is the most susceptible to deliberate physical tampering. Some things I have seen shaped here make me wonder whether anything is impossible.”

“I’ve heard about shaping,” Cole said. “What is it? Like magic?”

Durny harrumphed. “Any phenomenon we don’t understand seems like magic. To a primitive culture, fire might seem like magic. This spyglass certainly would.”

“Shaping is science?”

“Not exactly. It’s . . . the ability to rearrange things and to imbue them with new qualities. Some people have a knack for it. I have a share of the talent myself. No matter how much talent you have, it’s easier to shape material here in Sambria.”

Cole gazed out across the gulf of sky. “Somebody shaped that castle?”

“Nobody knows who shapes the castles,” Durny said thoughtfully. “They appear out of the Westtern Cloudwall and drift across into the Eastern Cloudwall. Today is a quiet day. You can often see a dozen or more from a single spot. While the castles migrate from one cloudwall to the other, we salvage what we can.”

“Wait,” Cole said in disbelief. “The Sky Raiders raid the castles?”

“You’re catching on,” Durny approved. “And you’ll be helping us.”

“How do you get to them? Planes? Helicopters?”

“Skycraft. Flying ships.”

“How do they fly?”

Durny glanced toward the sun. “Last question. We need to get indoors before dark. Near the base of the castles are suspensors, commonly called floatstones. They keep the castles aloft. We harvest them from time to time and use them in the construction of skycraft.”

Cole could not believe what he was hearing and seeing. But it was hard to argue with the sight of the castle in the distance. After all, he had crossed over to a mysterious world through a manhole in a spook alley, and he had held a conversation with a happy face. “The job is dangerous? Raiding the castles?”

Durny gave a snort. “I said no more questions, but what do you think? Now come—let’s go meet your owner.”

Chapter 7

SKYPORT

Skyport, as Durny named it, came into view just before the sun dipped below the horizon. The Brink was ragged and far from level. They had not paralleled the edge long before finding a shallow basin that looked like half a valley because it ended so abruptly. Skyport was nestled down at the bottom.

Constructed from stone and heavy timbers, the sprawling main building perched right at the edge of the Brink. Several balconies and porches projected out over the drop. To Cole, the structure looked one medium-size earthquake away from tumbling off the end of the world.

There were several smaller outbuildings scattered around, including a stable and a modest barn. A tall wall enclosed a huge area behind the main building, which Cole assumed was the Cliffside Salvage Yard. Between the distance, the bad lighting, and the height of the surrounding barrier, Cole couldn’t tell what was inside.